Join us on Tuesday, March 12, and explore additional tools for expanding farm revenue through vertical farming innovations. Virginia Tech and Virginia Cooperative Extension invite you to register at http://bit.ly/Register-2019-Vertical-Farming for the 2019 Virginia Innovation in Greenhouse and Vertical Farming Conference Tuesday, March 12, 2019 Virginia Farm Bureau 12580 West Creek Parkway; Richmond, Virginia Keynote Speaker Neil Mattson, Ph.D., Cornell University Special Guest Speaker Chris Higgins, Hort Americas In addition, you will hear from: Jerry Conner, Four Oaks Farms Travis Higginbothan, Fluence Bioengineering John McMahon, Schulyer Greens Ryan Pierce, Fresh Impact Farms Join academic and industry experts in exploring the…
Author: urbanagnews
Center for Food Safety Files Petition with USDA to Revoke Existing Organic Certification for Nearly All Microgreens and Significant Volumes of Berries, Tomatoes and Leafy Greens BY THE COALITION FOR SUSTAINABLE ORGANICS The Center for Produce Safety delivered a petition to the U.S. Department of Agriculture calling for the USDA to Issue new regulations prohibiting organic certification of hydroponic agricultural production based on the National Organic Standards Board’s April 29, 2010 recommendation on Production Standards for Terrestrial Plants in Containers and Enclosures. Specifically, amend 7 C.F.R. 205.105, Allowed and prohibited substances, methods, and ingredients in organic production and handling, to…
The conference where technology meets agriculture, the Silicon Valley meets the Silicon Prairie, and innovation comes back to the farm. We aspire to apply the Silicon Valley model to bring together promising ideas and leverage agricultural applications to build great new companies, exchange ideas and generate interest in this promising industry. Don’t miss an incredible day of panel discussions, breakout sessions, technology demos, startup pitches, and industry updates. Our 500+ attendees find partners, investors, and customers every year.
German AgTech startup Farmee teams up with leading Dutch consulting company Delphy to support farmers remotely German AgTech startup Farmee and well-known Dutch crop consulting company Delphy just launched the online platform Farmee Experts (https://experts.farmee.io). With their service, both partners provide affordable crop consulting services online. Any farmer in the world having an issue with their plants can post a question on the Farmee Experts website. Within 24 hours, the question is answered remotely by Delphy’s experienced agronomists. Farmers just have to pay for this troubleshooting without any long-term costs. All questions and answers are private and cannot be seen…
Moleaer Inc., the leading manufacturer of industrial-scale nanobubble generators, announces the addition of Michiel de Jong as Director of Business Development of Europe & Horticulture effective January 1, 2019. Michiel de Jong has worked the past years as Sales Manager for Oreon, a leading horticulture LED manufacturer. In his role he has built an extensive network around the world in horticulture and has propelled Oreon’s current commercial success. “We are thrilled to have someone with Michiel’s experience join our organization,” said Nick Dyner, Chief Executive Officer of Moleaer. “Michiel will help us develop the European horticulture market, which is critical to Moleaer’s…
Our friends at Indoor Ag-Con like to trial new approaches at their events; they’ve featured everything from specially commissioned indoor ag adult coloring books to a series of industry white papers. One of their more frequent requests of late has been for a space for participants to share their own ideas with fellow indoor ag enthusiasts. So, to this end, they’re trialing unconferencing at their upcoming Indoor Ag-Con Asia event in Singapore for the first time. How does it work? They have picked out five discussion topics – from food safety to funding a farm – that will be led by…
The University of Arizona’s Controlled Environment Agriculture Center is gearing up for it’s Hydroponic Intensive Workshops that will occur in January 2019. The CEAC’s unique facilities support a quality of learning experience, where knowledge from classroom lectures is immediately applied in the greenhouse. The length and thoroughness of CEAC intensive workshop is unmatched! You’ll be ripe with knowledge and bleeding green by the time you leave. CEAC Intensive Workshops have been around for 10 years. With a database of 100’s of common questions and strategic delivery of content, we will address many of your questions naturally throughout the workshop. In addition,…
Milan Kluko, the Founder of Green Spirit Farms and Harvest Moon Farms, spoke at the Indoor Ag Science Café this month. Green Spirit Farms is one of the oldest indoor farms in the U.S. located in New Buffalo MI with several additional operations in Chicago, Detroit, and Puerto Rico. In his presentation ‘Our Stories – Green Spirit Farms to Harvest Moon Farms’, Milan shares his vision, history, operation data (crops, yield and costs), technological advancement, international outreach projects, and more! This is a powerful testimonial of successful indoor farming. Indoor Ag Science Café is a monthly online forum organized by…
The Indiana Horticultural Congress is an educational meeting designed to meet the needs of fruit, vegetable, wine, organics, and specialty crop growers and marketers in Indiana and surrounding states. Sessions will focus on climate, insect management and pollinators, biostimulants and much more. Speakers include Dr. Annette Wszelaki from Tennessee, Dr. Lori Hoagland from Purdue and Dr. Matt Ruark from Univ. of Wisconsin, and Purdue’s own team of experts. If you are interested, please visit https://www.inhortcongress.org/
Tom Zoellner and Penny McBride, two out of the three members of the Board of Directors for the Association for Vertical Farming (AVF), have resigned with immediate effect. This leaves Christine Zimmermann-Loessl the single remaining member of the Board of Directors. The decision to step down has not been taken lightly and is based on irreconcilable differences within the AVF Board regarding financial management, accountability and managing conflicts of interest. After a long and intense period of internal discussion and concerted attempts to resolve the differences in a constructive manner, no meaningful progress has been achieved. As a consequence, Zoellner…
As a result of his postdoctoral research tenure at NASA Kennedy Space Center, Mickens has published two manuscripts on the effect of light quality on ‘Outredgeous’ red romaine lettuce and “Rubi F1’ red pak choi, a Chinese cabbage. It was found that various combination of colors, or “light recipes” could be used to manipulate plant morphology (shape), yield, and nutrient content of any crop species. It was also discovered that not all plants respond the same to the same recipe, but that each crop has an ideal lighting regime that can be identified, but it all depends on the needs…
The second ‘Indoor Ag Science Café’ of this month had Dr. Cary Mitchell, as a speaker. Funded by NASA and USDA SCRI, Cary has a long research history focusing on energy savings while maximizing crop productivities through his in-depth understanding of plant physiology under controlled environment. In his presentation ‘Lighting Strategies for Energy Savings’ introduced his innovative approach to optimize the lighting environment. Indoor Ag Science Café is a monthly online forum organized by three scientists (Chieri Kubota, Ohio State U; Erik Runkle, Michigan State U; and Cary Mitchell, Purdue U). Please contact kubota.10@osu.edu to join the café.
New DLI maps have been created from an updated database that includes data from 1998 to 2009. Daily light integral (DLI) is the amount of photosynthetically active radiation (PAR) received each day as a function of light intensity and duration. DLI maps display the ambient light delivered daily during each month across the entire United States. The original maps released in 2002 were researched and developed by Jim Faust at Clemson University and Joanne Logan at the University of Tennessee. These researchers developed a series of monthly DLI maps to provide a tool for horticulturists to estimate the potential growth…
Fritz Meier from Gebrüder Meier Gemüsekulturen AG in Dällikon, Switzerland, runs a a horticultural company together with his brother and sister. It’s about 100 hectares of open fields and 10 hectares of greenhouses. They grow cucumber, tomato and eggplant in the warm greenhouse, and in the cold greenhouse there is corn lettuce, radish and for the past year, hydroponic lettuce on mobile systems. They have been working with Codema for the irrigation technology for nine years. When they decided to install a mobile gutter system, they asked Codema for help again. The returns of their new mobile gutter system exceeded…