Shipping containers have been redesigned to become housing, offices and even health clinics, but now a startup in Tucson is transforming them into sun-free, soil-free greenhouses. Leaf lettuce from their test system shows they've got dark-green thumbs.
Verdant Earth Technologies has a plan to retrofit standard 20-foot shipping containers into mini farms. Each of their controlled environment agriculture systems -- or CEAs -- is fitted with five shelves, where the plants live. Instead of sitting in soil however, the plants sit in a nutrient-rich solution that also works to irrigate them.
Cofounder and CEO Josh Hottenstein says they're experimenting with different artificial lighting options, including one that uses solar concentrators and fiber optics to distribute light from LEDs. "Plants don't need the full spectrum of light," he says. Solar concentrators allow them to get the right wavelength and direct it. Each containerized growing system has hookups for water and electricity, sort of like an RV. Unlike RVs, though, the system can be set to run for a set period of time, taking advantage of a utility's off-peak hours to even out the electrical load. Because their is no soil, growing a head of lettuce uses just one percent of the amount of water as lettuce grown in an outdoor field. "It's resource-efficient," Hottenstein says of the system. "It's getting the most out of the limited resources you have."
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