A common theme among my Rose Scholars experiences seems to be that, from garlic to palm oil to grape vines to flowers in the botanical gardens, I don’t know anything about plants.  I had heard of hydroponics and I knew vaguely what the idea was, but I had no clue how it worked or what a system might look like.  So, I was thrilled to be able to attend Erica Hernandez’ talk where she outlined the major different kinds of hydroponic systems, explained how they work, addressed their pros and cons, and talked about the major advantages and challenge with hydroponics in general.

I did have one major question that I couldn’t quite put my finger on during the talk:  I know it is possible to drown plants.  I know this because I killed three successive succulents last year with overenthusiastic watering.  If too high a moisture content in soil can be enough to murder a plant, then how is it possible to grow a plant just water?  Are there only certain plants that can be grown hydroponically?  Is it just impossible to drown lettuce?

According to the internet, the difference is the oxygen exposure of the roots.  Plants need to take in oxygen through their roots in addition to their leaves, and in soil, they are exposed to plenty of small pockets of air.  If you overwater, these pockets become waterlogged with stagnant water.  The plant doesn’t drown so much as suffocate.  In a hydroponics system though, the water is aerated and constantly refreshed so that the plant can take oxygen from the water.

I’ve heard a whole lot of talk about hydroponics with regard to the looming global food crisis and environmental crisis.  Hydroponics could represent the future of human food production for an exploding population, in that it could be used in establishing indoor farms to grow crops without worrying about space or transportation.  It was also pointed out in the talk that hydroponics operations can run year-round, as the plants are sheltered from cold and bad weather in a carefully temperature-controlled indoors facility.  Many of the more passive systems also require very little labor.  So why are we not growing all of our food with urban hydroponics programs already?

The sticking point, or at least one of them, is apparently the same as with many futuristic solutions: energy.  Careful temperature and environment control mean that it’s difficult for large-scale hydroponics systems to be energy efficient.  This makes them neither cost effective nor environmentally friendly.  There is also the issue of light — you can light a smaller setup with natural sunlight, but this isn’t possible for stacked vertical farming systems (as I’ve heard touted as a solution to saving land space and growing in cities).  In that kind of system, you would have to use artificial light, which only makes the operation even more energy-intensive.  In fact, even if a farm isn’t hydroponic, lighting and environment control would be a problem for any indoor farming venture.  It looks like for now at least, we’ll have to look elsewhere for viable solutions to food production issues.  However, I hope I’ll be around to see what the food production landscape looks like in 50 years, and what kind of role hydroponics plays.

Our conversation with Erica Hernandez from the Cornell Hydroponics research lab was an extremely interesting way to learn about this up and coming agricultural practice that is allowing people all over the world enjoy locally grown crops out of season! It was absolutely fascinating to learn about the several techniques used in hydroponics and how they differ in their results and implementations. I had heard of this technique prior to the cafe but I had never actually known it was used on such a wide scale as it is currently being used. For example, I could not believe we were able to harvest 150 pounds of lettuce that came purely from a single greenhouse at Cornell and was grown within the span of 23 days! This cafe with Erica Hernandez changed the notion that I had of greenhouses and hydroponics from being areas where one could grow enough to hardly provide enough for themselves to something that I now see is competing with large traditional farming practices.

I was particularly interested in the economic aspect of this new method of farming. If made cost effective enough, this will surely grow to be a large staple of local economies in areas where faming was previously restricted to summer seasons only and replace many cities’ reliances on the importation of produce during the winter. This is fascinating as it can create a truly rich agricultural local culture in different cities and towns across the world as smaller greenhouse and hydroponic farms popup in places that could not before. This is a new frontier that provides many exciting possibilities we will surely see develop within the coming decade in terms of how and where we eat from.

Among the plethora of issues plaguing the world right now is hunger. With the global population continuing to rise, it becomes a bigger challenge every day to make sure everyone is fed. This is made even more difficult when compounded with the fact that global warming may be restricting the amount of food that can be produced compared to years previous. So we as a species are forced to find new and more effective ways to make food. Hydroponics is one of those ways. Put simply, hydroponics is where plants are grown with no soil, just water. There are various ways this is done, but the basic concept is the water contains all the minerals needed for the plant and the roots are allowed to absorb this water. The three main methods discussed in this Café are where the roots are submerged in still water, water is constantly run over the roots, and the water is sprayed on the roots.

Each of these techniques have their own pros and cons, but one thing they all have in common is the lack of a need for soil. Even if we manage to completely optimize all farming on the planet, we are still limited by the amount of land available to use. This is why hydroponics can have such a large impact. Imagine being able to grow vegetable in the middle of a desert city, or an arctic research base all year round. It would greatly impact how much food the world can produce and possibly be a step towards decreasing world hunger.

Last week’s Rose Cafe was on hydroponics and specifically detailed hydroponic production in the greenhouses at Cornell. I went into this cafe with no knowledge of hydroponics and very little about agriculture as a whole. I thought that it was extremely interesting to learn about the alternative ways people cultivate plants beyond simply planting them in soil. We learned about the different techniques in hydroponics, such as deep water culture, and the amounts of water, nutrients, air and the general setup that differentiates each. The use of hydroponics is also specifically promising because it can bypass some of the problems found in traditional agriculture, such as dealing with extreme weather and problematic insects.

The research done at Cornell about hydroponics works  to determine the best conditions for growing different plants hydroponically. The graduate student presenting at the cafe mentioned that her research centers upon the type of lighting that hydroponic plants are exposed to. She studies the effects of normal yellow light as well as that of LED lights, which can be different colors, in this case, purple. Her talk inspired me to branch out and learn more about the varied fields researched at Cornell. Plus, now I really want to see hydroponics in action at the greenhouses!

Last Wednesday I attended a Rose Cafe where the speaker, Ph. D. student Erica Hernandez, summarized various methods for growing produce through hydroponics as well as their strengths and weaknesses. I think that I found her presentation especially interesting because the lettuce grown hydroponically was included on the menu for that day’s Rose House dinner. Beyond seeing the photos of the lettuce growing, I also was able to relate some of her explanations of the light influence on plant growth and development to the basic, related topics discussed in my intro comparative physiology courses. As someone more interested and knowledgeable of animal, namely human, systems, it was nice to have an elementary prior understanding of what she was talking about.

Last week, I attended a talk about hydroponics, specifically about the vast amount of hydroponic research that is going on here at Cornell. Sadly, I was not able to taste the hydroponically grown lettuce, but I will take everyone’s word that it was excellent.

Before this Rose Cafe, I had only heard of the term hydroponics once, and it was in my AP Environment Science Course back in high school. We had briefly discussed it as a new technology for growing certain crops which could be seen as more environmentally-friendly considering it does not contribute to soil erosion of farmland. The Rose Cafe was structured extremely well, and I think that the visuals in the presentation helped me learn about the different methods that hydroponically grown crops can be made. I enjoyed the question-answer session that we had because it brought up different perspectives that I had never even thought about before.

In our world today, we face many issues involving deforestation and the degradation of our soils and cropland as a result of over-farming. Furthermore, the world’s population is continuously growing, and we are constantly trying to meet this demand for food. As a result, food shortages are inevitable. I believe that hydroponics could be the technology of the future. It does not require soil, so there would not be the issues of soil erosion. Furthermore, you do not need to constantly be finding new plots of land because hydroponics only requires water, which can be changed each time a new set of plants is grown. Overall, what I took away from the presentation is that I think that hydroponics is a good environmentally friendly technology, but I would like to learn more about how efficient it is economically as well.

Last week I went to a lecture on hydroponics.  I have never been a science kid: I dreaded taking my science requirements here at Cornell and genuinely do not understand science.  However, I was really fascinated by this Rose Cafe and found hydroponics incredibly interesting.  I also want to say that I ate the salad at house dinner and it was incredibly tasty with the hydroponically grown lettuce.  When we think of growing food, none of us would ever think of growing food in a lab, and this subject was something I had heard about in passing but had never thought about.  I didn’t realize that there are more types of hydroponics than just one, depending on the plant.  Some plants need to have their roots get a good amount of air and the roots cannot be completely submerged in water, so for the different types of hydroponics, the air parcels are placed in different places and the water hits the plants differently (submerged, misted, tilted, etc.).

There was one question I had on hydroponics, however.  Is the increase in production cost worth the benefits of hydroponics?  I wouldn’t call myself an expert on hydroponics, so I can’t answer this question, but I am excited to see where the future of hydroponics leads us.

For me, the most important part of a salad is the lettuce. After all, it is the ingredient that takes up most of the dish. However, in retrospect, my knowledge of lettuce is nearly non-existent. I simply eat the lettuce and make a judgement after the fact. Additionally, I really had no knowledge of how lettuce is grown/developed or where lettuce comes from. With this said, I was very excited, albeit a bit nervous, to learn about what may be one of the most consumed foods in the world.

The lecture on lettuce — and more importantly — hydroponics was very fascinating. I had no idea that Cornell actually utilized hydroponic technology. I was also unaware of the large interest in hydroponics from undergraduate students. Fortunately, there is a course offered next semester where undergrads can learn about hydroponics and all complimentary concepts. It was great to see enthusiasm about this subject from both a PH.d student as well as an undergraduate student.

Now, I won’t just eat a salad in the local dining hall. But rather examine it and understand the story behind it. With this newfound knowledge, I will be sure to share it with my friends, family, and anyone willing to learn more!

This was my first Rose Cafe in the apartment, and the environment is such a nice place to encourage open communication and learning. The lecture itself was very interesting as I was never even aware about the advanced practices of Cornell in our agriculture and dining sectors. It was truly interesting to see how it all works and learn the importance and intricate workings of hydroponic plants, and I actually hope to be able to go over to the greenhouses one to day to see it all in person.

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.

This week’s rose cafe featured an interesting agriculture technique called hydroponics. The method is widely used in Japan, but in the US, it is less known. This is most likely due to the heavy cost structure of hydroponics which requires indoor space, water, and filter systems for nutrients. In addition, the plants must be carefully monitored to ensure that all of its needs are being met inside of the greenhouse. A huge positive of this form of agriculture is the fact that they are pesticide free since they are grown inside.

The taste difference between hydroponics and regular grown plants is subtle. But, nonetheless, I don’t think it tasted that great. I think taste will be a factor that will affect the price of hydroponic plants in the future. This week’s house dinner actually featured hydroponics grown, Cornell based lettuce in the salad and herb oil. The lettuce from the salad was grown in Greenhouse 130 light and the system that was used is the widely used system known as the Pond System.

The lettuce and other hydroponics based systems are being explored by students and faculty members. Specifically, one study is examining two different types of lighting used in the system: high pressure sodium which is the existing fixutre and the LED fixture which relays high specific lights and will predictably, overtake the high pressure sodium lighting for its efficiency.

Undergraduates who are interested in the field are encouraged to take Dr. Matson’s Indoor hydroponics class this spring semester. The class will involve lots of hands on experience, research opportunities, and interesting applications of hydroponics.

After this cafe, I am definitely amazed by the innovation in agriculture that is happening in this era. This cafe also inspired me to schedule a tour of the greenhouse at Cornell. There are tulips and poinsettias which could definitely be a plus for your Instagram!

Once again, this week in Rose Cafe, I was inspired to learn something that I had no prior knowledge about. I had no idea that LED lights could be used to grow hydroponic vegetables, much less that the colors of the lights mattered. Hydroponics seems to be the future of plant growth, using less time, space, and labor to grow crops than the traditional way with soil and enabling harvest all year round. I am amazed that vegetables grown by this method are more nutritious, though implementing the system can be costly. But to me, the benefits of hydroponics far outweigh the costs, so I am excited to see it become more popular in the future.

Earlier this week I attended the Cafe on Hydroponics. I had never really heard of hydroponics before, but what surprised me the most was the level of control one can get by growing plants in hydroponic environments instead of regular greenhouse pots. Since all of the nutrients exclusively come from the water that the plants are grown it, it’s really easy to fine tune that nutrient mixture for optimum results.

Even though commercial hydroponics are mostly just popular in Japan as of now, they could become a lot more widespread in the coming years. One of the advantages of hydroponics is that you can create structures that house the plants with as little space usage as possible: it was mentioned that so-called “vertical farming” is a potential technique whereby a greenhouse stacks a bunch of arrays of plants on top of each other. Even though this requires a lot of energy with pumps, lights, climate control, etc. the space savings that one could get by doing this “stacking” could potentially make this a more efficient way to farm in the future.

This past Wednesday, I attended the Rose Cafe on hydroponics. I had vaguely heard of hydroponics before the talk, but I did not really know anything about it. As a result, I found the talk to be extremely informative. There are apparently different types of hydroponic systems, each with their own pros and cons. In addition, there are different ways to ensure that the plants get the light that they need. There is, of course, natural lighting, but that is often not enough when in a greenhouse. The most common artificial lighting is high-pressure sodium lighting. However, this will probably–like most other lighting–be replaced with LED lighting. Since LED lights come in many different colors, it is possible to experiment with how the plants grow in different color lights. For instance, it was mentioned in the talk that red lettuce will be green if grown under exclusively red light. This makes me wonder if it is possible to change other aspects of plants just by changing the color of the light used to grow them.

This week, we were privileged to have staff from a hydroponics lab on campus come and speak to us at the Rose Cafe. First, however, I must comment on how fresh the hydroponic lettuce was! I could seriously taste a difference between the hydroponic crop and the soil crop. This pleasant discrepancy was essentially explained by our guest speakers. The PowerPoint presented displayed the various hydroponic systems using basic terminology understandable to all, even those with absolutely no prior exposure to the field (me). Nonetheless, the systems do make a lot of sense. Constant exposure to water and air is definitely a different, and perhaps even better, approach than soil. Later, we talked about the effect different types of LED lights have on the plant. Prior to this week’s Rose cafe, I had no idea that this field had so much breath and nuance! Lastly, we were able to view a few slides featuring pictures of crops in Japanese grocery stores that were grown hydroponically. I will definitely be on the look-out for more hydroponically grown crops, and cannot wait to taste more!