Underwater Greenhouse

[trichcycler]

There Are Secret Underwater Gardens Off The Coast Of Italy Where Diver-Farmers Are Growing Vegetables
Nemo's Garden is experimenting with an entirely new—and surprisingly successful—type of agriculture.


A greenhouse underwater sounds both implausible and impractical. But why not? The temperature doesn't fluctuate, so there's no frost. Aphids can't get anywhere near the plants, the pumped-in atmosphere is CO2-rich. And the plants — apparently—love it.

The Orto di Nemo project—Nemo's Garden, as it's called in English—resides 30 feet under the waves, off the Noli Coast in in Italy. Head "gardener" Sergio Gabriel and team have tethered bubbles to the ocean floor and filled them with air. These open-based bubbles work like diving bells, and look like something straight out of a Jules Verne novel. A shelf runs around the inside of the dome, and on that shelf sit plant pots. Currently Gabriel, president of the Ocean Reef Group, is growing basil, strawberries and lettuce, just like you'd grow it on your kitchen window-ledge.

Unlike your basil plants, though, these were sealed to protect them from the seawater, before being taken to their watery homes by divers. The greenhouses enjoy a placid environment, so they could work off the coast of even the most arid of lands, and being underwater actually brings other advantages. For instance, the open base of the bell means that there is a large water surface at the bottom of the bubble, and natural evaporation keeps the garden's environment humid.

That's not to say that these biospheres are isolated from the surrounding ocean. Gabriel says that crabs have already climbed up the tether ropes and inside the greenhouses to take a look round, and jellyfish like to shelter underneath. Combined with the herbs in the garden, that sounds like a delicious combination. You can even keep an eye out for visitors on the live video feeds.

The plants thrive because of high carbon-dioxide levels, which they love. In fact, these undersea plants grow much faster than they would up on dry land. Sergio's son Luca Gamberini told the Washington Post that "We completely lost the crops four times, but it didn't really matter because we have such great growth rates."

Individual biospheres tended by professional divers are clearly not a practical way to farm food, but the design could be scaled up. Accidents could prove to be catastrophic, with a toxic environment pressing in on the walls at all times, but no more catastrophic than losing entire harvests to frosts or drought

secure structure?? 

[pic book]

hohoho, my next grow is going to be in a lake.

[Indigro]

I looked it up, and guess it really depends on the clarity of the water, but at 30' one estimate has only about 22% of the sunlight penetrating and that most of the orange spectrum is gone well before that. Would think it depeneds on the strain as to which can grow down there.

 

You'd have to pump down air, nutes, fresh water, and still manage to remove moisture from the air down there, assuming the light is of proper quality... And get human divers down... Odd experiment, not what i would think as less resource intense or sustainable. And total crop failure of 4/5 trials...?

 

Odd investment of time and money considering we could feed all of the world w current production levels, and could even seriously decrease production and still feed every single human on the planet... If we wanted to. We could go back to localized farming, employ many local people, get much more sustainable and ween ourselves off of mass monocrop production methods with all of the associated chems and undesirables... And still feed every single person in the world, just better and healthier.

[trichcycler]

grants are available for the darnedest things.

[t-pain]

You could float the balloons to the surface to get more light

[trichcycler]

thought I saw a light fixture in one picture. I also see solar panels on the surface of the water in some vids.

its a kickstarter program too, source of some funding.

 

http://news.discovery.com/tech/biotechnology/octopuss-garden-underwater-greenhouses-thrive-150709.htm

[zaphod]

thought I saw a light fixture in one picture. I also see solar panels on the surface of the water in some vids.

its a kickstarter program too, source of some funding.

 

http://news.discovery.com/tech/biotechnology/octopuss-garden-underwater-greenhouses-thrive-150709.htm

 

 I've thought about water cooled lights, but this underwater bell is going to be way to humid for big buds.

[trichcycler]

I've seen water cooled light fixture jackets in operation on youtube. A whole system of undercurrent and light jackets was plumbed to a chiller.

It seemed like a sure fire way for me to pop hot bulbs with hissing leaks and scared me.  but it sure looked cool and sound.

[Highlander]

I've seen water cooled light fixture jackets in operation on youtube. A whole system of undercurrent and light jackets was plumbed to a chiller.

It seemed like a sure fire way for me to pop hot bulbs with hissing leaks and scared me.  but it sure looked cool and sound.

I ran water-cooled lights for a few years. They worked great. I even thought I might loop the cooling water into a subfloor hydronic heating system to heat the house. I was running these lights with no issue, using two 55 gallon barrels of water but I got lazy and didn't check the water level in the barrels. Turns out, the water evaporated and then barrels got almost dry and the water didn't circulate anymore. I discovered the problem the morning I was leaving for a five-day vacation. That morning, I found that the double-walled glass tubes shattered, and along with them, the bulbs. So I quickly swapped in my old air-cooled hoods and then caught my plane.

 

I have about 8 water-cooled fixtures that I could fix for about $100 each. Water cooled lights are a great option for a handy person who is ready to keep up with the issues.