So you can't grow potatoes vertically? Can you elaborate? Is it a function of physiology, i.e. calorie dense vegetables need far more leaves and supporting stems than can be practically stacked vertically?
Vertical farms make a lot more sense with fresh vegetables like leafy greens that grow quickly, command high prices if grown organically, and benefit from being closer to market.
Potatoes are the exact opposite. If it ever becomes more cost effective to grow corn, wheat, and potatoes in virtual farms then outdoor agriculture is dead. While I don't agree with the article that it will never happen, it might require energy advances like fusion power or drastically higher _rural_ land values and water prices.
Greenhouses make sense long before vertical farming, just look at agriculture in the Netherlands, it's mind boggling how much they produce for such a tiny country.
I get that to store a calorie in a potato I need to supply a calorie of energy from somewhere else.
But why is fusion power required instead of better UV lamps in my vertical farm? (Assuming I had enough electricity to run them)
> Could one imagine a material that would absorb solar spectrum and emit the preferred frequencies? Something like a polymer one could stretch over fields to get more from the suns rays.
Would you call that a "solar transmitter"?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transmitter :
> Generators of radio waves for heating or industrial purposes, such as microwave ovens or diathermy equipment, are not usually called transmitters, even though they often have similar circuits.
Would "absorption spectroscopy" specialists have insight into whether this is possible without solar cells, energy storage, and UV LEDs? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Absorption_spectroscopy
(edit) The thermal energy from sunlight (from the FREE radiation from the nuclear reaction at the center of our solar system) is also useful to and necessary for plants. There's probably a passive heat pipe / solar panel cooling solution that could harvest such heat for colder seasons and climates.
Also, UV-C is useful for sanitizing (UVGI) but not really for plant growth. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultraviolet_germicidal_irradia... :
> UVGI can be coupled with a filtration system to sanitize air and water.
Is that necessary or desirable for plants?
https://www.lumigrow.com/learning-center/blogs/the-definitiv... :
> The light that plants predominately use for photosynthesis ranges from 400–700 nm. This range is referred to as Photosynthetically Active Radiation (PAR) and includes red, blue and green wavebands. Photomorphogenesis occurs in a wider range from approximately 260–780 nm and includes UV and far-red radiation.
Photomorphogenesis: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photomorphogenesis
PAR: Photosynthetically active radiation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photosynthetically_active_radi...
Grow light: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grow_light
Are there bioluminescent e.g. algae which emit PAR and/or UV? Algae can feed off of waste industrial gases.
Bioluminescence > Light production: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bioluminescence#Light_producti...
Biophoton: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biophoton
Chemiluminescence: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemiluminescence
Electrochemiluminescence: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrochemiluminescence
Quantum dot display / "QLED": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_dot_display
Could be possible? Analyzing the inputs and outputs is useful in natural systems, as well.
From an environmental perspective, this is certainly a 'win'. Reducing the amount of land needed for agriculture is a win to both consumers and the environmentalists and the farmers.
Sun + water is cheap and plentiful. Small scale farms can sell potatoes at $0.50/lb or less. Amish farms with oxen can go a little less.
Capital and operational costs for vertical farms don’t seem to make sense, unless there’s some disaster in the Colorado watershed or a trade war that makes hothouse winter produce a viable business again.
[1] Don't get me wrong, it's a spectrum and some socialism is a very good thing. But not like in Cuba or the old USSR.
Because of the second law of thermodynamics. Your UV lamp is not going to produce light that contains more energy than the electricity you used as input. That energy needs to be produced via solar panels if you want maximum efficiency. If we ignore nuclear or fusion all energy on earth is derived from sunlight.
As a community, vertical agriculture need to focus on high calorie crops like potatoes or sweet potatoes or at least something useful like beans.
But circling back to the beginning. You can't really grow a potato with less industrial input vertically than you can with regular land, so unless you are really out of land (and the United States at least is not running out of land anytime soon), it doesn't really make sense to do so. Potatoes are really easy to grow -- you stick them in the ground and dig them up a few months later. Anyone can just buy a few acres of land, fertilize it, stick in some seed potatoes, and get a pretty decent crop that more than covers their costs. This is currently way easier than the amount of setup it would take to use containers. If you were to use conventional growing containers, you would need to import large amounts of soil / substrate. If you were using hydroponics, you'd also have to buy large amounts of hydroponic substrate or expensive nozzles for aeroponics. Either way, it's more expensive.
Anyway... wish me luck, I'm starting some potato growing experiments this summer to see if I can develop new container, vertical, and hydroponic techniques. I'm particularly interested in growing potatos without a substrate and without expensive aeroponics. Currently investigating 'aeroponic' drip systems.