If I were to be honest I attended this Cafe just to fulfill the requirement but, I was pleasantly surprised that I attended because of all the effort that went into the Cafe as well as the topic. At dinner, I noticed the little pamphlets hydroponics that were spread out. As for the presentation, it was clear and the graduate student used every-day words to describe the processes used. I had been interested in hydroponics and I found it extremely cool as to how controlled the growth of the lettuce was. For example, researchers and farmers can easily optimize nutrient mixtures in the water, which would be the same for all the lettuce plants, and the amount of and kind of light that. I found it extremely cool how it was mentioned that the type of lighting can be controlled (turned to red) and red lettuce will turn green. From my limited biology knowledge, I think carotenoids are responsible for the red pigment found in plants while chlorophyll is responsible for the green pigment in plants. The colors we see are the color thats are being reflected (not absorbed) by the plant and, I guess, because red light is being emitted to the red lettuce (which the plant cannot use as that pigment is reflecting it), the green pigment comes into play.

Initially, I thought that hydroponic farming would be costly in terms of physical space that can be used  since my mom had a tiny little garden in our apartment where she would start saplings. I remember there being an entire corner of plants for her to soak and grow. But, this presentation noted that the space can be optimized which is important since due to our growing population, space is becoming limited.