High Density Vertical Growth (HDVG) Garden: by Valcent

Nice start for a great article, but where is the substance that at least gives a rudimentary explanation of the photos or a technical reference to HDGV specifics. Mr. Laumer, has the available space for this article been so severely restricted that you couldn't include anything of substance?

Please realize, your audience is intelligent, and write accordingly.

Donn Clark

== author's response follows ===
The link at the bottom of the post will take you directly to the company web site, which provides some additional information on the operational aspects. One click away.

In that this technology is pre-commercial, it is understandable that very little design knowledge is published by the patent holders. Hence, as author of this post, I have access to few additional insights about operational details. Same as you have.

It appears that the basic innovation is to turn a hydroponic media (water/nutrient filled plastic film envelope) on it's side - but that is my speculation. You would have to ask the technology owners for any additional details.

Would make a nice use of collected stormwater if filtered first.

FYI blogging is not the same as documentary, scientific, or investigative journalism.

Nice start for a great article, but where is the substance that at least gives a rudimentary explaination of the photos or a technical reference to HDGV specifics. Mr. Laumer, has the available space for this article been so severely restricted that you couldn't include anything of substance?

Please realize, your audience is intelligent, and write accordingly.

Donn Clark

Looks great, but how economically viable is to a backyard gardener?

With two paragraphs of the post devoted to home/private vegetable gardening and no paragraphs devoted to commercial agriculture, I think I was, like the other commenters, expecting the post to lead into something related to home/private vegetable gardening. The burden is on the poster to show how Valcent products relate to home gardening, not on the reader to divine it out.

By delving into the website, clicking down into every page, and reading the PDF, I did finally find the following quote for you other commenters interested in what A has to do with B:

"Real-world products which are now being developed utilizing these technologies include an easy-to-use kit intended for household use which can grow masses of vegetables or herbs within a small space."

Interesting information, but poorly constructed post.

Gotta agree with Don. Poor show there, chief. You might as well have written:

Cool vertical garden thing, click here

and left it at that. :/

"FYI blogging is not the same as documentary, scientific, or investigative journalism."

Well said.

I read this site for the brevity of the articles. Only in about one of every three, am interested enough to click the link to find out more information. I believe most of the intelligent audience of this site can do the same. In the time it took you to write your long, eloquent bashing of the author, you could have found out all you needed to know from the link.

Scalable to very large food production. Hmm. I wonder what kinds of crops grow well in a device like his. Certainly nothing tall, like corn or tomatoes. The world's lettuce and broccoli farmers will increase their yields 20-fold, though.

I have a feeling this will remain the province of home gardening for the time being. I do hope the number of people who garden will go up because of things like this, though.

Funny how they never show tomatoes and brussel sprouts growing out of these vertical gardens. Show me how they intend to grow corn, beans, and melons and I might give it a second look.

There is nothing new about this process, I first heard of it in the sixties and seventies and it still looks the same now as it did then. there has been zero innovation in the 30+ years with the exception of some fertilizing techniques.

It always amazes me how many people complain about free services.

I don't get the vertical gardening thing; if you have more foliage on the same footprint surely you need supplementary light? interesting design I have seen is the omega garden, google it.

I discovered this company a few weeks ago, and I have to say that the product is ingenious, it could drastically reduce the amount of crop space needed for many species of vegetables and fruits, and thus free up more space for other crops that can't be grown in this manner, such as corn and wheat.

Never mind the fact that these installations could easily be installed in abandoned apartment buildings, warehouse, and even on large rooftops, permiting argicultural value to otherwise wasted space. No pesticides, no herbicide? Can't go wrong with that.

As for the rest of the 'intelligent' comments. It seems that intelligence is no substitute for curiosity, if you want to slag an author for not spelling out every possible nuance of a story (in a blog no less), then clearly you aren't a motivated thinker. I see all sorts of posts on this site that spark an idea and then I GO AND DO MY OWN RESEARCH. The world isn't going to hand itself to you on a platter, this isn't grade school, its the university of life.

Here's a link to a movie on the site which shows it in action.

Sisyphus,

Corn and brussel sprouts already grow vertical and take up little room. You can espalier tomatoes and beans and melons can trail up a lattice.

What is shown above are small heavy producing vegetables that take up a small space; like lettuce, spinach etc. Melon and corn take WAY too much space for the nutritional value and at that point you have they would have to develop a hybrid seed.

Since this is space saving technology, it would only work for low growing dwarf varieties of plants, so yes some tomatoes could work (but not the best tasting tomatoes). Bush beans could work but obviously not melons as they need space for melons and leaves.

If you are talking about hybrid veggies and fruits, I just don't know if that would be kosher with everyone, some of those seeds haven't been developed and some people think that they shouldn't be developed. You can't change the growing techniques because certain plants need certain things to grow productively.

Of course, I have gardened for many years.

I found the backdrop to the video (found on the Valcent webpage) worth comment: science laboratory, speaker in lab coat, stainless steel/plastic equipment.
Valcent is selling a technology/service, and have made distinct decisions on the creation of a high-tech identity.This will no doubt play well with funding organizations, and potential clients (corporations, not home gardeners).

I have serious questions, however, as to building a food production system so heavily reliant on technology (sensors, high-tech materials, electricity, computing, etc.). Its inherently fragile as we have come to learn, and it will again be prohibitive to the poor.

A different 'packaging' of the concept - one that is low-tech with more emphasis on stewardship and conservation - is a more proper (and honest) direction in my opinion.

Jeff - There is nothing wrong with using technology.

I think your biased against lab coats, but let's not throw the baby out with the bath water yet, ok?

This might actually be a great idea for growing height challenged food. Using large acreage for growing an 8-inch plants in rows is just not very efficient.

By growing up and using different techniques and technologies we could certainly be more efficient.

Jessica:
The concept of growing up is solid, its a great idea/technique in fact. I'm just not convinced it needs to be done in a laboratory setting (seemed like a marketing image to me)

If so, the efficiency will eventually need to be evaluated with consideration given to the materials and energy embedded within the system (what are the panels made of for example? What is their source, life-span, disposal).

I don't think these would be limiting impacts, and its a significant improvement on current industrial ag., but to go down the 'technology will save the day' path requires us to be critical at a larger scope to avoid repeating past oversights.

(I, by the way, teach university Design and Engineering, so am only biased toward lab coats insofar as they are used as superhero capes)

I'd be interested in seeing If I can work some of these ideas into my Aquaponics project.

Jessica,

I think you made my point. Vertical gardening in this manor is limited to a very few crops. Low growing garnishes and only a few green leafed bitters. This technology will not impact the farming industry and has little if any use to the home gardener.

The simple answer to the question of it's viability is to ask yourself, "of what I plant in my garden now, what can I grow in this thing?"

"It always amazes me how many people complain about free services."

My time is valuable, and I'm sorry your's is free! There is a whole wide world of issues that real "treehuggers" need to solve, and don't have time for the BS. Why don't you physically hug a tree for a couple hours, and let us know how it felt.

I usually reserve comment, but treehugger.com does have issues. This is a website trying to appeal to mainstream, when the overall topic is very niche. For example... has anyone read "How to green your sex life?" Real treehuggers distinctively knows how stupid and yuppie this topic is!

The article on topic is just one more example of treehugger.com content that ticks treehuggers off. This idea is absolutely brilliant, and could be a very important technological advance. Unfortunately, treehugger.com belittles it as just another fashionable fad - at the same level as bamboo flooring and recycled architecture. How lame.

It looks a bit absurd though.. how much energy does it use for all this crop rotation, sensors etc.. and what are these 'Nutrients' that they 'mist' onto the plants?

its not exactly organic compost methods is it..

Thanks Mr. Laumer for an interesting story. It's funny how so many want everything served to them on a silver platter. Some complainants act like clicking on a link for further information is too much to ask. It seems to be something Americans are more prone to than people from other countries.

=== authors' response follows ===

On our highways we have road rage.

In our cities we don't fight and argue - we have 9mm semi-automatic weapon expressed inter-personal disputes.

And on our blogs we have the the occasional click through aversion.

My ultimate concern...and no commenter has addressed it head on as yet...would be the electrical energy consumption per unit of crop yield for this system. In the winter it could be a serious electricity bandit - with a carbon footprint not much better than importing food from China. Or, it could be a truly transformational efficiency boost for agriculture. We simply do not know without field trial data.

Another potential hazard would be infestations by fungal and bacterial plant diseases, requiring prophylactic pesticide applications. (speculating here also - I have no information about this)

I am guessing that, because few of our readers are actual farmers, that these kinds of of evaluations have not been offered up; or else the real farmers out there are laughing at the naivete of the whole situation - people speculating without adequate information.

Back to an early remark I made: this seems like nothing more than a hydroponic greenhouse rotated 90 degrees. If the average solar gain is increased over a standard horizontal hydroponics greenhouse due to surface area to volume ratio changes, or whatever else is used to pull and store solar energy, then it could be a winner. If not, ...

What I find disturbing is that people seem to expect the patent holders would disclose detailed design information up front, and that we should be interpreting it here. Given the interest, GM's Volt blueprints will be published ASAP (:-> JL

Sisyphus,

I don't think gardening in this way is limiting in any way. You can grow strawberries, spinach and high vitamin food, and other low growing food that can benefit the home gardener very much. Anything that can maximize growing space and plant potential for food should be explored and is most benefitting to the home gardener who probably lives in the suburbs or city with not much space.

So it does have a use. And to boot you can fashion one of these things for free (with a little skill and imagination) - after all, growing food upwards is NOT a new idea. The problem is the kind of food you might be growing. Corn is low in vitamins and nutrition compared to spinach.

Jeff,

You need to hit the links. You will find most of them are aimed at the home gardener and are devices made of wood. The technologies are nothing more than wood and nails and need simple horticultural know-how to use.

What is so wrong growing up in a lab, that's how horticulturists learn to grow plants! IF your a teacher, you should not be so skeptical because you would know this technology is nothing new. BTW, do you grow plants? Hanging ferns perhaps?

hi, cool site, weird picture, don't really get it, vertical growing isn't new, ivy on buildings, trellis etc. how is the lettuce supposed to get nutrients? it's not an epiphyte? misting machine?

This looks similar to the growing techniques in the book SOLVIVA, about a very interesting greenhouse grower on the New England coast. Worth reading for anyone who wants to know how to do this NOW without waiting for a "product".

[Here is a video with a bit more info](http://www.valcent.net/i/misc/HDVG/index.html)