Hey everyone, this is my first post so please go easy on me.. But I feel the need to chime in since my background has given me a lot of insight into this topic. I also have gotten the opportunity to hang out with Dr. Wayne about a year ago and picked his brain! Like any system everything is super site specific. Controlled environment ag has it's place in the world.. but that being said after getting to manage 9 different systems including but not limited to... (~Organic soil production~ soil-less media with blueberries, raspberries, strawberries, and tomatoes, both organic and not.. NFT for lettuces, leafy greens and basil; and deep water culture aquaponics for growing more lettuce.) I have come to the conclusion that organic biologically managed soil production is n fact the best all around form of production. (Duh!)
Anyway, as far as my bosses were concerned they cared about me making the thing function and profitable. I was more interested in comparing all the different styles of production to monitor: Inputs, efficiency, sustainability, and of course quality.
Now a days we are doing a lot to find alternatives to the toxic and unsustainable materials used for this stuff so keep demanding it!!
Say you purchase land and want to make a profit from the produce you grow sooner rather than later.. of course you want to get certified organic to better market your product. Some people don't want to wait the 4 years it might take for the certification program to acknowledge your property as compliant. However if you can grow in containers organically, you can label that fruit organic and still be making money while you wait to be able to convert the soil under your pots. Once the necessary time frame passes, the potted berry bushes can then be moved to covert the next plot or sold! In the mean time, you can be inoculating the soil-less media with a fungal dominated compost tea and ensuring the environment helps the desired microbes to thrive. (any excess leachates will hopefully contain beneficial microbes and nutrients and be slightly amending the ground below the whole time) These biological populations, if maintained properly will manage the soil-less media pH for you and help convert isolulable nutrients to readily available food for the plant.
That's just one example of all the cool stuff we can do with NON-soil production...
There is little understanding still... and most of the focus is going towards making the systems more automated and computer monitored instead of enhancing human interaction and stewardship for the microbial population. If anyone wants to sponsor me to continue doing some serious research I would gladly do so hehe.
Happy Learning and Growing!
-Cyndie
