Education & Hydroponics
by Dr. Howard M. Resh
Introduction
Hydroponics demonstrations and hobby units are excellent methods of making the general public aware of growing food crops. People take for granted the fact that they can simply go to a supermarket to acquire food. They have little understanding of the methods or inputs required to grow basic food crops such as vegetables. The technical appeal of hydroponics draws attention to growing. Presentable displays and hobby hydroponics units grab the attention of the general public and get them caught up in its fascination. This attraction, at the same time, helps people to understand the challenges of growing crops while they seek to understand the futuristic culture of hydroponics.
Hobby Hydroponics Greenhouses
In the mid-1970s and 1980s, I, with an engineer partner, developed backyard hydroponics greenhouses. The greenhouses had complete environmental control of heating and cooling combined with a hydroponic growing system (photos 1 and 2). Hydroponics at that time was becoming popular with commercial greenhouse growers, but the general public knew very little about it. We established the company in Vancouver and focused on the local market. We started by constructing one hydroponics greenhouse and put it into the PNE (Pacific National Exhibition) in the horticultural building. We used gravel culture as the hydroponic system because rockwool, coco coir, and other substrates were not developed yet. The principal hydroponic system in commercial greenhouses was sawdust culture, but that was not an easy culture to work with in a backyard greenhouse. It was hard to sterilize and, therefore, would have to be changed between crops, whereas the gravel could be sterilized with a 10 per cent bleach solution.
We grew tomatoes and other crops to maturity in beds of gravel with a drip irrigation system and took those to the PNE to demonstrate hydroponics in backyard greenhouses. There were long lines of people waiting to enter the greenhouse to see the crop growing in gravel. Most did not believe it until they could not find soil underneath. They would come into the greenhouse and feel the red tomatoes, asking “Are these real or plastic?” Many people could not even remember the name “hydroponics” correctly and often said “hydrophonics.”
We sold about 20 greenhouses during the show and that started our business to manufacture and market these backyard hydroponic greenhouses. Somewhat later, within a year, we decided it would be wise to build a greenhouse on top of a trailer and have a mobile demonstration unit (photo 3). We towed it with our pickup truck to garden events like the Home Show in early spring and to many shopping malls, where people could see it. Of course, all such publicity helped to bring us sales.
However, we were at least 10 years ahead of our time; it took years to educate the general public about the advantages of such technical growing methods and to establish a strong market. We existed long before other similar companies that later became very successful selling greenhouses, supplies, and hydroponics systems. Today, the general public is very aware of hydroponics culture. Now I rarely meet people who have not heard of hydroponics or understand what it is. Many companies selling hobby hydroponics units and supplies have established a thriving business as the general public became consumers of such products in an effort to grow their own crops.
During the 1980s several companies, including ours, built small hobby hydroponic gardens (photos 4 & 5). One of the most popular was City Green out of Ontario. However, with the ordinary consumer being unaware of hydroponics, these small units never established a significant market.
Education
Another interesting application of hydroponics is as an educational or tourist attraction. New York Sun Works, a non-profit organization, has put together a “Science Barge.” The Science Barge program is set on the Manhattan waterfront on the Hudson River (photo 6). It will start taking on tours in May 2007. The 130-ft. (39-m) Science Barge supports projects related to sustainability in the Hudson River estuary and New York City. The objective of the barge is “To visit several public parks around Manhattan for stays of six to 10 weeks each, welcoming students and the general public for tours and education programs.”
Engineering projects include a hydroponic vegetable greenhouse, water desalination and purification systems, innovative cooling and heating techniques, and a renewable energy package, including solar, wind, and biodiesel. The Science Barge is to produce vegetables using renewable energy, with no fertilizer or pesticide releases to the watershed. The hope is “To provide educational partnerships with New York City public schools in showcasing sustainable engineering and environmental science amid natural surroundings of water, wind, and sun.”
Theme Parks, Tourist Attractions
According to the Travel Industry Association of America (TIA), garden tours are popular with many tourists. They state that over the past five years nearly 40 million Americans went on a garden tour, visited a botanical garden, attended a gardening show or festival, or participated in some other garden-related activity. Hydroponics culture, with its fascinating growing technique, can be part of this gardening experience for travellers.
This is evident from Epcot Center at Disneyworld in Orlando, Florida. Epcot is an acronym (Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow), a utopian city of the future. Epcot is oriented toward learning. Within the Future World Pavilions is the Land Pavilion, which is dedicated to human interaction with the land. They offer a one-hour tour of the LAND greenhouses and labs on the “Behind the Seeds” tour. Innovative hydroponic cultural methods of crops are demonstrated (photos 7 and 8). The tour includes a demonstration of integrated pest management (IPM), with research scientists and technicians in a laboratory rearing beneficial insects.
Such a concept of garden tours hosted by a horticulture expert can be applied in many tourist regions as part of a resort experience. Taken one step further, the garden or greenhouse hydroponics facility can provide the resort with fresh vegetables for the guests as well as an educational display. A model of this is the Hydroponic Farm at Cuisinart Resort & Spa in Anguilla, B.W.I. (photo 9).
Resorts and Hydroponics Farms
New hotels and resorts emphasize health and fitness through spas and healthful diets. There are many spas that focus on weight control through exercise and diet. These programs are to attract guests to join specifically for the purpose of assisting them to become more physically fit. Such spas are targets for an association with a hydroponics farm in order to produce healthful, safe foods.
These resorts or spas, regardless of their proximity to markets having availability to diversified vegetables, will still have a marketing advantage if they can show their guests how they grow their vegetables on-site. This not only presents an interesting and unique aspect of the spa or resort, but also instills confidence in the guests that the resort or spa is aware of the importance of clean, safe foods and makes the extra effort to provide such high-quality foods through growing their own produce with a hydroponics farm.
Cuisinart Resort & Spa Hydroponic Farm-An Industry Model
The Hydroponic Farm at Cuisinart Resort & Spa in Anguilla, B.W.I., a small Eastern Caribbean island, functions as a source of fresh salad crops as well as a demonstration centre for greenhouse hydroponics culture, with tours of the farm (photos 10 and 11). Anguilla, being formed from coral, has little arable land, perhaps 50 to 100 acres only. With no source of fresh water due to the lack of lenses in the porous strata, outdoor crops are limited. With lengthy periods of dry weather, crops such as tomatoes and corn are not productive. Under such an environment greenhouse hydroponics culture with drip irrigation is the answer to supply fresh, perishable salad crops.
The Cuisinart Hydroponic Farm grows lettuce, tomatoes, peppers, European cucumbers, Beit-alpha cucumbers, basils, bok choy, watercress, and many herbs (photos 12 to 14). All products are consumed by the resort’s restaurants. All of these products are harvested at their optimum ripened stage to give the guests that distinguished “backyard garden” flavour, making a lasting impression with them. Guests are greeted upon their arrival by a special display sampler amenity in their rooms containing cherry tomatoes. The greeting explains that the tomatoes are a sample of the produce grown at the Hydroponic Farm and invites them to participate on the tours of the Hydroponic Farm to learn how the vegetables are grown. This is part of the promotion of the resort by emphasizing the nutritional aspect of the food at the restaurants.
The resort conducts cooking classes in a “kitchen stadium.” There the chef teaches guests how to prepare healthful food and demonstrates many uses of the hydroponic vegetables, including natural juices and even cocktails (photos 15 and 16). Health spas combining exercise and treatment programs with nutrition as a part of a “wellness” program utilize the fresh salad crops. An example of this is a fresh tomato or cucumber facial and skin wrap. Herbs such as lavender are part of lotions for cleansing one’s skin. Such herbs are grown in the Hydroponic Farm. Healthful, nutritious diets, upon which the menus of the restaurants are based, are part of this overall wellness concept. With tours of the Hydroponic Farm, guests realize a sense of security in eating salads made from the on-site farm.
The objective of Cuisinart Hydroponic Farm is that it is one unique component of the resort that when combined with the beautiful landscape and beach surroundings, friendly and efficient service, healthful food, the exercise/care programs of the spa, the guests will relax to experience an unforgettably pleasant vacation that will attract them and their friends to come again.
Schools
An important area for hydroponics is education in schools. Not all students are academically oriented to learning science by theory alone. Many students do better in learning their science through “hands-on” experiences. Such is the case with basic chemistry and its application to plant nutrition.
Small hydroponics units used in science experiments clearly demonstrate to students the application of subjects such as biology and chemistry. Hydroponics enables students to learn chemistry in the preparation of nutrient solutions. They can apply their knowledge of the periodic table and the atomic and molecular weights of elements and compounds to do the calculations needed to make up nutrient solutions. It also allows them to make weights and measures conversions with the metric and imperial systems. Mathematics enters the picture through creating ratios and equations to calculate weights and concentrations of elements of compounds in determining the nutrient solution makeup. Solubility products can be exemplified in the potential dissolution of compounds and possible reactions among elements in the nutrient solution.
Plant symptomatology concerning the deficiency or excess of specific essential elements demonstrates the resultant plant degeneration under imbalances of these nutrients. Symptoms of chlorosis, necrosis, dieback, leaf curling, etc., all can be associated with the imbalance of specific essential elements in plants. Students can study these nutritional disorders by calculating nutrient formulations that are deficient or in excess of individual elements to observe the effects expressed by the plants. This is chemistry applied to plant nutrition and the resultant biological effects on plant physiology.
Schools can construct their own small hydroponics units or purchase them as complete hobby units that are sold for households. All sizes and price ranges exist to match anyone’s budget. Because these hobby hydroponics gardens require artificial lights, the students can also relate the lighting needs of plants to the available supplementary lighting. They can learn about light intensities and qualities as related to plants’ needs. One of the more interesting hobby units made especially for household use in the kitchen is the Hydroponic Kitchen Garden or AeroGarden (photo 17). The AeroGarden comes with its own lights, seeds, nutrients, and growing plugs. The concept for the AeroGarden is to simplify hydroponics in order to make it available to all people, not only those experienced with hydroponics. It is fully computerized in the operation of its irrigation and lighting cycles (photo 18). Using a water culture drip irrigation system, it is clean and eliminates the need to deal with substrates. It is certainly the “hydroponics unit for dummies.” Nonetheless, it is also very useful for students, especially the younger students from grades one through six. It will stimulate children to become interested in plants and be aware of the needs of plants to produce food.
The AeroGarden also makes an excellent experimental unit. Students can make up their own nutrient formulations rather than use the unit’s nutrient tablets. In this way they can study nutritional effects on plants by making up their own formulations. Lighting periods and the effects on productivity can be studied by altering the light periods. The AeroGarden is very attractive and will keep the attention of younger children and stimulate their interest in gardening at a later age. They may also become enthusiastic about visiting larger greenhouse demonstration centres such as Epcot in Disneyland. The objective is not only to interest students in science, but also to become aware of the input to produce vegetable crops.
Other small-, medium-, and large-size hobby hydroponics units are available (photo 19) from hydroponics shops. They also sell nutrients, carbon dioxide generators, lights, substrates, pots, and containers. In the classroom, small units can introduce students to hydroponics and they can progress to conduct experiments with larger units as they learn and apply more of their chemistry and biology to the hydroponics trials. Once they have mastered the science they can design and construct their own systems. They can build water-culture systems such as raft culture and nutrient film technique (NFT) and progress to more sophisticated aeroponic cultures. Some engineering of irrigation systems, drainage and oxygenation all come into play as a practical learning experience.
Summary
Hydroponics culture is continuing to expand into areas of education that previously were never realized as having the potential of entering such markets. Small hobby hydroponics units are meeting a demand in education. Many students who are prone to hands-on learning become bored in school with academic subjects that have no direct application. Hydroponics is an applied science that entails chemistry, biology, and some engineering. Students can learn their academic education through practical methods of hydroponics culture.
Epcot Center and the Biosphere display hydroponics as tourist and educational attractions. In the future, demonstration hydroponics centres may be built in tourist locations as people are attracted to this high-tech agriculture. Such hydroponics farms established with theme parks and hotel-resorts will give courses for people wanting to grow food hydroponically as a hobby. As people take more interest in the quality and safety of fresh vegetables and learn about clean growing systems of hydroponics, they will become involved in growing initially in their homes with small hydroponics gardens such as the AeroGarden and continue expanding into larger systems, even some they could design themselves. This is all part of the educational process of learning to grow food crops that can be expanded on a hobby basis to basement systems and even hobby backyard greenhouses.
Note:
Howard Resh is the author of five books on hydroponics, all of which are available on his website: www.howardresh.com.
Books by Dr. Howard Resh:
- Hydroponic Food Production
- Hydroponic Home Food Gardens
- Hydroponic Tomatoes
- Hydroponics-Questions & Answers
- Hobby Hydroponics