Plant Factory

Plant Factory closed loop control of the entire production equipments to establish:

                                

A) Clean cultivation space: If it is advertised to be taken for fresh vegetables, cultivation of its production space must be in a closed isolation.

                                          

Inverter temperature control equipment
. B) Environment Climate Control: In an almost closed cultivation equipmented space, as long as the temperature maintained at between 22 ℃ ~ 25 ℃, modest fluctuations in flow, should be able to  produce seasonal or anti-seasonal vegetables successfully.

                                  

The choice between plant growth light :

. C) Artificial light options: artificial light used in the plant scale, has been common knowledge integration; artificial light in practice selective focus (under right wavelength ) - compared to LED lights μmol (PPF) requires 200PPFD (10000LUX) above, then LED lights would have more than 90% power efficiency.

What Are You Waitng For? Start to Grow Your Own Food Today!  
Your Cheap And Quality Hydroponics System from Chicfarm http://www.chicfarm.net

Growing food in schools

You can bring food, cooking and growing into all areas of teaching! Children and the Environment: How gardening lessons impact positively on school kids.Pending reforms to the UK's school curriculum mean that from September 2014, pupils aged 7-14 can expect to learn gardening skills.Takes a look at some of the initiatives that are already taking the lead.


Growing food in schools looks set to become part of the curriculum starting from September 2014, furthering the positive impacts of those very successful initiatives already working to promote gardening and ‘grow your own’ schemes in schools nationwide in the UK.There are currently 4,500 schools enrolled on the Food for Life Partnership plan (FFLP) and figures show that twice as many schools received an outstanding OFSTED rating after working with the Food for Life partnership. In addition, the uptake of free school meals in FFLP schools has risen by an average of 13%.

The School Food Plan, which has the support of the Secretary of State for Education aims to significantly increase the number of children eating good food in schools, and has been awarded £16.1m by the Government.

Libby Grundy, Director of Food For Life, says: "Instead of seeing growing and gardening as something peripheral, the School Food Plan recognizes that all areas of the curriculum can be taught in relation to food whether it's history, science, or geography. You can bring food and cooking and growing into all areas of teaching". The Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) has also been promoting green-fingered education and since the 2007 launch of its Campaign for School Gardening has involved 17,250 schools in the UK.

Giving children the opportunity to grow, harvest and eat their own food has now been shown to improve academic results and life skills, as well as improving health and wellbeing. And advocates of learning outside the classroom believe it also allows children to discover a love for, and ensuing curiosity about, Nature.


What Are You Waitng For? Start to Grow Your Own Food.  
Your Cheap And Quality Hydroponics System from Chicfarm http://www.chicfarm.net

Taiwan Farmer's income is higher than an engineer?

   Taiwan engineer returned home for hydroponic vegetables

Taiwan Changhua County farmer Mr. Hong, give up working in Taipei as an engineer, returned home for growing hydroponic vegetables eight years ago.

                                          

He considered hydroponic vegetables are tasty, clean, crispy and most important not to harm any land by soilless method.

Hydroponics is an effort of the industry, and therefore Mr. Hong and his wife decided to join hands to work together for all fruits and vegetables of the water farm which belongs to their own. By growing tomato in winter, lettuce in summer, their crops price are double of soil farmers’, so as their incomes.

What Are You Waitng For? Start to Grow Your Own Food.  
Your Cheap And Quality Hydroponics System from Chicfarm http://www.chicfarm.net

                                  

The Future of the American Farmer?

As consumers become increasingly aware of where their food comes from and how it’s grown, it seems that we could be entering a new era of hydroponics. Moce can attest to the growing interest among hobbyists and backyard DIYers, but the growing social demand combined with recent technological advancements means hydroponics has a new potential to influence the food system.
Companies like Lufa Farms in Montreal, BrightFarms in Philadelphia and Gotham Greens in New York are growing food hydroponically in giant greenhouses directly on the roofs of supermarkets. They take advantage of the available natural light while also significantly cutting down transportation costs. By selling directly to the markets below, their hydroponic produce can theoretically be competitively priced against conventional produce.

The ever-increasing returns in computing power from Moore’s Law and efficient automatization are making large-scale hydroponic operations more accessible to even the most inexperienced farmers. Freight Farms outfits old, metal shipping containers with intense insulation and a standardized hydroponics system that “can be put anywhere around the world, in any environment,” according to the communications coordinator for the Boston-based start-up, Rebecca Liebman. She says a restaurant owner in Minnesota can grow straight through the winter months and produce 13,000 pounds of fresh basil annually.

The initial investment is still steep. For $60,000 a new farmer gets an 8’x40’ shipping container filled with everything he needs to start farming on the spot. “A tablet computer inside controls everything — the lighting, the pH and the temperature,” Liebman says. In an area smaller than the footprint of three parking spaces, a single person working eight hours a week can grow one acre’s worth of leafy greens. “Freight farm” pays for itself in 9 to 12 months because the farmer harvests high-quality produce every week, year-round. After the initial investment, which is likely less expensive than the cost of an acre of land, annual costs remain under $5,000 dollars.


‘We looked at what everyone else did wrong and then fixed it — we took the tools and created a system that is innovative.’“We did not create the concept of hydroponics, it’s been around for a long, long time. We looked at what everyone else did wrong and then fixed it — we took the tools and created a system that is innovative,” Liebman says. Energy-efficient LED lights and thick insulation keeps electricity costs low (around $1,500 annually) and the closed-loop water system means the water tank is only filled four times per year. The company plans to add solar panels to future designs, using alternative energy sources to cut down on costs and increase resource efficiency. The technology is continuously improving to address the environmental concerns.

Where Gericke failed to bring hydroponics to the public, Freight Farms hopes to succeed. The internal computer is loaded with informational tutorials and the farmer can video chat with experts at Freight Farms if they have any trouble.

Zach Yohannes, himself a farmer, a student and a businessman, suspects the next generation of American farmers will be of a new breed — one ready to embrace Gericke’s hydroponic dreams. “They have the drive, the education and the willingness to help the planet.” The utopian dream of a long-dead botanist is still far from reaching fruition, but someday soon it might grow to its full potential. No soil necessary.

What Are You Waitng For? Start to Grow Your Own Good.  
Your Cheap And Quality Hydroponics System from Chicfarm http://www.chicfarm.net

Nuclear Out, Pig's Manure In

                                                    

Taiwan lacks natural energy , looking for alternative energy sources becoming the primary subject. Southern Taiwan Pingtung County , first developing regulations to force new pig farms, installation of biogas power generation equipment , the same waste -to-energy technology , as well as around the garbage incineration plant , the annual total electricity generating capacity of 1%.

The area shown as photos , there are seven tennis courts large anaerobic tank can handle 60,000 daily pigs excrement , including power generation gas occupies six subdivision of such equipment, the future will be full of pig manure as generating raw materials, which is so far the country's largest pig waste power plant. Nearly 30,000 breeding pigs farmer: Mr. Su, pig electricity bill more than USD 12,500/month , starting in 2011 , with the promotion of the government, by pigs manure biogas renewable power generation, construction equipment investment of nearly USD 2 million , after the completion , the current input generator 30 kilowatts , can save more than USD 2,500/ month , the future unit will expand to 195 kilowatts , almost self-sufficient .
                                        

Mr. Su: "I believe that sometimes an industry , not just considering the recovery of your investment, we are engaged in pig farming today , not investing in this , faced with a lot of protesting later."

Originally stinking muddy pig manure, after aeration methane recycle, organic matter reduced significantly,no suffocating odor , slightly transparent brown color left. Sludge after methane extracted, can make agriculture fertilizer. Not only solved the sewage emissions problem, improve effluent quality, also a great help to the effect of greenhouse gases by dispose of the methane.
Pingtung County, raising pigs reached 1,470,000 , because a lot of excrement , rich in methane , nitrogen , sulfur and other organic matters, will cause the river eutrophication and greenhouse gas emissions.To reduce river and air pollution, county government promotes the installation of biogas power generation facilities to the pig industry since 2011, through anaerobic fermentation technology to extract methane as fuel , and set regulations to force the newly established pig farms to set up biogas recycle and power generation facilities.

Including Mr. Su, Pingtung County currently has four pig farms, set up biogas recycle equipment , a total of 42,900 pig manures treatment , recycling methane over 1.28 million/year, generating capacity of more than 1.83 million degree power , enough to supply 341 households electricity per year .

What Are You Waitng For? Start to Grow Your Own Good.  
Your Cheap And Quality Hydroponics System from Chicfarm http://www.chicfarm.net
                                   

Tomato Hydroponics Diary

Hydroponics Tomato

                                                                 Tomato Seeds

                                                                Budding

Transplant

                                                                 Growing Big
                                                                   

                                                               Growing Tall
                                                         

                                             Using ropes/clips to tie on the stems

Fruiting

                                            Cut Old Leaves To Prolong Fruiting Period
                                         
               

                                                        Ready To Harvest


What Are You Waitng For? Start to Grow Your Own Good.  
Your Cheap And Quality Hydroponics System from Chicfarm http://www.chicfarm.net

                                      

Opium poppy cultivation in Afghanistan rose 36% this year

                                            

Opium poppy cultivation in Afghanistan rose 36% this year.

Almost 90% of opium in the world was cultivated in 9 provinces in the south and the west, which include the most insurgency-ridden provinces in the country.

The 2013 Afghanistan Opium Survey, was released in Kabul by the Ministry of Counter Narcotics and UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).

                                  

"As we approach 2014 and the withdrawal of international forces from the country, the results of the Afghanistan Opium Survey 2013 should be taken for what they are - a warning, and an urgent call to action," the UNODC chief said.


                                     


Some Pakistan reports point out that the communist Soviets are now smuggling drugs processed from poppy cultivation in Afghanistan to Europe and USA to make young kids in these countries drug addicts. Is there any response to this news, Europe and USA governments? Anybody?

What Are You Waitng For? Start to Grow Your Own Good.  
Your Cheap And Quality Hydroponics System from Chicfarm http://www.chicfarm.net

      

To save bees from Nosema ceranae infection from Taiwan

To save bees from Nosema ceranae infection, the culprit of colony collapse disorder (CCD), NYMU-Taipei iGEM team has created the so-called Bee. coli from Escherichia coli MG1655, which naturally resides in bees.

Backgroud knowledge of Nosema ceranae

Honey bee is a social insect and can be divided into several classes – queens, drones, and workers, which can further be classified into field bee (which is responsible for getting honey from the nature) and house bee (which is responsible for cleaning hives). However, a single bee (especially field bee) may fall ill to CCD when it intakes water or food contaminated by Nosema ceranae spores. What’s worse, CCD may in turn spread to other bees through exchanging substances via mouthparts or feeding food to sacbroods.

                              
After getting into bees’ mid gut, Nosema spores will germinate, elongate its polar filament, and pierce into mid gut epithelial cells to transmit its genetic material. After finishing several life cycles, the infected epithelial cells will burst, leading to the spread of Nosema spores to nearby epithelial cells.

                
The Bee. coli is designed to work successively as follows:
(1) Bee. coli continuously secretes mannosidase to inhibit the sprouting of N. ceranae spores.
(2) if the bee is infected with N. ceranae, the fungus-killing-circuit with a positive feedback design will be turned on to wipe out N. ceranae.
(3) if these designer weapons should fail to conquer N. ceranae, a bee-suicide-operon will be activated to kill the infected bees but save their companions.
                                   
Besides, a light-inducible lysis system is created to ensure our Bee. coil only lives inside of the bee. In addition, we have used encapsulation as the method to send our Bee. coli into the bee. Since the capsule will only dissolve in a bee’s gut, our Bee. coli will not wantonly spread out.

 

What Are You Waitng For? Start to Grow Your Own Good.  
Your Cheap And Quality Hydroponics System from Chicfarm http://www.chicfarm.net