Exactly two years ago, I visited a greenhouse farm near Riga and saw how cucumbers and tomatoes are grown in ultra-modern greenhouses. Much in this process surprised me.
There is no soil in the greenhouse at all. The "beds" hang at a height of about half a meter so that the workers do not have to bend over to care for the plants.
Instead of earth - this is such basalt wool.
Each root has two tubes of water and nutrients.
The "conveyor" of cultivation is arranged in an interesting way. Tomatoes ripen on the lower branches, when they ripen, they are picked and the branches are cut off. The whole lash is lowered (it is tied to the beams at the top) and the next tomatoes begin to ripen. The length of the stems with cut off branches reaches twenty meters by the end of the cycle, these stems are wound from below.
Each branch with tomatoes is supported by a plastic support so that it does not break under the weight of the bunch. A sticker on one tomato from a bunch is glued while it ripens.
Even the pollination process is automated. Bumblebee nests are in boxes, the exits of which are opened and closed automatically.
On this farm, tomatoes are illuminated with 600-watt sodium lamps and cucumbers with 200-watt LED lamps.
In addition to the top illumination, the cucumbers are illuminated from the side with additional LED lamps.
This is me measuring the spectra of the LED lamps that are used there.
The greenhouse is maintained at the required temperature and carbon dioxide level. The leaves are periodically sprayed with water automatically.
The growing cycle is 4 months (further the lashes become too long and the yield drops). After the end of the cycle, the greenhouse is cleaned and disinfected. New seedlings are bought in Finland (by the way, at two and a half euros apiece).
There is a small shop near the greenhouse (the bulk of it goes to grocery chains, of course). Cucumbers cost 3 euros per kilogram, tomatoes 4.2 euros.
This is what has grown on this "conveyor". :)
And this is me in cucumbers. :)
P.S. I tried both cucumbers and tomatoes straight from the branch. Delicious enough. Not as tasty as ground ones, but also not "plastic", as often happens.
© Alexey Nadyozhin
The main topic of my blog is technology in human life. I write reviews, share experiences, talk about all sorts of interesting things. I also make reports from interesting places and talk about interesting events.
Add me to your friend list here. Remember the short addresses of my blog: Blog1.rf and Blog1rf.ru.
My second project - lamptest.ru. I test LED bulbs and help figure out which ones are good and which are not.