Hydroponic Approaches and Value to the Food Supply Chain

Stacy Adams, Professor of Horticulture, Department of Agronomy and Horticulture, University of Nebraska- Lincoln Author

02/06/2024 Added

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Alternative production practices must be employed to supplement and secure the future of the global food system. Hydroponics may address challenges associated with distribution interruptions, environmental influences, socioeconomics, catastrophe, and war. Opportunities exist for entrepreneurship or farm diversification into high value specialty crops. This presentation highlights hydroponic approaches and value within the food supply chain.

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[00:00:00.750]The following presentation
[00:00:02.220]is part of the Agronomy and Horticulture Seminar Series
[00:00:05.432]at the University of Nebraska Lincoln.
[00:00:08.070]Well, good morning everyone.
[00:00:11.370]Thanks for coming.
[00:00:12.203]Welcome to the 2024 Spring Seminar.
[00:00:15.087]I just put 2023 here, I don't know why, I'm still.
[00:00:19.260]Anyway, thanks for being here.
[00:00:22.380]Today we line up 12 speakers for the semester.
[00:00:27.210]We took all the feedback
[00:00:29.460]that we got last year with your survey.
[00:00:31.260]So we are experiencing some new changes
[00:00:33.840]moving the seminars so Thursday
[00:00:35.250]and we are including some topics
[00:00:37.727]that were requested.
[00:00:38.560]So I hope that you enjoy them.
[00:00:41.820]We are having this series,
[00:00:44.370]grad students, research assistant professor,
[00:00:46.830]we have three guest speakers.
[00:00:49.020]We are putting more effort also into bringing
[00:00:51.870]horticulture topics.
[00:00:53.130]So you will see that it's around
[00:00:54.510]30 or 40% of the talks that will be surrounding
[00:00:57.720]that is one of the missions of our department.
[00:01:00.120]So we hope you enjoy that.
[00:01:02.070]I would like to thank the committee
[00:01:04.860]for the hard work putting all this together,
[00:01:07.140]the Office pro, the communication team from Atlanta,
[00:01:09.570]doing a great job to get our flyers ready
[00:01:12.390]before the seminars starts.
[00:01:13.830]So I distribute some of them in your tables.
[00:01:16.140]Feel free to take them to hang in your office,
[00:01:18.450]share with your grad students so they can attend.
[00:01:21.450]Remember that this is not an opportunity
[00:01:24.300]to learn about other topics,
[00:01:25.627]other research that is happening,
[00:01:27.960]teaching efforts, extension efforts
[00:01:29.693]within our department and UNL.
[00:01:32.250]And I think it's a great opportunity for us
[00:01:34.680]to build up this sense of community
[00:01:36.930]and also to encourage grad students to join us
[00:01:39.900]and interact with, I'm seeing here some retired professors
[00:01:43.680]that it's always nice to talk with them
[00:01:46.110]and bring all the experience.
[00:01:47.790]So today I have the pleasure to introduce Stacy Adams.
[00:01:51.780]She has more than 45 years of experience,
[00:01:54.180]professional experience in horticulture and hydroponics
[00:01:58.620]Emission already.
[00:02:00.720]His focus on is control environment,
[00:02:02.820]agriculture, specifically greenhouse management,
[00:02:05.370]specialty crops and hydroponics as I mentioned before.
[00:02:08.910]He joined the Department of Agronomy in 1985
[00:02:13.026]that was actually called the Department of Horticulture
[00:02:15.780]at that time.
[00:02:16.613]He became after the research manager
[00:02:18.690]and a professor in 2009.
[00:02:20.730]He has a currently 75% teaching appointment
[00:02:23.640]and 25% teaching.
[00:02:25.644]He teach courses in greenhouse management,
[00:02:27.900]hydroponics as I mentioned,
[00:02:29.520]and floral design.
[00:02:31.140]More than eight courses, sections per semester,
[00:02:33.240]reaching close to 200 students.
[00:02:35.820]So that's a huge effort in teaching.
[00:02:38.400]And I will quote him
[00:02:41.392]to mention about his extension effort.
[00:02:43.950]He's enriching the lives of Nebraska citizens
[00:02:46.302]through horticulture.
[00:02:48.537]That's a big topic.
[00:02:50.220]Anyway, thanks Stacy
[00:02:52.710]for accepting to present and to kick off the similar series.
[00:02:56.610]Just a little bit
[00:02:59.067]of the housekeeping things for the new ones
[00:03:01.020]or for the ones that are coming back to the seminars.
[00:03:03.030]We are having the presentation
[00:03:04.170]and then all your questions until the end.
[00:03:06.510]I will be passing the microphone for questions.
[00:03:08.640]And then we have also the live stream
[00:03:10.752]that we can have.
[00:03:12.390]If you are following us through Zoom webinars,
[00:03:15.870]you can post your questions in the Q&A section
[00:03:18.208]and we're trying to respond those at the end.
[00:03:21.210]So with that, thanks everyone
[00:03:24.150]for being here again
[00:03:25.317]and the floor is yours.
[00:03:27.060]Alright, well thank you.
[00:03:29.377]And so I hope there's a little bit of something
[00:03:31.200]for everybody today.
[00:03:33.303]And the cohesive nature
[00:03:34.440]of our Department of Agronomy & Horticulture.
[00:03:36.660]So we'll just step right on into this.
[00:03:39.240]I think this is really an amazing snapshot.
[00:03:41.790]Now keep in mind that the statistics
[00:03:44.340]that we get from the Ag census is every five years.
[00:03:46.800]So it'll be interesting.
[00:03:48.150]I was just checking and some of the new data
[00:03:49.830]will roll out later this year and early next year.
[00:03:52.530]But as of 2017 here you could see the top five states
[00:03:55.890]in the horticultural and agronomic crop value,
[00:03:59.580]California leading it off
[00:04:01.590]and Nebraska's number five, which doesn't surprise us.
[00:04:04.027]And there you can see the Ag production
[00:04:07.410]key areas in the nation.
[00:04:10.140]Very condensed over in California
[00:04:12.690]and it is leading significantly.
[00:04:16.316]About 40% more of the production happens to be,
[00:04:19.830]or the value if you will,
[00:04:21.702]is in California.
[00:04:23.970]It has to do with the horticultural crops
[00:04:26.280]that they grow over there, so they're high value crops.
[00:04:29.460]Now one of the issues that we understand
[00:04:32.790]oftentimes in the food we produce,
[00:04:34.740]so a lot of us in this room are agronomers.
[00:04:38.130]So a lot of things we do are grain crops.
[00:04:40.650]So those are easy to move around.
[00:04:42.480]But when we get into the fresh produce market,
[00:04:45.630]so the fresh tomatoes and fruits and vegetables, all that,
[00:04:49.890]we find out that food travels a long way.
[00:04:53.610]And this has occurred over time
[00:04:55.140]due to centralization of our production.
[00:04:57.480]Oftentimes that's efficiency in the production system
[00:05:00.210]as well as the environmental considerations.
[00:05:03.240]But through that we have more recently sensed
[00:05:05.910]that we have this long travel of food miles.
[00:05:09.540]And you can see in here that if it's locally grown,
[00:05:13.386]we consider you go super saver
[00:05:15.420]and locally grown usually means a particular region,
[00:05:18.660]but a good share of the produce
[00:05:20.190]that you do see on the shelves
[00:05:21.570]are traveling a significant amount.
[00:05:24.180]So here you can see
[00:05:25.915]that something as simple as apples
[00:05:27.840]usually travel 1,726 miles.
[00:05:31.620]So it's kind of interesting data to take a peek at.
[00:05:34.800]Now the food waste is a big problem,
[00:05:37.260]especially in fresh produce
[00:05:38.910]and you've seen it at the stores,
[00:05:40.350]especially if you go to Hy-Vee
[00:05:41.460]and some of those where they're working the produce
[00:05:43.320]to try and keep it looking its best
[00:05:45.090]to get it into market.
[00:05:46.920]I've worked with people in Scottsbluff,
[00:05:48.793]they're considering putting hydroponic greenhouses out there
[00:05:51.990]because all the produce that goes to Scottsbluff
[00:05:54.390]is coming from Amarillo, Texas.
[00:05:58.001]And the stores that's out there under the Panhandle co-op,
[00:06:02.280]they own five different grocers.
[00:06:03.870]They said if we could just extend
[00:06:05.386]the amount of time that produce can sit on the shelf
[00:06:08.220]from longer than five days,
[00:06:10.260]we would like to see 10 to 14 days.
[00:06:13.080]And the only way to do that is to reduce
[00:06:14.970]that travel time between there.
[00:06:16.890]The waste in all our food,
[00:06:18.480]which you can see over on the right hand side
[00:06:21.000]is spillage cosmetic display.
[00:06:23.160]'Cause we do have fresh produce
[00:06:25.003]in which people, it's consumer peel,
[00:06:29.220]they wanna pick things that look good,
[00:06:31.050]has good textures, it can't have blemishes.
[00:06:33.900]So in the arena I work with,
[00:06:35.580]that's one of the things we have to be very aware of
[00:06:37.470]is what it looks like.
[00:06:38.997]Some things are not harvested,
[00:06:41.070]unable to sell 'cause there's too much of it
[00:06:42.960]or the sizes don't meet whatever it is
[00:06:44.547]and it doesn't reach market.
[00:06:46.200]And the waste is significant,
[00:06:47.760]in one year, it's the equal to 42 coal powered plants.
[00:06:52.680]The energy we need for 50 million homes,
[00:06:54.780]the amount of fertilizer for all the production
[00:06:56.730]in the United States
[00:06:58.410]or the amount of land area of California
[00:07:01.530]and New York combined.
[00:07:02.430]So it's pretty significant.
[00:07:04.140]It's a major concern for the USDA
[00:07:07.800]and they're trying to educate young people
[00:07:09.690]on what that looks like.
[00:07:11.854]Sustainably we have concerns over water.
[00:07:15.780]Now this is interesting data, it's 10 year data.
[00:07:18.300]So this is going over a 10 year period
[00:07:21.180]and we're seeing the change in irrigation.
[00:07:23.370]So blue indicates more irrigation and red means less.
[00:07:27.600]And when you look at the interpretation of the data,
[00:07:29.880]a lot of it has to do with two things.
[00:07:32.400]Urbanization of land.
[00:07:33.780]So with population centers, people moving into these areas
[00:07:37.410]as well as us having dried up resources,
[00:07:41.580]we're overextending it.
[00:07:43.710]So you can see a lot of areas across the nation are in red.
[00:07:47.880]And that means a lot of land is coming out of irrigation
[00:07:50.790]because ultimately there's no water or land available.
[00:07:54.690]I have a son that's actually works
[00:07:57.060]for the legislature here in the state.
[00:07:59.430]Many of you have raised an eyebrow
[00:08:01.530]when you saw that Pete Ricketts indicated
[00:08:03.960]that we're gonna pull a law from a hundred years ago
[00:08:06.450]and say we want our water from Colorado.
[00:08:10.126]And you know, policy will only get us so far
[00:08:14.040]and at some point we have to really consider
[00:08:15.946]when the water's out, the water's out.
[00:08:19.080]When we look at this graphic on the right,
[00:08:20.940]it's a real eye-opener to see that Nebraska
[00:08:23.430]is the leading user of water
[00:08:26.190]in the entire nation.
[00:08:28.050]California's number two,
[00:08:29.580]and it kinda seems a little bit backwards,
[00:08:31.830]but it is something that we should consider
[00:08:34.320]is how sustainable is the water that we have in the future.
[00:08:38.580]Now this is kind of a difficult graph to look at,
[00:08:42.480]but blue means that there's slow growth
[00:08:45.960]and red means that it's rapid growth.
[00:08:49.110]Now there's two things being shown here.
[00:08:51.570]One is the land being used for production.
[00:08:55.050]So that's the upper one.
[00:08:56.220]And you see a hotspot once again,
[00:08:58.500]Nebraska, Iowa, Minnesota,
[00:09:00.270]North Dakota, South Dakota
[00:09:03.065]because our urban areas are pushing on our resources
[00:09:07.186]with urbanization, land and sprawl.
[00:09:10.320]Production is getting more moved into these regions.
[00:09:13.740]But with that, look at what has happened
[00:09:15.660]to water consumption.
[00:09:16.890]And you can see that it's once again
[00:09:18.840]we're really using a lot of resources.
[00:09:21.030]And it's not just the United States.
[00:09:22.856]Europe is having problems,
[00:09:24.900]India is really struggling
[00:09:28.440]with a lot of issues associated
[00:09:30.030]with high populations and limited resources.
[00:09:34.200]So when I pulled together information,
[00:09:37.140]I teach greenhouse management,
[00:09:39.330]I also teach another course called hydroponics
[00:09:41.430]for growing populations.
[00:09:43.590]Specifically thinking about
[00:09:46.766]how these are tools
[00:09:48.630]to meet some of the needs for our future.
[00:09:51.060]And when you saw the teaser for this,
[00:09:53.130]I talk about it could be migrating peoples,
[00:09:56.130]it could be famine, it could be war,
[00:09:57.990]it could be any type of catastrophe.
[00:10:00.780]But I'm not saying that this is the one solution,
[00:10:03.480]but it is a tool that can meet a particular need.
[00:10:07.170]Now if we look at the greenhouse market,
[00:10:09.060]the largest market currently,
[00:10:10.440]which is no surprise, is over in Europe.
[00:10:12.510]And then some of these areas
[00:10:14.460]in which we don't have outdoor production areas.
[00:10:17.880]But blue is the fastest growing markets.
[00:10:21.030]So when we look down into India, Asia,
[00:10:24.060]Australia has been really pushing along.
[00:10:26.280]And even in North America we see a significant market
[00:10:30.000]in a controlled environment agriculture.
[00:10:33.780]This is projections from marketing analysis
[00:10:36.570]from the years 2022 to 2032.
[00:10:40.560]Currently we have a $32 billion industry
[00:10:43.729]and they project within the next 10 years
[00:10:46.590]to reach 78 billion.
[00:10:48.060]That's a return of about a 9.4%
[00:10:51.450]annual rate of increase.
[00:10:54.300]That should not be a surprise to you
[00:10:56.010]if you've traveled along the interstates,
[00:10:57.780]especially when you travel from Des Moines to Minnesota.
[00:11:00.870]You go to Chicago,
[00:11:02.130]you are seeing large greenhouse operations popping up
[00:11:06.000]and that has to do with this need
[00:11:08.820]to produce food more closely than ever before
[00:11:13.050]and to make it sustainable.
[00:11:14.520]Now we've all gone through the recent pandemic
[00:11:17.610]and we've seen empty shelves
[00:11:19.560]and a lot of that has to do with distribution.
[00:11:21.480]And that aligns with what I talked about,
[00:11:23.430]the food centralization problem that we have
[00:11:26.730]and getting that food out to where it's needed.
[00:11:29.250]We have a perishable product in the fresh food market.
[00:11:32.790]So how are we gonna get it there?
[00:11:34.980]This showed up in the New York Times
[00:11:36.300]just a couple years ago,
[00:11:38.900]just kind of a eye-opener for the big city people
[00:11:41.550]to realize this is happening.
[00:11:44.100]Canada has been doing this for quite some time,
[00:11:46.650]now one thing that's different from Canada
[00:11:48.480]to the United States is the Canadian government
[00:11:51.510]has realized that they have
[00:11:54.048]to protect their food,
[00:11:56.610]try and reduce the export costs associated with it.
[00:11:59.730]Several years ago we also had a Costco corporation
[00:12:02.820]come visit us.
[00:12:03.653]We had a little round table meeting
[00:12:05.940]and Japan had dealt with the nuclear fallout
[00:12:08.880]from their atomic energy plant.
[00:12:11.880]And it had polluted a lot of their fields
[00:12:14.130]to the point where they couldn't produce food
[00:12:16.200]and the current fix was for them
[00:12:17.790]to ship product from California to Japan.
[00:12:22.170]Now more recently you'll see hydroponic greenhouses going in
[00:12:25.260]because they've gotta get the food production closer.
[00:12:29.400]So the whole purpose I'm here is to talk about hydroponics.
[00:12:32.455]It's nothing new, nothing magical,
[00:12:34.680]but I just wanna kind of set the stage.
[00:12:37.080]I do extension for youth and older people.
[00:12:40.800]So we'll keep it kind of simple here at first
[00:12:43.380]and then we'll move forward.
[00:12:45.456]So hydroponics is really just us growing plants in water.
[00:12:49.920]But the water has to provide the nutrients
[00:12:51.930]that we would typically get from soil.
[00:12:53.970]So that could be, however the soil had gotten it.
[00:12:56.940]It could be naturally fertile
[00:12:59.250]or it could be us adding organic materials,
[00:13:01.800]turning in things
[00:13:03.540]or us supplementing it.
[00:13:06.060]In hydroponics, we're actually dosing that in.
[00:13:09.240]So we have to prescriptively put those nutrients in,
[00:13:12.660]we're going to alter it.
[00:13:13.800]So I tell my students in my hydroponics class,
[00:13:17.460]we're doing chemistry because we start messing with pH
[00:13:22.341]and that nutrients being able to stay in suspension
[00:13:25.560]has to do with the formulation of those nutrients
[00:13:28.200]and whether they'll stay in that suspension.
[00:13:32.160]What is the value of hydroponics?
[00:13:34.380]This image happens to be from avert,
[00:13:36.330]which is downtown next to Laszlo's.
[00:13:38.460]If you've ever seen a glowing pink light, this is avert.
[00:13:42.150]I've worked with them, they want my advice...
[00:13:45.660]Well we won't go down that pathway.
[00:13:48.090]They are working on various strategies
[00:13:51.150]for producing indoor area.
[00:13:56.160]We can actually have fast plant growth.
[00:13:59.316]We have direct food sources.
[00:14:01.110]I indicated a lot of companies
[00:14:03.930]are looking at being able to grow crops closer
[00:14:07.020]to where the end user is at.
[00:14:09.390]As a side note, I got excited when Bezos purchased
[00:14:13.290]Whole Foods Corporation.
[00:14:14.880]So the owner of Amazon bought Whole Foods
[00:14:18.103]and I see that as the potential
[00:14:22.080]to help support our industry.
[00:14:24.140]However, they decided to do other things with their money.
[00:14:27.330]But I think it's really important
[00:14:28.950]that we have to have these relationships start developing
[00:14:32.340]with the food distributors
[00:14:33.870]and people that do have the resources
[00:14:36.270]to financially help us in the controlled environment arena.
[00:14:41.850]We are concerned about the urbanization impacts
[00:14:45.450]even if Detroit and people leave that
[00:14:47.850]now we have contaminated soil
[00:14:49.560]so that has been a problem.
[00:14:51.480]I've toured facilities in Denver, Colorado.
[00:14:54.717]The derelict lands from the railroad industry.
[00:14:58.350]A lot of times it's heavily contaminated in lead
[00:15:00.870]we cannot grow plants in that, that's gonna be consumed.
[00:15:04.260]So options are limited
[00:15:06.210]and oftentimes hydroponics will play in there.
[00:15:09.480]We've already introduced environmental limitations.
[00:15:12.420]One of the issues in Nebraska is not only water
[00:15:15.270]but the volatility of our environment.
[00:15:17.460]I grew hops, some of you knew I did hops
[00:15:19.740]in Scottbluff and could grow amazing hops
[00:15:23.070]but it only take one storm to roll off the mountains
[00:15:25.740]and wreck everything.
[00:15:27.450]Well we're dealing with beans and tomatoes and all that
[00:15:29.790]and that one storm can wipe 50% or more of your product off.
[00:15:33.870]So that's a consideration.
[00:15:36.840]Another thing is we have a lot of young farmers
[00:15:39.720]and if you look at the age of our farmers,
[00:15:41.730]they're actually getting quite old
[00:15:44.280]and it's financially limiting
[00:15:46.470]for young people to get into it.
[00:15:47.760]So unless they were born to a family farm operation,
[00:15:52.200]it's hard for them to get into it.
[00:15:53.730]So one neat thing if you will
[00:15:56.040]about controlled environment Ag and hydroponics
[00:15:59.550]is it gives us an opportunity for these young people
[00:16:02.790]to go on and move into this
[00:16:04.500]or it gives people an opportunity to shift.
[00:16:09.720]Perishable product distribution challenges.
[00:16:11.760]So as I said, we just came outta pandemic
[00:16:13.740]and then a reduction in the overall carbon footprint
[00:16:17.040]of what we're doing.
[00:16:19.082]So that means a lot of the energy
[00:16:21.930]and the fertilizer manufacturer
[00:16:23.760]and pumping of irrigation, all this, you know,
[00:16:25.860]it all plays together into the whole combination.
[00:16:30.150]My hydroponics for growing populations
[00:16:32.130]of course does a little activity
[00:16:34.770]and this is from last semester.
[00:16:37.200]We just have 'em do kind of a fun little project.
[00:16:39.630]All this lettuce is Bibb lettuce.
[00:16:41.250]This is six weeks old from seed.
[00:16:45.660]I'm not sharing the weights,
[00:16:46.980]but it's basically 12 times different
[00:16:50.250]in weight in this material.
[00:16:52.500]So if you see the C's here, that's all hydroponics.
[00:16:55.200]This is just deep water culture, nothing fancy,
[00:16:57.570]it's just a blanket tub.
[00:16:59.070]We do pump a little bit of oxygen in.
[00:17:00.930]They make their nutrient solution.
[00:17:02.880]These here A and A is field soil
[00:17:06.750]and horticulturists have known for years
[00:17:09.090]that growing plants in soil
[00:17:10.860]just doesn't work real well in containers. Okay?
[00:17:14.400]It's different when it's in the field
[00:17:15.960]but when we move soil from the field
[00:17:18.240]and put it in a container, it doesn't work.
[00:17:20.280]It doesn't behave well
[00:17:21.450]'cause we don't have that continuity,
[00:17:23.310]that natural pull that occurs.
[00:17:25.170]And Martha will be glad to correct me later, right?
[00:17:28.482](Stacy laughs)
[00:17:29.850]But it doesn't work as well.
[00:17:31.500]So another thing I have them do
[00:17:33.480]is use modified potting mixes.
[00:17:35.400]So that's what this happens to be here.
[00:17:37.050]B's are all modified soils
[00:17:39.768]and those happen to be like just a potty mix
[00:17:43.020]you'd use at the garden center.
[00:17:44.670]And this'll become important here in a little bit
[00:17:46.800]when I talk about how different substrates
[00:17:51.150]can be used to grow hydroponically.
[00:17:53.610]But you can visually see the difference
[00:17:55.830]in how these are done.
[00:17:58.470]Hydroponics is not new.
[00:18:00.750]It's a tool that has been used since the dawn of time
[00:18:05.212]when there's been a problem
[00:18:07.080]and people are smart,
[00:18:08.760]they've figured out a ways to adapt and survive.
[00:18:12.210]Early Babylonians needed to have food,
[00:18:14.790]it needed to be close to where the people were at
[00:18:16.920]so they could redirect water and they could grow plants.
[00:18:20.250]So that's the image up on the upper right,
[00:18:22.050]'cause photography was a little bit
[00:18:24.600]antiquated at that point.
[00:18:27.990]Here you can see in Asian country a lot of wetlands.
[00:18:32.610]The Mayans have done it.
[00:18:33.930]So early settlers, this is what this looked like.
[00:18:36.645]They basically took their understanding,
[00:18:39.300]they created these planting beds if you will.
[00:18:42.240]It's basically composted plant material
[00:18:45.030]and it's being super hydrated.
[00:18:46.890]So it's almost like making a compost tea
[00:18:49.470]if you've ever made that for your plants.
[00:18:51.840]Water just comes through.
[00:18:53.130]We grow the plants as we typically would.
[00:18:55.350]We have a modified potting mix if you will,
[00:18:57.930]which is that reed bed.
[00:19:00.450]And then with the wet conditions, it releases the nutrients
[00:19:03.930]that were naturally available and they could produce plants.
[00:19:09.900]This was touching to me when I found this.
[00:19:13.440]For some reason I decided,
[00:19:14.670]well I look up at who was coined the term hydroponics
[00:19:18.090]and actually happens to be William Franklin Gericke.
[00:19:23.970]This man is interesting.
[00:19:25.470]He was born in 1882 just outside of Fremont, Nebraska.
[00:19:33.052]He only went to school for his elementary years
[00:19:37.770]and then eventually didn't go to high school
[00:19:40.650]but he eventually studied on his own
[00:19:43.050]and was accepted to the University of Nebraska.
[00:19:45.660]And he came here for about two years to work in agriculture,
[00:19:49.350]primarily in soils and things like that.
[00:19:52.860]Now the hidden story behind this,
[00:19:54.750]what you don't know,
[00:19:56.010]is in 1892, so he would've been 10 years old,
[00:20:00.060]1892 to 1898, Nebraska went through an extreme drought.
[00:20:05.580]The drought was so horrible
[00:20:07.710]that a lot of people lost their farms.
[00:20:10.710]All the banks in Lincoln, Nebraska closed
[00:20:13.830]except for three and over 2000 individuals
[00:20:16.967]and families were left homeless in Omaha.
[00:20:20.760]So it's kind of eye-opening if you think about it.
[00:20:22.800]When you're young, you're 10 years old till 1617
[00:20:27.420]what a huge impact that made on your life.
[00:20:31.290]Well, as any good young man does,
[00:20:33.810]he falls in love with somebody at the University of Nebraska
[00:20:37.860]and his wife that he married is Stella.
[00:20:41.280]And Stella happens to be a chemist
[00:20:44.670]in the Department of Chemistry
[00:20:46.080]at the University of Nebraska.
[00:20:48.210]Now I always say that successful men
[00:20:51.270]have a successful spouse.
[00:20:54.390]So this man married up,
[00:20:56.100]he married a chemist.
[00:20:58.710]Together, they went over to Iowa
[00:21:00.630]and it's Iowa State University.
[00:21:02.400]I think it was called Iowa School of Agriculture
[00:21:06.300]because he could study more
[00:21:08.160]what they called at that time soil scientists.
[00:21:10.350]Now I'm not giving you a bunch of wind here,
[00:21:11.820]this came from the Smithsonian Institute.
[00:21:13.650]As I said, I started down a worm wormhole
[00:21:16.560]and couldn't stop.
[00:21:17.520]I thought this was such a close topic
[00:21:20.640]to all of us in this room.
[00:21:23.940]He ended up out at Davis, they had a call at California
[00:21:27.780]and they said we need leading scientists
[00:21:31.110]in the area of plant production and soil scientists.
[00:21:34.830]So he went out there, he got his degree
[00:21:36.810]at Iowa State, Bachelor's degree.
[00:21:38.280]He went out to Davis
[00:21:39.600]and he ended up getting his PhD out there.
[00:21:42.840]Now a lot of you in this room may know of this man's work
[00:21:47.130]because a colleague of his, Dennis Hoagland
[00:21:50.670]took his idea and created what we now use
[00:21:54.090]as Hoagland's solution.
[00:21:57.060]It's pretty awesome to think about
[00:21:58.980]how these colleagues work together
[00:22:01.650]and this man continued on
[00:22:03.600]and they probably thought he was a loon
[00:22:05.430]because I know here at the University of Nebraska
[00:22:07.980]Agronomy & Horticulture, when I teach floral design
[00:22:10.500]or I'm growing plants, bigger panic,
[00:22:12.000]I like sometimes like,
[00:22:12.847]"Yeah I know it's Artsy Partsy," right?
[00:22:15.330]But honestly, look at what he was doing.
[00:22:17.190]This is 1922, there's his adorable wife
[00:22:21.120]and I thought she was wearing a farm dress.
[00:22:22.980]And I looked at it, I was like,
[00:22:23.813]"No, that is like an awesome dress that she has on."
[00:22:26.640]So Stella was that person that helped him
[00:22:30.450]come up with what this was all going to look like.
[00:22:33.810]And he was growing and the data
[00:22:35.670]on that 10 foot by 10 foot area
[00:22:38.280]was over two tons of tomatoes he created
[00:22:41.100]out of that one little spot.
[00:22:42.990]It was so exciting, he published it in science
[00:22:46.740]at that time was the journal.
[00:22:48.810]So early Product Publications 1922.
[00:22:52.560]And he has a whole string of them.
[00:22:55.110]1922, 1937, 1945, this is a great story, right?
[00:23:00.060]I just had to tell this story.
[00:23:03.060]He was the first person to create a YouTube video,
[00:23:07.080]lower left 1933.
[00:23:09.690]He happened to know a guy in Hollywood
[00:23:12.060]and they created a black and white film.
[00:23:15.240]It's not even a talkie,
[00:23:16.410]it's got little chalkboard slates
[00:23:18.090]explaining some of these things.
[00:23:20.130]Growing Plants With Soil
[00:23:21.949]and you can capture,
[00:23:23.580]it pulls off Smithsonian Institute,
[00:23:25.290]it's 15 minutes long.
[00:23:26.340]It's kind of hokey but you know,
[00:23:27.810]you gotta think about these went to movie houses
[00:23:30.450]and people went to go see a movie.
[00:23:32.190]And so they would do this as that prequel to the movie
[00:23:35.310]to kind of educate people of what was going on.
[00:23:39.120]Before hydroponics, he called it Farming Without Dirt.
[00:23:42.960]And I knew you soil scientists would love that
[00:23:44.567]'cause you hate it when we say dirt.
[00:23:48.120]There he is, upper left.
[00:23:49.710]And in the video I captured that
[00:23:51.360]a screen cap showing him mixing his different nutrients.
[00:23:54.630]And for those agronomists in the room,
[00:23:56.460]I of course had to show the corn
[00:23:58.470]that he was sharing in California.
[00:24:02.970]His publication was accepted by the US government
[00:24:06.570]to the point that we had a problem.
[00:24:08.220]We had World War II
[00:24:10.050]and we had military people all across this world
[00:24:13.770]and they didn't have the ability to ship fresh produce.
[00:24:17.130]So they had to figure out a way to start growing produce
[00:24:19.207]in the location where the military troops were at.
[00:24:22.590]So here's an MH 1945 hydroponic beds
[00:24:26.100]and the Ascension Island.
[00:24:28.740]There's a collection of these in the Smithsonian,
[00:24:30.720]but I thought it really captured the essence of timeless.
[00:24:35.220]We have a problem, we have to satisfy it
[00:24:38.370]and there are solutions to our problem.
[00:24:41.490]Now in modern times as we look at what production
[00:24:44.580]might look like,
[00:24:46.140]we have to be open-minded.
[00:24:47.970]So this is in Asian countries, I was in China, Beijing,
[00:24:52.151]and Guangrao.
[00:24:53.130]And when you see the millions of people living so close
[00:24:57.120]and you see food production right up against
[00:25:01.020]to where people live, they're using every resource possible.
[00:25:05.520]Even though it's a nice area,
[00:25:07.560]you can see these floating beds outside
[00:25:10.500]where they're producing lettuce.
[00:25:13.650]It doesn't take you a lot to look at how hydroponics
[00:25:16.740]have been using globally in Africa.
[00:25:20.010]They're doing it.
[00:25:20.850]These are screen houses,
[00:25:22.894]so controlled environments, right?
[00:25:24.270]It's protected, so we have screen houses.
[00:25:27.420]We have India
[00:25:29.340]down here, a lot of people.
[00:25:31.260]Distribution is a huge problem in India.
[00:25:34.207]And then of course you have the United Arab Emirates,
[00:25:37.230]which I am marble at
[00:25:39.060]and I use them as an example in my class
[00:25:41.700]because the United a Emirates has no water,
[00:25:45.690]everything has to be manufactured.
[00:25:47.970]So they have been using hydroponics for a long time.
[00:25:54.150]So with that I thought it'd be kind of interesting
[00:25:56.130]to just give you the basics
[00:25:57.660]of what hydroponics looks like.
[00:25:59.100]So these next slides will just kind of
[00:26:01.680]describe the various approaches.
[00:26:04.770]Hopefully to this point though that you've realized
[00:26:07.860]that hydroponics are basically nothing magical,
[00:26:11.760]it's just understanding the basic concepts,
[00:26:14.640]pulling it together.
[00:26:15.480]And there's different approaches to make it all happen.
[00:26:19.620]So the first one, the most simple one
[00:26:21.840]and the one I call the resilient one
[00:26:24.300]is substrate hydroponics.
[00:26:27.510]So substrate means we use something underneath of it.
[00:26:30.180]Now I told you that soils don't behave well for us.
[00:26:33.090]So some sort of a modified soil.
[00:26:35.250]This is called pillow culture that we have here.
[00:26:38.160]So these are just formulated potty mixes.
[00:26:41.331]Plants are started and this happens
[00:26:43.230]to be eggplant it looks like to me.
[00:26:46.680]And they start 'em in these little blocks
[00:26:50.490]after a couple weeks they're ready
[00:26:51.660]to go and they just sit 'em here.
[00:26:53.220]And then the nutrient solution is literally dosed out.
[00:26:56.190]And I've seen this in Ohio, I've been to Cleveland.
[00:27:00.150]It's hard to get into hydroponic operations.
[00:27:02.790]So the fancier ones I cannot get into.
[00:27:04.920]But some of these more rudimentary ones
[00:27:06.870]I've been able to see.
[00:27:08.580]But in this one, this is a non
[00:27:10.500]recirculating hydroponic system.
[00:27:12.450]It's just basically fertilizing
[00:27:15.510]putting the solution onto the pillow
[00:27:17.940]and then the plants have to take up everything.
[00:27:20.310]Now these are in little trays,
[00:27:21.900]but sometimes those bags are not ripped open.
[00:27:24.210]This is where those of you interested in sensing equipment.
[00:27:27.270]It is important, 'cause we have to monitor
[00:27:30.120]whether irrigation is necessary or not.
[00:27:32.520]All of us as plant scientists realize
[00:27:34.710]that if we don't have a healthy environment for roots,
[00:27:36.994]it'll greatly affect the plant.
[00:27:39.840]So the key aspects of the system here
[00:27:42.540]is that we have some sort of a nutrient solution
[00:27:44.970]that we've created, that's the chemistry side.
[00:27:47.940]And we do have simple ways to make it happen
[00:27:50.640]or we can make it very prescriptive
[00:27:53.040]where we take all the individual elements and mix 'em
[00:27:56.100]and balance 'em to how we need to do it.
[00:27:59.550]We'll have some sort of a growing container.
[00:28:01.650]So I said pillow culture, this one actually just happens
[00:28:04.170]to be some growing cans, if you will.
[00:28:07.470]And some sort of a substrate
[00:28:09.210]and that substrate could be any number of things
[00:28:12.720]in class we use perlite, vermiculite, rice holes.
[00:28:17.580]We've used lacca, which is lightweight,
[00:28:20.250]expanded clay aggregate.
[00:28:24.030]So anything I've even used gravel
[00:28:26.100]that pea gravel that we've gotten at Marnard.
[00:28:28.110]So any of that works.
[00:28:29.760]Grow the plants, we have some sort of a distribution pump.
[00:28:32.550]Pumps it up, drops it in.
[00:28:34.620]Now at this point it's where it can change.
[00:28:37.260]We can either do what we call an open system,
[00:28:39.720]which means whatever comes through is just drained away.
[00:28:43.080]And I say remediated disposal,
[00:28:46.080]we're kind of lazy here in Nebraska.
[00:28:48.390]So sometimes that remediated disposal,
[00:28:51.090]and I've seen it up at South Sioux City at Cardinal Farms,
[00:28:54.420]they just send the water out into
[00:28:57.360]a leach field under the corn.
[00:29:00.570]So they have a corn field
[00:29:02.400]and it leaches out through these tubes they've put out
[00:29:05.700]and then the corn will get to use it
[00:29:07.187]'cause they also produce corn.
[00:29:09.000]So corn and tomatoes interesting.
[00:29:12.060]But I've done this here at university,
[00:29:14.040]when I first started in hydroponics,
[00:29:15.840]I was worried about the closed system.
[00:29:18.150]So I did it this way and I went through a lot
[00:29:20.370]of water and fertilizer.
[00:29:22.140]So then another way is what we call closed systems.
[00:29:25.200]That means rather than draining away,
[00:29:26.820]we capture it and we can return it and put it in there.
[00:29:31.110]Now there's some challenges associated with that
[00:29:33.060]is because once that solution's been used,
[00:29:35.280]the plants take up different nutrients.
[00:29:37.770]Some of it gets hung up maybe in the process
[00:29:41.160]and it returns.
[00:29:42.360]And then we might have potentially added
[00:29:44.160]biologicals to it, right?
[00:29:45.750]Because it passed through some plant material.
[00:29:48.240]So we have to be aware
[00:29:50.490]that these biologicals can become a biofilm
[00:29:53.460]or foam and other weird stuff.
[00:29:55.410]So we've gotta manage what that's going to be.
[00:29:57.750]But this is the basics. Very simple.
[00:30:01.260]So three approaches on the left hand side,
[00:30:03.210]Dr. Paparozzi and Paul Reed and myself
[00:30:06.150]worked with a farmer by David City
[00:30:09.090]on a transfer of some knowledge
[00:30:10.710]that we did on strawberry production.
[00:30:13.380]We did a capillary mat system, so we did a modified mix.
[00:30:17.310]This is plastic over our capillary mat.
[00:30:20.040]Our nutrient film or our nutrient
[00:30:23.250]solution goes into the capillary mat.
[00:30:27.150]The pot is sitting on the mat, so the water's taken up.
[00:30:30.420]So it's capillary action.
[00:30:32.430]And we grew strawberries
[00:30:34.920]primarily trying to offer an opportunity
[00:30:37.800]for a specialty crop grower,
[00:30:40.110]which is Picard's produce
[00:30:41.760]to grow something in the off season.
[00:30:45.418]Our production is limited right to the season.
[00:30:48.780]So here's an opportunity,
[00:30:49.950]now we can do something of high value.
[00:30:52.620]There are things we can do
[00:30:54.270]but they wanted to do selling these as fresh produce
[00:30:57.510]for Thanksgiving, Christmas and Valentine's
[00:30:59.970]for the market we're trying to hit,
[00:31:02.130]they were throwing away the ones that were Kohl's.
[00:31:04.530]And I started taking 'em home
[00:31:05.760]and putting them in our freezer
[00:31:07.380]and compared them to the stupid frozen strawberries
[00:31:10.470]and the bag that you buy.
[00:31:11.790]And I was like, "Oh my God."
[00:31:12.720]My wife said, "These are amazing compared to these."
[00:31:14.880]So there's all sorts of things we can do
[00:31:17.340]with different levels of marketing.
[00:31:20.250]This is in the teaching greenhouse.
[00:31:23.160]No it's not 1917, but it is a 1917 greenhouse.
[00:31:27.450]But this is my greenhouse
[00:31:28.830]and I do something called bag culture.
[00:31:31.170]So they sell these little plastic bags,
[00:31:33.137]we put a modified mix in there
[00:31:35.430]and then we can dose it on and look at those tomatoes.
[00:31:38.940]We've been training them and you can see
[00:31:40.470]I just kinda work 'em around, hang them
[00:31:42.540]and now we have some beautiful produce.
[00:31:44.100]So this is hydroponics, this is non recirculating.
[00:31:47.550]So the solution we have to dose on,
[00:31:49.920]we don't want too much to drop on the floor.
[00:31:51.840]And this happens to be, believe it or not,
[00:31:54.240]these are peppers and those are in Ohio.
[00:31:57.420]I have a BETO system in the greenhouse
[00:32:01.080]that I'm growing tomatoes in.
[00:32:04.230]These are like two gallon containers,
[00:32:05.790]they got like perlite or some type of product in there.
[00:32:08.760]Generally two plants in each
[00:32:10.740]spaced about two feet apart through there.
[00:32:14.520]Interesting little bucket because we irrigate on
[00:32:16.512]anything we capture, we can either recirculate it
[00:32:19.530]or we can go on and send it out to the leach field.
[00:32:24.600]Now simple thing is to use something called rock wool,
[00:32:27.990]which is expanded balsamic stone,
[00:32:30.930]it's heat treated, they spin fiber it
[00:32:32.670]and it looks like insulation if you will.
[00:32:35.490]It comes out of Europe, it's very pricey
[00:32:38.100]but we do have a source in Texas
[00:32:40.050]that I've been able to get it from.
[00:32:43.200]The nice thing about it is it's totally inert
[00:32:46.350]so there's no biological activity in it.
[00:32:49.020]It doesn't interact with our nutrients.
[00:32:50.970]So basically it's just a substrate to grow these plants in.
[00:32:54.267]And they sell it as a system, so
[00:32:56.640]we start with little plugs, we'll see them in a bit
[00:32:59.550]once they get started from seed, we can plunk 'em in,
[00:33:02.193]then we can put 'em on top of the little bag culture.
[00:33:04.440]And then we have an entire system.
[00:33:07.530]The thing I don't like about this
[00:33:09.570]though, it's easy, clean and cost effective for a new grower
[00:33:13.470]is the amount of debris that comes from it.
[00:33:16.337]'Cause we have now Rockwell that has to be disposed of
[00:33:20.430]and it doesn't decompose
[00:33:22.560]and we have plastic bags and all that.
[00:33:24.330]So I kind of like steer away from it.
[00:33:26.820]But if you're exploring, it's kind of cool.
[00:33:29.910]Now the substrate culture is nothing new.
[00:33:32.280]And my class hydroponics for growing populations.
[00:33:35.400]I want the students to explore systems.
[00:33:38.340]So I just have them work in teams
[00:33:41.370]and they create different systems.
[00:33:42.540]But this is one that I share with them.
[00:33:44.640]This is in Africa because once again
[00:33:46.740]when you have limited water and resources,
[00:33:49.530]we have to think of alternative production systems.
[00:33:51.270]So this is being done in New Zealand.
[00:33:53.970]I call it my New Zealand system.
[00:33:55.980]It's basically a gutter, it's plastic
[00:33:58.830]that has kind of been formed, molded if you will
[00:34:02.640]and this is nothing more than just pea gravel
[00:34:04.680]on the inside.
[00:34:05.670]Here you can see the irrigation just goes through
[00:34:07.620]and what they're doing is containing the water.
[00:34:10.980]They don't want that water to go out into the soil.
[00:34:13.560]If you've been to Phoenix, Arizona
[00:34:15.210]and you saw a production of
[00:34:17.340]or people's landscapes, you'll see tubes in the ground
[00:34:19.830]'cause they're not allowed to let that water go anywhere
[00:34:21.750]then the plant is needed.
[00:34:23.562]And when we have a situation like this,
[00:34:26.220]we can grow plants in it.
[00:34:27.508]Last semester they did bok choy
[00:34:30.630]and it was really amazing what they did.
[00:34:32.790]Here you can see they have a shade structure,
[00:34:35.280]provide protection.
[00:34:37.174]So controlled environment.
[00:34:39.390]The second approach I wanna talk about
[00:34:41.100]are the solution-based hydroponic systems.
[00:34:44.910]The easiest, most resilient one if you will,
[00:34:47.700]is deep water culture.
[00:34:49.260]So we have these big tubs of water,
[00:34:51.930]we load it with the nutrient solution.
[00:34:53.910]And when I say it's resilient
[00:34:55.290]is the temperature is well managed
[00:34:57.870]when you have that much quantity.
[00:35:01.770]The nutrients don't change very much behavior is there
[00:35:05.310]but it's extremely heavy and does use a lot of water.
[00:35:09.780]The other one is the nutrient film technique,
[00:35:12.600]which is used a lot in industry.
[00:35:15.030]It is not resilient.
[00:35:17.645]So if the electricity goes out,
[00:35:20.520]you were like dead in the water within hours. Okay?
[00:35:23.100]So we have to think about it.
[00:35:25.740]So I had a student from Rwanda,
[00:35:28.710]Mark Aradakundo that worked with me.
[00:35:30.840]He's now working on his master's at Georgia
[00:35:34.200]because he is interested in this pathway.
[00:35:35.790]He worked for me about three years
[00:35:37.020]and then he went down to Georgia.
[00:35:38.730]And we were working through this whole thought process
[00:35:41.670]as if he went to Rwanda
[00:35:43.410]and he wanted to do hydroponics, what would it look like?
[00:35:45.930]So we did a gravity flow system
[00:35:48.060]and I've spoken to some people from India
[00:35:50.730]and a lot of people like that idea
[00:35:53.100]'cause it allows people to get in quite easily.
[00:35:56.070]So let's look at this, this is deep water culture.
[00:35:58.470]This is a commercial production facility.
[00:36:01.290]We kind of laugh about it
[00:36:02.850]because it's like if you've been to a log ride
[00:36:05.040]at one of the amusement parks,
[00:36:06.360]these lettuces get to go on log rides a lot.
[00:36:08.940]So they're on these little rafts
[00:36:10.770]and they get a float along here.
[00:36:14.771]And one of the government laws
[00:36:17.880]is the FSMA act.
[00:36:22.050]Okay, you caught me here just a second.
[00:36:24.120]Food Safety Modernization Act, FSMA.
[00:36:26.820]We have to worry about that
[00:36:28.560]because when we have fresh food production,
[00:36:30.330]you have seen it when you've gone to the store,
[00:36:31.800]like we don't have any lettuce right now
[00:36:33.210]because we have some sort
[00:36:34.350]of contamination listeria or whatever.
[00:36:38.010]So food production is on the radar of the government.
[00:36:41.100]And FSMA was introduced a few years ago
[00:36:44.490]and now they're starting to keep track of handling.
[00:36:48.480]So we have to have food safe processes
[00:36:51.690]and if we don't touch these plants, the better we are.
[00:36:54.780]So they have the rafts
[00:36:56.430]and they actually ride on these little flumes
[00:36:58.530]to go to where the final processing end,
[00:37:00.660]which is gonna be typically a food safe type kitchen
[00:37:03.630]packing house where they can keep the sanitization.
[00:37:07.620]Upper right is when I was in Denver, Colorado
[00:37:09.990]several years ago this business
[00:37:12.270]it was actually a nonprofit,
[00:37:14.040]it's an unfortunate thing,
[00:37:15.510]it was a carnation production facility.
[00:37:18.120]Went belly up of course
[00:37:19.380]when flower production shifted offshore
[00:37:22.080]and then they turned it into hydroponics.
[00:37:23.910]And it's a really innovative idea
[00:37:26.220]on how to reach the urban food need.
[00:37:31.830]They provide education, they grow these food
[00:37:34.560]and it's an interesting place
[00:37:35.850]'cause they have a store
[00:37:37.890]where if you live within a certain zip code,
[00:37:40.530]the produce is like a buck each.
[00:37:42.870]But if you don't live in that zip code then it's at market.
[00:37:45.870]So four or $5.
[00:37:47.250]And it's a way to support people
[00:37:49.530]that are unable to grow produce.
[00:37:51.360]As I said, in Denver they've got
[00:37:53.130]a lot of lead contaminated soils.
[00:37:55.620]So it gives them that option on how to produce it.
[00:37:58.920]My feeble attempt down here on the lower right,
[00:38:00.720]this is Mark Aradakundo that I worked with
[00:38:02.850]and I just use some of your guys' salvage material
[00:38:06.090]from research and turned it into my own deep water
[00:38:08.820]culture system.
[00:38:09.653]So we've been growing,
[00:38:11.199]this is nothing more than installation
[00:38:13.710]and we've been growing lettuce that way.
[00:38:17.370]I have worked with variety systems.
[00:38:19.170]So these are all my systems from the teaching greenhouse
[00:38:21.960]and use it for extension and teaching.
[00:38:25.260]The one that I was telling you about Mark Aradakundo,
[00:38:27.150]this is our gravity feed system.
[00:38:28.560]These are just trash cans that we got.
[00:38:30.395]These are electrical fittings and garden hoses.
[00:38:33.240]We have a storage tub.
[00:38:35.790]We make our nutrients solution here
[00:38:37.200]and by gravity it feeds all of these.
[00:38:39.960]These are all his tomatoes.
[00:38:41.910]We have a little net pot with leker stone in there.
[00:38:44.670]And we did find that if we added oxygen,
[00:38:47.850]that the plants did grow a bit better.
[00:38:49.680]However we could do it without oxygen,
[00:38:51.660]which was a proven system for me
[00:38:53.940]if I'm working with people from these countries
[00:38:56.520]in which they do have problems
[00:38:58.260]with electrical interruptions and whatnot,
[00:39:00.870]this was a system that would work.
[00:39:02.790]And not only did it work,
[00:39:05.250]we also figured out ways to resolve problems.
[00:39:07.347]And one of those problems was, that these containers,
[00:39:10.800]depending on what the demand was, the load was by the plant,
[00:39:14.670]the nutrients might change a bit in these containers.
[00:39:17.670]And we found something just as simple
[00:39:19.860]as picking up the solution with a bucket
[00:39:22.260]pour it in the back and we created a back draw
[00:39:24.540]so that we had a better understanding
[00:39:26.310]of how to put that to work for somebody.
[00:39:29.850]Once again, here's my deep water culture
[00:39:31.822]when Excuse me.
[00:39:32.850]Yap?
[00:39:34.033](indistinct)
[00:39:35.310]Oxygen, we're just using these little air pumps.
[00:39:42.930]Yep. We just use
[00:39:45.510]little air bubblers.
[00:39:46.920]And when I was in...
[00:39:48.480]Well some of 'em used vort, what do they call it?
[00:39:50.910]Vortex injectors.
[00:39:53.700]So in other words, when the water is pumping through,
[00:39:56.490]you've had this happen when you drink from a soda cup
[00:39:59.340]and it gets a hole in the straw, you get these bubbles.
[00:40:02.970]We can do the same concept on a big scale
[00:40:05.910]by the water pumping through the system.
[00:40:07.560]We just add a vortex to it
[00:40:09.540]and we can add air that way too.
[00:40:11.340]So there's a lot of approaches,
[00:40:12.660]we just found it was simple to use the air pump. So.
[00:40:16.140]Alright, this one's an expensive system,
[00:40:18.690]they use that in the cannabis industry.
[00:40:21.270]I bought the system primarily
[00:40:22.920]'cause I have students that are interested
[00:40:24.270]in cannabis and different things.
[00:40:25.560]So I just wanted to share with them,
[00:40:27.030]we've grown tomatoes, peppers, eggplant,
[00:40:29.790]it's an interesting system.
[00:40:31.800]Probably cost prohibitive for most people
[00:40:33.780]but gives them the opportunity to do that.
[00:40:38.100]Alright, are we okay on time?
[00:40:39.930]God. Okay. I'm so sorry.
[00:40:41.875](Stacy laughs)
[00:40:43.710]Nutrient film technology, this is a small system.
[00:40:46.590]We now have gotten three times bigger than this.
[00:40:49.200]Basically a gutter thin film.
[00:40:50.820]We do a little net pot here
[00:40:53.940]and the roots drop in and if you wanna look at this more,
[00:40:57.060]I have a prototype out here in the hallway.
[00:40:59.430]Those plants were started six weeks ago.
[00:41:02.190]I was gonna do it for a presentation somewhere
[00:41:05.490]got canceled so I said,
[00:41:06.607]"Hey we we'll just use it for today."
[00:41:08.070]So you can look at that right there.
[00:41:12.210]Plants are in the rock wall, we can see the roots.
[00:41:14.970]Big greenhouse systems
[00:41:16.200]but remember we have a vulnerable system
[00:41:18.180]because we have that thin film.
[00:41:20.160]I like to start the plants in a clean method.
[00:41:23.640]So we are using Rockwell to strike seeding in here
[00:41:27.780]and ultimately there's no soil
[00:41:29.430]or any other complex on here
[00:41:31.470]that's gonna play with our nutrient solution.
[00:41:34.410]We do have to have a nutrient strategy.
[00:41:36.690]When I was working on my master's a long time ago
[00:41:38.610]I made, I was an idiot.
[00:41:40.950]So you working on your master's and PhDs
[00:41:43.218]don't do 56 treatments, just warning you.
[00:41:47.910]I worked with the esteemed Dr. Ellen Paparozzi.
[00:41:49.950]She said, "Sure, you can do that if you want, right?"
[00:41:52.080]So anyway, so I made my own nutrient solutions.
[00:41:55.470]It's very difficult and to manage to get everything
[00:41:57.420]to balance and solution and all that.
[00:41:59.340]Now that we've learned more about what plant needs are,
[00:42:02.190]there are companies that specialize in formulating it.
[00:42:04.380]And one of the issues we have
[00:42:05.700]is ammonium nitrate can be used as balms.
[00:42:07.890]So it's kind of hard sometimes
[00:42:09.000]to get some of these products.
[00:42:10.918]So I do use these two part mixes,
[00:42:12.750]actually I call it three part mix.
[00:42:14.970]So you have your complete complex,
[00:42:17.130]your calcium nitrate and then we add magnesium sulfate
[00:42:20.610]sold as Epsom salts.
[00:42:22.290]We have target ranges and it's well proven
[00:42:24.660]and here I can see ejection system.
[00:42:27.120]I use a blue lab monitoring system
[00:42:30.390]and a correction system comes out of New Zealand.
[00:42:34.410]We have a clearing house through California,
[00:42:37.380]I can get this stuff.
[00:42:38.640]Here you can see my deep water culture.
[00:42:40.440]This is called the unipod.
[00:42:42.630]We add our water, we have a pump keeping it circulated.
[00:42:45.210]You can see I have a air gap,
[00:42:46.800]so it's adding the aeration for me too.
[00:42:49.470]And then I have a dosing unit that will pump that in for me.
[00:42:54.780]So here you can see a closed loop system.
[00:42:56.760]This is on my tomatoes once again over here,
[00:42:58.770]this is a little older,
[00:43:00.240]a little more hokey
[00:43:01.560]and no I don't use cat litter boxes anymore.
[00:43:04.860]But this is the main solution.
[00:43:07.320]We have two filters.
[00:43:08.640]So we are running the water out to the hydroponics,
[00:43:12.510]it goes through a filter to come in
[00:43:14.490]and then we filter it going back out
[00:43:16.380]and then it goes through this UV light filter also
[00:43:20.040]to keep the water clean.
[00:43:21.510]And it's pretty amazing how well it works.
[00:43:24.510]I think it's really important in the job that I do
[00:43:26.550]hopefully you've found today's topic
[00:43:28.440]to be kind of interesting,
[00:43:30.510]kind of eye-opening.
[00:43:32.940]I think the only way I can serve a need,
[00:43:34.800]'cause there's only a little of me
[00:43:36.630]and Nebraska doesn't have much of a horticultural industry,
[00:43:40.260]but I do provide outreach and education.
[00:43:42.240]I've got a series of nib guides that I'm working on.
[00:43:45.180]So this is to get into school youth lunchbox, hydroponics.
[00:43:48.600]It's just a little activity
[00:43:49.800]using little food grade containers
[00:43:51.300]so students can start using it
[00:43:53.310]as a STEM activity in their schools.
[00:43:56.040]I have these little educational cards.
[00:43:57.930]There's three of those in my little series
[00:44:00.327]that when we have tours we can hand them out
[00:44:02.940]and then that's a little display which is out there.
[00:44:06.480]But I take the display and can engage.
[00:44:08.580]'Cause I think as people get more comfortable
[00:44:10.500]understanding the concepts and everything,
[00:44:13.740]that they'll start looking at it
[00:44:15.480]as a way to enhance their farm income.
[00:44:19.770]It's not surprising though
[00:44:21.330]Avert on the left Mid Plains produce
[00:44:23.340]I just traveled up to not long ago.
[00:44:24.870]It's up by O'Neill, Cardinal Farms, South Sioux City,
[00:44:27.810]they do tomatoes and peppers
[00:44:29.160]and we have gather in Omaha,
[00:44:30.570]which is growing in the the old market area
[00:44:33.870]in the basements of buildings up there.
[00:44:36.000]So it's pretty crazy what's going on.
[00:44:38.430]And the more recent one that we have
[00:44:40.080]is Nebraska Vegetable and Protein in Nebraska City,
[00:44:43.860]that's an aquaponics operation.
[00:44:45.720]So it's both fish and lettuce production
[00:44:49.575]and they're over there producing.
[00:44:51.780]So I wanna wrap this up today.
[00:44:53.730]Past, present and future.
[00:44:54.960]So we gotta see a story of the past.
[00:44:57.270]We realized that through this greater understanding
[00:45:00.540]of plant science, we have an understanding
[00:45:03.210]of a changing environment.
[00:45:04.590]We know science as far as genetics and improvements
[00:45:08.970]and environment and all that.
[00:45:10.137]And we can put that all together
[00:45:12.360]for a new and more resilient food system in the future.
[00:45:16.260]I wanna leave with William Gericke down here.
[00:45:19.620]He continued hydroponics work till 1970
[00:45:23.070]and I thought it was interesting in his obituary,
[00:45:27.390]his wife said his aim was to solve world food problems
[00:45:30.150]in the most efficient, productive and economical way.
[00:45:32.460]He was interested in helping humanity
[00:45:34.050]find a way to be able to feed itself.
[00:45:37.020]That's pretty mind blowing.
[00:45:38.520]And we know if we look back in history,
[00:45:41.220]that it was because of what happened to him
[00:45:43.470]in 1892 to 1898
[00:45:46.230]and what he learned
[00:45:47.580]and his efforts, I don't see as an ending,
[00:45:50.280]but I see as a way for us to continue collaboration
[00:45:53.370]to meet the future's needs.
[00:45:54.540]So thank you.
[00:46:02.640]Thank you Stacy.
[00:46:03.900]Wonderful presentation.
[00:46:06.150]So we open the floor for questions.
[00:46:08.100]So if you wanna raise your hand
[00:46:09.390]and I will bring the microphone to you.
[00:46:13.860]Hi, I'm about your age.
[00:46:16.654]So in the 1970s,
[00:46:18.930]I mean the 1990s, early 1990s, I went to Epcot Center
[00:46:22.860]and they were all hydroponics at that time.
[00:46:25.560]In fact they were, since I was a disease person
[00:46:28.440]and working with greenhouses in Michigan,
[00:46:30.753]they were the ones who developed that UV light
[00:46:33.480]you mentioned that worked so well.
[00:46:35.730]But they had research students
[00:46:37.937]all summer long working at the Epcot Center
[00:46:41.070]and it looked like it was gonna be a permanent long-term,
[00:46:44.190]hydroponics research
[00:46:46.230]for the United States.
[00:46:47.670]Do you know what happened to it?
[00:46:48.690]I didn't hear you mention it.
[00:46:49.808]Yeah, I'm an advisor for horticulture club
[00:46:51.990]and we've gone to Epcot twice
[00:46:54.900]specifically to visit them, it's at the land,
[00:46:58.320]they do research and some of that applies
[00:47:00.480]to the Florida Orange production.
[00:47:04.905]They do hydroponics there as an entertainment.
[00:47:09.330]But their mission is sort of like what my mission was
[00:47:13.140]is to get it out there so people can realize
[00:47:16.260]that it's not witchcraft,
[00:47:18.570]that there is science to all of it.
[00:47:20.730]So last I knew it was still there,
[00:47:22.590]you have to remember Epcot,
[00:47:24.660]so we met with the park manager
[00:47:26.340]and he said they were kind of the bastard child
[00:47:28.140]of the Disney theme park system
[00:47:30.240]because it was supposed to be the park of the future.
[00:47:33.420]And now they're shifting it slowly
[00:47:35.130]to be the world, if you've noticed.
[00:47:38.130]So anyway, that's more than you care to know.
[00:47:46.980]Thanks Stacy, this was very interesting.
[00:47:48.810]I'm glad I was able to come today.
[00:47:51.180]My question is more about like the water use
[00:47:53.990]in the hydroponic system.
[00:47:55.530]So I don't know if there's a comparison
[00:48:00.124]of like horticultural crops
[00:48:01.440]grown in a more traditional system
[00:48:03.810]versus the amount of water used there
[00:48:05.790]versus what the hydroponic system uses.
[00:48:08.010]Can you talk about that a little bit?
[00:48:09.240]Well, yeah.
[00:48:10.073]So when you find it,
[00:48:11.190]it's a little bit all over the board,
[00:48:12.630]but in general it's somewhere
[00:48:13.860]between 90 to 96% more efficient
[00:48:16.890]than traditional production systems.
[00:48:18.690]Especially when we moved into the closed system.
[00:48:21.150]That's why I wanna separate
[00:48:23.560]or to explain that.
[00:48:25.050]That we have an open system and closed
[00:48:27.531]and a good share of the people that have closed systems
[00:48:31.350]in a lot of these countries are using that
[00:48:33.000]because water is so precious.
[00:48:35.040]But when I'm working with individuals,
[00:48:37.170]I want them to start with the open system
[00:48:39.720]so they can get comfortable with how to handle it.
[00:48:41.357]'Cause once we close it, now we're having
[00:48:44.130]to interpret information
[00:48:47.040]and apply it.
[00:48:48.690]What else did you ask regarding that?
[00:48:52.427]Oh, okay.
[00:48:56.490]Oh, I know there was a thought when you were talking.
[00:48:59.010]So one thing I did do last semester
[00:49:01.230]because I was thinking I wanted to tell a story.
[00:49:03.570]I presented the Urban Foods Conference in Kansas City
[00:49:06.480]a couple years ago and I hope to speak in Ohio.
[00:49:08.886]I was concerned about the food value,
[00:49:12.120]so what the quality is of it.
[00:49:14.670]And when I had the analysis done on it,
[00:49:17.430]as anyone might guess
[00:49:18.930]that it's more diluted in the hydroponic plants
[00:49:21.300]because we have much more water in it.
[00:49:24.090]So there's a story there,
[00:49:25.800]you still are getting healthy food,
[00:49:29.010]you're getting more bulk,
[00:49:30.510]which would help on like my waistline
[00:49:33.300]if I would eat more bulk, right?
[00:49:34.920]And we could still get the nutrients.
[00:49:36.150]So it's kind of a balanced diet thing,
[00:49:38.310]you can't just live on hydroponic glasses.
[00:49:40.740]Yeah, thank you Stacy. It was very good presentation.
[00:49:44.207]And I also like your idea
[00:49:45.390]to put your little hydroponic system outside
[00:49:47.730]so people can see.
[00:49:48.810]And this is something really great
[00:49:50.760]and thanks for all the work you do.
[00:49:52.560]Oh yeah.
[00:49:53.507]I was in Israel last year
[00:49:55.560]and they do a lot of hydroponic production
[00:49:57.990]in greenhouse conditions.
[00:50:00.212]And something different that I have seen
[00:50:02.310]is they are also using solar panel.
[00:50:04.521]Yes.
[00:50:06.407]To put electric energy into that.
[00:50:08.520]So they don't need to rely on electricity,
[00:50:10.710]but they were just using solar energy.
[00:50:14.088]So yeah.
[00:50:14.921]Is there any opportunity in Nebraska
[00:50:16.650]or we don't have enough solar?
[00:50:18.900]No, and you have a great point there.
[00:50:21.780]Surprisingly during the Christmas period,
[00:50:23.670]a Ag tech firm contacted me
[00:50:25.800]and I met with them virtually.
[00:50:28.650]They have innovated a solar collector
[00:50:32.580]that can be integrated into our shade cloth mechanisms
[00:50:36.810]in the greenhouses.
[00:50:38.817]So my area expertise is greenhouse management.
[00:50:43.380]And a challenge we have is,
[00:50:44.880]the way the greenhouses were designed,
[00:50:46.530]which are all these on campus,
[00:50:48.570]is they have huge demands on energy.
[00:50:52.080]If you've ever traveled
[00:50:53.310]and seen these new hydroponic operations,
[00:50:54.960]you'll see 20 foot high gutters
[00:50:58.140]and the roofs open.
[00:50:59.940]And that's specifically
[00:51:01.170]because anybody that's from a farm, remembers silos.
[00:51:05.010]And when a tall silo is empty,
[00:51:06.810]it creates a vacuum or a vortex up through there.
[00:51:09.870]So these new structures, when you look at 'em,
[00:51:12.510]some of 'em don't have any exhaust bands whatsoever.
[00:51:16.557]So, getting back to your question is
[00:51:17.997]the power demands are greatly being reduced.
[00:51:21.600]That's when we can start using solar equipment
[00:51:25.170]because any electrical power that's continuous duty
[00:51:29.597]draws a terrible amount.
[00:51:32.040]Now the company I was talking with in California
[00:51:35.880]and I've connected 'em to, we have a controlled environment
[00:51:39.510]group and it's out of Ohio State University.
[00:51:43.170]So I kind of connected those two
[00:51:45.000]because they kind of can connect a little bit better.
[00:51:47.370]But yes, we're looking at how solar can weave in
[00:51:50.220]and Nebraska is like very sunny, so
[00:51:53.730]it's a great opportunity.
[00:51:55.320]I did explore solar 'cause I had my own greenhouse business
[00:51:58.680]and looked into solar and the best approach
[00:52:01.080]is to do what they call the bidirectional metering.
[00:52:04.920]So that has revolutionized since I had my business
[00:52:08.070]because you used to not be able
[00:52:09.090]to use a bidirectional meter.
[00:52:10.590]And what that means is rather than you banking
[00:52:13.110]your electricity, if you generate electricity,
[00:52:14.940]it has to go into the power grid.
[00:52:16.590]So the federal government has made that required
[00:52:19.590]that power companies have to accept it
[00:52:21.570]and by having a bidirectional grid
[00:52:23.520]that you're putting the power into the system
[00:52:25.410]and then you draw out of it when you need.
[00:52:27.300]So we have a lot of advancements in place.
[00:52:30.720]Okay, thank you. Great question.
[00:52:33.850]Yeah.
[00:52:37.813]I was just curious if there's any more
[00:52:40.590]funding or money coming from the federal government
[00:52:42.720]through the inflation reduction or the new farm bill
[00:52:45.270]for these systems to be built.
[00:52:48.120]So our department just went through the APR recently
[00:52:52.350]and we were meeting with a group on the side
[00:52:55.650]and the federal government's eyes are open.
[00:53:01.230]They realize that to meet the needs of the future,
[00:53:04.290]we do have to start looking at that.
[00:53:06.810]And I had been in Washington
[00:53:08.108]a couple years before Covid hit
[00:53:10.950]and I was in the engineering side.
[00:53:15.030]And it's very interesting to hear what is down the pike.
[00:53:18.953]So the government is starting to roll out grant funds
[00:53:23.130]for research in this area
[00:53:24.540]and it's primarily gonna be remote sensing it's robotics
[00:53:28.504]and anything we can do to improve
[00:53:33.480]our structural coverings and whatnot,
[00:53:35.340]making more energy efficient.
[00:53:36.780]So yes, and I brought that up in the APR.
[00:53:40.140]We have got to get some people on staff
[00:53:42.480]and I don't see us as silos.
[00:53:44.760]We have to be collaborators.
[00:53:47.490]I work with engineering,
[00:53:48.810]bio systems engineering on some other things
[00:53:50.910]and we just have some great opportunities
[00:53:53.760]to do this area. Yep.
[00:53:56.490]Yeah, I was just, you've mentioned
[00:53:58.050]the grow down plugs in the plastic
[00:53:59.940]and I just, you know,
[00:54:01.030]a lot of recent articles about microplastics in our food,
[00:54:03.990]in our water and- Sure.
[00:54:04.950]If you have any kind of general,
[00:54:06.270]there's a lot of plastic in everything
[00:54:08.230]associated with this.
[00:54:09.540]I gave a presentation
[00:54:10.770]at Nebraska Sustainable Ag Society
[00:54:12.390]and of course you know, that they throw darts at you,
[00:54:14.910]and I had already told the colleague
[00:54:17.040]that went with me that I said,
[00:54:18.187]"We're gonna be the devil in the room."
[00:54:19.830]So that's a great question because it is of concern.
[00:54:24.240]I have done inquiries on it
[00:54:26.880]and PVC is used for all of our water distribution.
[00:54:32.530]So that is an area of current exploration.
[00:54:36.090]They do not feel that it is a problem.
[00:54:38.580]We've, you know, it's been used for a long time,
[00:54:41.070]but it is something to be really aware of.
[00:54:43.890]The other thing is a plant scientist might know this better,
[00:54:47.610]but certain plants tend to hyper extract
[00:54:51.660]certain elements more than others.
[00:54:54.840]And so now we're stepping out of my comfort zone.
[00:54:58.768]But I have worked here long enough
[00:54:59.790]and worked with Dr. Gerald Horst a number of years ago
[00:55:03.450]and he worked with mustard in harvesting lead
[00:55:07.980]in contaminated soils.
[00:55:09.870]When you find that some plants are really great
[00:55:12.810]at harvesting some of these contaminants.
[00:55:15.450]So then that gets back to us as humans.
[00:55:17.880]The idiots that would eat plants
[00:55:20.520]that were heavy in lead, pretty much died out.
[00:55:22.830]So I think we probably,
[00:55:24.930]I'm hoping that the talent in our room
[00:55:27.540]right and go to the grocery store
[00:55:28.860]that we have decided we have learned behavior
[00:55:32.550]of what food is safe and not.
[00:55:34.620]So we just need to be cognizant.
[00:55:36.180]But yeah, that's a great point.
[00:55:37.530]And it is out there.
[00:55:38.760]People are worried about it.
[00:55:42.321]Alright. Really enjoyed the presentation
[00:55:45.120]and appreciate hearing all the answers,
[00:55:46.920]all the other very interesting questions.
[00:55:48.660]I appreciate that last one there.
[00:55:50.610]You know, one of the things, thinking about
[00:55:51.930]what you presented here with hydroponics
[00:55:53.610]and then like when out
[00:55:54.690]and I just start driving
[00:55:56.040]is food versus feed.
[00:55:58.080]And so I'm just curious, you know,
[00:56:00.840]is of anyone, anywhere, any effort
[00:56:04.864]scaling from food systems
[00:56:07.680]with hydroponics to feed systems for hydroponics?
[00:56:10.380]Yes. And actually your vice chancellor,
[00:56:13.500]Michael Bane, has already traveled to South Dakota.
[00:56:15.960]I was supposed to go with them
[00:56:17.520]to look at the feed systems
[00:56:19.350]that they have up there.
[00:56:20.850]We are aware that for dietary means
[00:56:24.450]for our animal and livestock,
[00:56:27.600]that one way we do it is we use grains
[00:56:29.940]and then we add supplements.
[00:56:32.220]But there is a lot of work in the forage production
[00:56:35.520]using hydroponics.
[00:56:36.870]And it's an interesting production system.
[00:56:38.700]It's almost like doing sprouts if you will.
[00:56:40.980]They grow very short term,
[00:56:42.660]harvest it and it really significantly
[00:56:44.970]improves the feed quality for animals.
[00:56:48.090]I do not see hydroponics for corn.
[00:56:50.640]I've had students, agronomy students
[00:56:52.440]that have been in my class,
[00:56:53.400]I let 'em grow whatever they want.
[00:56:55.080]But we can't have a plant of that size
[00:56:57.780]and not produce very much.
[00:57:00.990]So that's where people that are the geneticists
[00:57:03.930]have to look at ways to modify what we're doing.
[00:57:07.380]The concerning part for me as just an individual,
[00:57:10.080]I'm just gonna throw it out there,
[00:57:12.390]I'm concerned about supporting our fuel industry
[00:57:16.080]using plant-based products, you know.
[00:57:18.420]But it's something we just have to deal with.
[00:57:21.420]But great question.
[00:57:25.341]Have time for more questions.
[00:57:28.230]This may be out of your area,
[00:57:30.852]but with agronomic crops we produce a corn ear
[00:57:34.560]and we have a lot of carbons trapped in stalks
[00:57:38.280]and roots and whatever.
[00:57:40.020]Have folks that are growing vegetables hydroponically
[00:57:43.860]looked at using the roots as well
[00:57:47.040]as the above ground green tissue, whatever.
[00:57:51.120]Is there something that could be
[00:57:52.800]because they're clean from what you do with hydroponic?
[00:57:57.630]And that, I don't know what the percentage
[00:58:00.210]of below ground, below water.
[00:58:02.760]Yeah. Above water is.
[00:58:04.977]But that would seem to be an additional source
[00:58:08.520]of some sort of material.
[00:58:10.800]Maybe harvest 'em, dry 'em, grind 'em,
[00:58:13.203]I don't know, whatever.
[00:58:15.150]Well, so you bring up a good point.
[00:58:17.190]A couple years ago we had a,
[00:58:20.250]what do you wanna call it?
[00:58:21.083]A trade show industry interaction with students.
[00:58:24.210]And I met with somebody that was up here from Colorado
[00:58:27.270]that did potato breeding
[00:58:29.280]and I was like, "Hydroponics potato breeding."
[00:58:32.550]But it makes a ton of sense.
[00:58:33.900]They use aeroponics, which is actually
[00:58:37.080]a humidified chamber
[00:58:40.050]and the potatoes grow in this chamber.
[00:58:42.000]And the reason they did that was they couldn't have
[00:58:44.040]nematodes or any pathogens in their seed material.
[00:58:48.210]I just had students this semester do beans.
[00:58:51.270]I don't stop them from their little projects.
[00:58:53.790]And they actually did pento beans
[00:58:57.480]in aeroponics and I didn't think it would work.
[00:58:59.940]And then I had to really think back,
[00:59:01.530]'cause I used to work with,
[00:59:02.640]anybody know Dermacoin.
[00:59:05.070]I've aged myself, right.
[00:59:07.200]One of the issues we struggle with beans
[00:59:09.120]is they don't like wet feed.
[00:59:10.470]Those of you in farming, they don't like wet roots.
[00:59:14.136]And so then it made a ton of sense to me
[00:59:15.840]seeing what the students were doing
[00:59:16.980]is like why were they so successful?
[00:59:18.780]And then I thought that.
[00:59:20.610]Getting back to your question
[00:59:21.960]is yeah, that fiber could potentially be used
[00:59:24.330]for various things.
[00:59:25.380]But I'm not sure at this time that you know,
[00:59:27.870]there's quite a demand for it.
[00:59:29.490]Yeah, they're just looking at market value.
[00:59:32.190]Impossible burger, it's like
[00:59:33.900]but they need the (indistinct)
[00:59:38.453]to grow soybeans and stuff such
[00:59:42.373]to supply the bud like compound impossible burger.
[00:59:45.386]And they would love to see you with those nodules
[00:59:48.270]on for use with their possible burgers.
[00:59:52.740]Well I think we are out of time.
[00:59:54.450]Thank you very much, Stacy again.
[00:59:56.430]I think it was a very great presentation.
[00:59:57.990]So, yeah. Thank you.
[01:00:00.207](audience applauds)

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Hydroponic Approaches and Value to the Food Supply Chain

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