MAX
facts
hydroponic news, tips and trivia
Solace Through Hydroponic Gardening
The Fountain House, a working community for people with mental illness in
New York City, has developed a program for its members to grow their own
food using a unique hydroponic growing system. Lee Mandell of Boswyck
Farms set up the hydroponic garden and oversees the operation, which has
proved both therapeutic and healthy for residents.
(Source: www.huffingtonpost.com)
The Perfect Aquaponic Fish
Aquaponics projects are cropping up all over the place,
from Utah and Seattle in the United States, to Dalston, London and Annanside, Scotland. These projects utilize many
different plants and fish although in recent times there
seems to be a leader emerging from the pack of contenders. This fish is the tilapia.
Nuts About Hydro
The Greenearth Project in Savusavu, Fiji has constructed an ingenious hydroponic growing system
of bamboo and coconuts. The system uses coconut
husks (coir) as a growing media, and worm castings
and humus tea as fertilizer.
(Source: www.fijilettuce.com)
Tilapia Facts:
• A cichlid fish found widely in freshwater around
the world
• The third most important species in fish farming behind salmonids and carp
• They grow quickly, breed easily and are exceptionally hardy
• Referred to as “aquatic chicken”
• The US now consumes a whopping 475 million pounds
of tilapia in 2010, four times the amount 10 years ago
It is certainly a worthwhile fish for a wide variety of aquaponics projects, from large scale agriculture to small scale
home-based systems; whether tilapia and chips will ever
replace cod and chips, however, remains questionable.
(Source: http://hydroponicsguide.co.uk) MY
Clean 15 Just as Toxic as Dirty Dozen
The cleanest produce from a consumer perspective—the
Clean 15—are at least as toxic as the Dirty Dozen. The cleanest crop from a producer’s standpoint is actually spinach,
with only 0.4 pounds of pesticide used per acre in California. Spinach is fifth on the Dirty Dozen list. Conversely, the
crops with most intensive pesticide use are sweet potatoes
and mushrooms, with 110.3 pounds per acre and 106.1
pounds per acre, respectively. The average pesticide use intensity for the lists is quite similar: 26.2 pounds per acre for
the Clean 15 and 29.8 pounds per acre for the Dirty Dozen.
(Source: www.treehugger.com)
Photo by Greg Hume
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Maximum Yield USA | August 2011