The Wild

Seeding the Future

I have been fascinated with controlled environment growing for several years. My interest began with the hype around microgreens, and the associated ideas on how food might be produced in cities.

The concept of farm cities – where underused buildings are converted into vertical farms was very appealing to the science fiction fan in me. Not only were the systems fascinating, but implementation would have addressed several key environmental issues we are facing. As a systemic thinker, I was fascinated.

Moving production into cities would have had dual benefits. First it would have made the global supply chain less important. Eat local is a nice idea when you live in a place that has a year round growing season, but for those of us in the extreme latitudes it is not realistic. Secondly, it would have decreased the pressure on our dwindling and over used agricultural lands.

Why do I speak of the idea in the past tense? Personally I am kind of over it. Every time I eat something produced in the nutrient dense soils of my backyard garden I am reminded of what high quality vegetables should taste like. But what if its more than just the flavor. What if its a nutrient deficiency that makes supermarket produce taste so stale and bland.

Digging Deeper

I have found some serious problems with the idea of vertical farming, and controlled environment growing in general. Most of them are related to economics, but one is based on my understanding of nutrition. Economic realities can change rapidly, but our nutritional needs do not.

The problem as i see it is one of deficiency.

For many years I heard wise people talk about the depletion of our soils through over use. It always sounded plausible to me, and as someone who grew up in an agricultural community, I had a basic understanding of what was being done to push production beyond the lands natural capacity.

The idea that not all produce was equally nutritious hounded me through my studies. I learned that economically speaking, plants could produce excellent harvests with only a handful of chemical elements. The big three are nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P) and potassium (K). If we consider all the elements required for food production the list is a minute 17. This includes hydrogen, oxygen and carbon.

By way of example lets consider the average hydroponic nutrient solution. Here is the list:

• Nitrogen:
• Phosphorus
• Potassium
• Calcium
• Magnesium
• Sulfur
• Iron
• Manganese
• Zinc
• Copper
• Boron
• Molybdenum
• Chlorine

In natural undisturbed soils the number of elements present could be as high as 98. What this means is that in a hydroponic fertilizer only about 16% of all possible elements are present.

The difficult part is knowing how these simply nutrient formulas are affecting the health of the plants, and the nutritional profile of the resultant produce. Science, as we have learned, is heavily influenced by economics. What is best for us, has unfortunately taken a backseat to what is profitable. As such, I was not surprised to see little discussion of the nutritional profile and how it is being affected by the application of such selective nutrients.

Macro to Micro – Its Elementary Watson

To find anything in the literature about the difference between food produced using modern fertilization practices and those grown in pristine natural soils I had to look pretty hard. Ultimately I came across a study on the nutritional profiles of different edible mushrooms. In the study one of the species had values for both wild harvested and controlled environment grown specimens.

To determine the nutrient profile several tests were performed, with the final one being incineration and weighing of the resultant ash. What immediately jumped out at me when comparing the results for both the produced and wild harvested samples was the significant different in ash weight. The wild harvested mushroom had a significantly higher weight, with much greater mineral content than the same species grown in a controlled environment.

And that my friends, is food for thought.