Monday, September 14, 2009

What is aeroponics?


What is Aeroponics?

It is a method of growing plants whereby the roots of the plants are suspended in the air. The plants are anchored in holes, atop a panel of polystyrene foam...

It takes approximately 50 days to grow

the butterhead lettuce from the seed.

Seedling >18 days in the nursery > Planting > 30-35 day in the greenhouse > Harvest

Spraying of plant roots with a nutrient mist. The nutrient is sprayed every minute.

Thus, the uptake of oxygen and nutrients is much greater than usual, which ultimately allows the plant to grow faster.

This method is most ideal for countries

where water and land is scarce…

The vegetables receive their daily nutrients through the constant emission of a mist of nutrients solution onto the roots of plants.

Thus, the vegetables grow up to 50% faster. These lettuces take one month to grow compared with two months in soil…

The vegetables avoid contact with the soil borne pests and fungus. The greenhouse, which they are grown in, also functions as a pest-isolating

device.

Lettuces grown by aeroponics method are harvest in 40 days.

Long-term aeroponic cultivation requires the root systems to be free of constraints surrounding the stem and roots system.

Physical contact is minimized so that it does not hinder natural growth and root expansion or access to pure water, air exchange and disease fr

ee conditions.

It has contributed to advances in root morphology, nutrient uptake, drought and flood stress.

Today, commercial growers and producers

are using this technology.

Aerogreen Technology Farm has received several awards. Most of their products are found in local supermarkets such as NTUC, Cold Storage, Carrefour and Isetan.

The Aerogreen Farm aim to be the preferred provider of fresh, clean, quality temperate aeroponics vegetables and innovative value added products.

They aim to achieve this by providing educational platform through interactive farm visits, providing absolute convenience for consumers for our value added products and a better distribution reach through established marketing channels.

Reflection 1

Reflection 1 (During course of project)

I hope to do more research on high tech farming on the Internet and learn more about the advantages and disadvantages of high tech farming. I would also want to find out the different methods that high tech farming uses to plant their crops. I would also like my partner to cooperate with me, because I believe together we can complete the project on time and benefit from high tech farming.

Reflection 1a

Reflection 1a

My partner and I have already started doing a podcast for the geography project and it is progressing very quickly and successfully. We had found a few videos on high tech farming and included them in out podcast. The podcast is almost done and added all the information that we had found into the podcast. We took the information from our textbook and the internet. We focus more on what are the advantages of having a high tech farming in Singapore and the disadvantages.

The Aim for the Project!


Include these questions:

1. The aim of this project is to find out about hi-tech farming in Singapore.

2. Topics (Unit 8-10) from textbook for your basic understanding.

3. As a Government Official you are keen to find out if Singapore can be self-sufficient with the help of high tech farming.


About High Tech Farming in Singapore!

In this podcast, you will be able to learn more about hi-tech farming in Singapore.

Firstly, we need to know what is hi-tech farming.

High-tech farming is a knowledge-based agricultural system that makes use of technology to increase the value and quality of the farm’s produce.

Its purpose is mainly for commercial. The crops grown are high tech-quality vegetables, flowers or fruits, which are sold locally and exported overseas.

How ever, it requires a lot of capital inputs like greenhouses to create conditions ideal enough for plant growth. Examples could be the temperature and the amount of moisture, which are automatically adjusted by a computer to suit the growth of the crops or animals.

Why does Singapore need high tech farming?

It is due to the lack of land available for farming in Singapore and is crucial in maximizing produce using small parcel of land

Singapore's small land size makes it difficult to accommodate large areas of land for farming, even for high tech farming, which requires less land area.

High tech farming is a plausible alternative food source for Singapore but it is not possible to rely entirely on it.

Singapore is still currently relying heavily on imports from Malaysia & Indonesia, to sustain the demand here, so importing food is still the only option.

Where are the high-tech Farms in Singapore?

There are a few of them in Murai, Lim Chu Kang, Sungei Tengah, Mandai, Nee Soon and Loyang.

Here are a few videos taken at two high tech farms in Lim Chu Kang, enjoy!

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What we can know now about this video are the inputs of Singapore’s High Tech Farming.

The inputs are that Singapore has the latest and most advanced Technology. They involve in a huge sum of money and farming chemicals which have there knowledge driven.

The Outputs are that there is a higher harvest per unit area as compared to low tech farming. They also included many other productions like fruits and vegetables, especially seasonal ones and dairy products like eggs, fish, meat, flowers and hearbs.

I hope that you have understood more about Singapore’s Farm one last thing is that its eco-friendliness of fertilizers and pesticides are rarely used in high tech farms in Singapore. The amount of Greenhouse Gas produced in the process will be decreased. More land and water will be conserved; less fuel used because crops need not be transported over long distances.

Thank you for your time on watching this podcast!