News

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Who says you need soil and sunlight to make your garden grow? One Boston startup is turning farming on its head.

Freight Farms retrofits second-hand, 40-by-8-foot steel and aluminum shipping containers and turns them into farms, using hydroponics, a method of growing plants with mineral nutrient solutions in water.

Sensors are able to detect when the level of a certain nutrient is too low and automatically adjust the level, allowing people to grow for taste, color, size or uniformity.

LEDs take the place of sunlight, allowing plants to be grown on rooftops or indoors.

The majority of Freight Farms’ customers are wholesale produce distributors, restaurants, grocery stores, schools and hospitals in the United States, said Jon Friedman, Freight Farms’ CEO.

But the company also has received interest from areas around the world, including Canada, the Middle East, South Africa and parts of Japan where the ground is radioactive as a result of the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami that caused the failure of cooling systems at the Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant.

http://bostonherald.com/business/general..._take_root

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3UhZYCJoAo

**The Evil AC** I am not a number!!! User ID: 666 09-04-2012 02:20 PM

Genetically engineered shit.

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The Evil AC Wrote:

Genetically engineered shit.

Not unless you chose to do it that way.

**LoP Guest** lop guest User ID: 117018 09-04-2012 02:26 PM

It would be cool if you were underground- although they obviously need a higher powered light source (metal halide). Better yet, some type of sunlight collector piped in via fiber optic...

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LoP Guest Wrote:

It would be cool if you were underground- although they obviously need a higher powered light source (metal halide). Better yet, some type of sunlight collector piped in via fiber optic...

LED panels provide more than enough lumens to grow vegetables and you can adjust the spectrum as you need. They also give off less heat and are way cheaper to run.

**brewha**

Spread Wrote:

LoP Guest Wrote:
It would be cool if you were underground- although they obviously need a higher powered light source (metal halide). Better yet, some type of sunlight collector piped in via fiber optic...
LED panels provide more than enough lumens to grow vegetables and you can adjust the spectrum as you need. They also give off less heat and are way cheaper to run.

How could they be cheaper than fiber optics..just axin'..

**Spread**

brewha Wrote:

Spread Wrote:
LoP Guest Wrote:
It would be cool if you were underground- although they obviously need a higher powered light source (metal halide). Better yet, some type of sunlight collector piped in via fiber optic...
LED panels provide more than enough lumens to grow vegetables and you can adjust the spectrum as you need. They also give off less heat and are way cheaper to run.

How could they be cheaper than fiber optics..just axin'..

They wouldn't, I meant compared to an hps or mh light.

**Leotard** lop guest User ID: 76478 09-04-2012 03:09 PM

Oh coolie

**Sunny**

I don't see that really taking off.

Hard to get communities to go in and maintain something like that and as for individuals, the ave cost of those containers is $3,000-$5,000 so it would be cheaper to build a home made greenhouse.

**Omega**

Sunny Wrote:

I don't see that really taking off.

Hard to get communities to go in and maintain something like that and as for individuals, the ave cost of those containers is $3,000-$5,000 so it would be cheaper to build a home made greenhouse.

Plus the cost of hydroponics, and the lights...

Expensive proposition....

**LoP Guest** lop guest User ID: 79462 09-04-2012 04:19 PM

Omega Wrote:

Sunny Wrote:
I don't see that really taking off.

Hard to get communities to go in and maintain something like that and as for individuals, the ave cost of those containers is $3,000-$5,000 so it would be cheaper to build a home made greenhouse.

Plus the cost of hydroponics, and the lights...

Expensive proposition....

Sort of stupid when you take into account how well shit grows above ground in the sunshine.

Lmao

**Helen Keller**

LoP Guest Wrote:

It would be cool if you were underground- although they obviously need a higher powered light source (metal halide). Better yet, some type of sunlight collector piped in via fiber optic...

unable to find a link to same at this time, but recall seeing an article about fiber optic filtered sunlight dramatically increasing indoor plant growth

apparently, not all sunlight is conducive to maximal or optimal plant growth

**Honest Abe**

Aquaponics and passive solar green house. For the life of me I don't know why everyone is using hydroponics.

**czygyny**

This technology has its place and purpose but give me rich, dark soil to stick my hands in and bring to life, and I am satisfied.

LEDs are nifty but the last time I looked into them they were very, very pricey! Fluorescents were never exorbitant in price even in the beginning of plant growing (like back in the 60s when I got my very first four-foot fixture with real plant-spectrum tubes).

**LoP Guest** lop guest User ID: 96154 09-04-2012 10:18 PM

Cannabis growers have been using shipping containers for years and years, train cars too. LED lights still aren't up to par with metal halide or sodium grow lights for anything but tiny greens. Aquaponics definitely kicks ass that's for sure. Produces really clean organic plants.