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Comment by ignoramous | Hacker News Reader

> My biggest advice for a beginner is to consider your approach to pest control.

My co-founder, who's a passionate farmer by profession and a recovering software engineer by education, bugs me to no end to start a business in Hydroponics (growing plants without soil) [0]. He is a sucker for organic farming and absolutely swears by it. Keeps binge watching YouTube videos on the topic for hours on end.

He means to do a hydroponic setup up at his house this fall once he's relatively free of his current short-lived personal obligations.

Fwiw, YC has funded at least one Indian startup doing hydroponics at scale, and they offer a DIY take-home kit, too: https://www.urbankisaan.com/homekits

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydroponics

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> He means to do a hydroponic setup up at his house

Why would someone use a hydroponic setup in a house, instead of planting as normal? I think hydroponics are cool, but other than that I'm trying to understand the value proposition. All hydroponics setups (including the ones linked) tend to be very expensive.

There are aspects where it is more efficient. For example, look up aquaponics (a variation of hydroponics where the water circulates in a closed loop between a hydroponic setup and an aquaculture setup). It is one of the most water-efficient ways of growing vegetables and raising fish for human consumption, very popular in arid places such as Australia, where you might not be able to otherwise gain access, economically, to the amount of water required. Another clear advantage of hydro/aquaponics over in-soil agriculture is obviously weed control, due to the fact that weeds are either non existent (floating raft systems) or way easier to deal with (bio media beds) compared to gardening in soil. Finally, I see you wrote "setup in a house" but I just wanted to say that you can (and most commercial operations do) grow in a greenhouse, you don't have to rely on artificial lights. Having said all that, yes you are right, the initial setup cost is higher compared to traditional agriculture.

>due to the fact that weeds are either non existent (floating raft systems) or way easier to deal with (bio media beds) compared to gardening in soil

Gardening in soil also has essentially no weeds to deal with. The problem is most people till, and destroy any soil they may have had, so they are gardening in dirt.

Yes, I like no-till gardening, especially where it’s combined with other techniques like mulching, cover crops etc.

In traditional agriculture no-till is associated with increased use of herbicides but in regenerative agriculture and permaculture there are other ways to deal with weeds that don’t require the use of chemicals.

The book “The Market Gardener” by Jean-Martin Fortier is a good resource about those topics.

>The book “The Market Gardener” by Jean-Martin Fortier is a good resource about those topics.

It is? He doesn't do no-till, doesn't do regenerative ag or permaculture. He just grows lettuce conventionally and sells it at high prices to a couple of hipster restaurants in Montreal. I never read the book, but it seems weird he would advocate stuff he won't actually do himself.

If by

> He doesn't do no-till

you mean he uses a BCS power harrow, then your definition of tillage is much broader than mine, which is absolutely fine. To me, permaculture is not an ideal but a business opportunity, so I tend to focus on the commercially viable ways of practicing it.

It isn't my definition, it is the definition: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tillage

I'm not sure what you mean about ideals vs business opportunities. It isn't a question of making money or of practicality vs ideals or something, he simply isn't doing any of the three things you listed. As far as I can tell, he has never mentioned any of the three things you listed. His "farm" is even named after a tillage implement which he promotes constantly and is possibly most well-known for. He's a conventional organic gardener, he has no soil, he has captured no carbon, he has no plan for building soil or capturing carbon, so there's nothing regenerative about it. He imports all his fertilizer, so it isn't permaculture. He plows, broadforks and then harrows multiple times a year, so he's not even minimal tillage much less no-till.

Many crops are sensitive to light cycles and can be profitabl grown indoors year round using hydroponic methods. Consider, for example consider June bearing strawberries or basil. Also, many apartment dwellers do not have access to a plot of ground in which to plant a garden. Also, yields can be higher for hydroponic systems.

> Why would someone use a hydroponic setup in a house

Clean and much lighter. This later point can be essential in old houses. Must be noted that It's not all laughs and fun with hydroponics. You need to find the correct point with watering (or automatize). Otherwise, hydroponic pots can turn on "cereal killers".

Personally I'm not into hydroponics as I have a house and a large yard (2/3 acre) but I have a friend who lives in a condo and doesn't have much of a yard to speak of. His whole basement is devoted to hydroponics. As such he's growing as much or more food than I am! Yes there are significantly higher up-front costs, but he doesn't have to worry much about pests. He also loves to build his own automation solutions so he has fun with that, too. So while it's certainly more expensive, I suppose it's cheaper than buying a house!

Farmbot.io has had me intrigued for years

This is the one written in Elixir with Nerves, yeah?

Yes

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