20 most recent innovations in agriculture

Self Harvesting Beehive

Wed, 18 Feb 2015 00:00:00 Z

Ever since people first learned the consequences of Colony Collapse Disorder, a number of researchers have been attempting to find new ways to extract honey from bee hives without disturbing the bees. If you stop to think about it, the process of honey extraction can be very traumatic for the bee colonies, but what else can be done to collect the honey? The process of harvesting honey has not evolved much over the years… until now.

One group of honey enthusiasts has made incredible headway by introducing a new honey extracting invention called Flow Hive. The soon-to-be-released product is described as “… artificial honeycomb for use in a beehive, which enables honey to be removed from the honeycomb without removing the honeycomb from the hive.” The process has been patented by Flow™, and while there are a lot of unanswered questions at this time, the contraption has captured the imagination of the beekeeper industry and honey bee enthusiasts.

Through a Kickstarter campaign (soon to be launched), the inventors hope to inspire a new generation of beekeepers who will find that harvesting honey is easier, more gratifying, good for the planet, and not as harmful to the bees.

While this is not a regional company, the effects from such an invention could help to impact every corner of the planet. Reading many of the comments online, there are a lot of enthusiasts who are waiting to get their hands on this new invention. At the same time, there are also plenty of skeptics. Hopefully, if all goes according to plan, more Buffalonians will join the ranks of beekeepers, along with a few of the diehards that are already doing their part in Buffalo.

You can follow the progress of Flow Hive on Facebook. Or you can conduct a search on Kickstarter once the campaign goes live on February 23.

Aqualibrium uses fish to grow plants, and plants to grow fish

Mon, 28 Oct 2013 00:00:00 Z

The Aqualibrium is an aquaponics kit, that combines fish and plants. The fish live in an enclosure in the bottom of the system, where they poop on a regular basis. A pump continuously carries that waste-laden water up into the top section, where it serves as a fertilizer for the plants. The plants' growing medium mechanically filters particles out of the water, while bacteria living in that medium help neutralize accumulated ammonia and other fish-unfriendly nasties. As a result, when the water flows back down to the fish from the biofilter, it's been cleaned up.

While the plants could just be ornamental, the idea is that people would use the systems to grow things they could eat, like vegetables and herbs. In large-scale aquaponics operations, the fish can be eaten, too.

The Aqualibrium is modular (identical stackable sections hold the fish and the plants) and looks quite chic and futuristic – you could imagine Blade Runner's Rick Deckard grabbing a quick salad from one, before heading off to shoot some wayward replicants. This look is entirely intentional, as the makers state that it was "inspired by the designs of futurist Jacque Fresco."

Grow Plants Without Watering And Fertilizing

Thu, 05 Sep 2013 00:00:00 Z

Instead of growing in soil, the Click & Grow system relies on a nanomaterial growth medium designed to provide the optimum amount of nutrients, water and air to the plant roots. Whereas watering causes nutrients to be flushed out of the soil in traditional pot plants, the Click & Grow growth material is embedded throughout with nanocapsules that provide oxygen and nutrients. Water is also absorbed evenly throughout the growth medium.

Crops Take Nitrogen From The Air

Tue, 27 Aug 2013 00:00:00 Z

A potentially “world-changing” technology has been developed by researchers at the University of Nottingham — a means of enabling any type of crop to take nitrogen from the air. In other words, an effective means of phasing out expensive and environmentally damaging nitrogen fertilizers.

Professor Edward Cocking, Director of The University of Nottingham’s Centre for Crop Nitrogen Fixation, has developed a unique method of putting nitrogen-fixing bacteria into the cells of plant roots. His major breakthrough came when he found a specific strain of nitrogen-fixing bacteria in sugar-cane which he discovered could intracellularly colonize all major crop plants. This ground-breaking development potentially provides every cell in the plant with the ability to fix atmospheric nitrogen. The implications for agriculture are enormous as this new technology can provide much of the plant’s nitrogen needs.

Highly Absorbent Polymer

Thu, 22 Aug 2013 00:00:00 Z

The most talented creative minds can draw connections between seemingly unrelated things—like diapers and a field of crops--in order to produce new solutions. That's how Mexican chemical engineer Sergio Jesus Vaelasco created Solid Rain, a highly absorbent polymer scientifically known as potassium polyacrylate. Originally intended to make diapers more absorbent, Vaelasco's blend can soak up water to about 500 times its size, and it looks like large salt crystals:

For landscape architects and environments designers it could mean more creative options for plants in drought-heavy areas. Solid Rain could ensure that green landscapes exist and thrive even in water-scarce urban areas, and other places where greenery has a tougher time surviving and so is conspicuously missing.

Non-explosive chemical fertilizer

Thu, 02 May 2013 00:00:00 Z

The use of ammonium nitrate in IEDs is so widespread that the Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization (JIEDDO) last year put out a call for ideas on ways to neutralize ammonium nitrate as an IED explosive. It’s a difficult task because its legal use is so common. Even though ammonium nitrate fertilizer is illegal in Afghanistan for example, it is easily sourced from neighboring Pakistan, where agriculture accounts for a quarter of the country’s gross domestic product.

Knowing that in ammonium nitrate the ammonium ion is weakly attracted to the nitrate ion, and that the right chemical reaction can pull them apart, researchers decided to look for a compound they would rather cling to that could be added to the ammonium nitrate. They tried several materials, including iron sulfate, a readily available compound discarded by the ton from steel foundries.

If someone attempts to alter the ammonium nitrate/iron sulfate mixture to make it detonable by mixing it with fuel, the iron ion takes the nitrate ion and the ammonium ion takes the sulfate ion. The result is that the iron sulfate becomes iron nitrate and the ammonium nitrate becomes ammonium sulfate, neither of which is detonable.

But the new compound wouldn’t be much use if it weren’t also a good fertilizer. Thankfully, it is. In fact, the addition of iron sulfate to the mix makes the new fertilizer even better than ammonium nitrate for alkaline soils.

Human pee, the key to better compost

Tue, 23 Apr 2013 00:00:00 Z

People have been using manure as fertilizer for millennia. But scientists now believe they can turn human urine into liquid gold—as composting material. The premise is simple: Pee is rich in nitrogen, which plants desperately need. Commercial fertilizers boost plant growth and yield by providing abundant nitrogen to the plant’s roots.

Scientist grew sweet peppers (Capsicum annum) in soil that had various combinations of human urine. The plants grown in soil that had a combination of human urine and compost grew the tallest, yielded the most peppers, and had the most total fruit weight per plant.

The scientists say the pee was so effective because of several factors working together. For instance, the mix of compost and urine decreased the amount of nitrogen lost in the soil while making more carbon available to the plants.

Specially-coated cotton collects water from desert fog

Fri, 25 Jan 2013 00:00:00 Z

In arid places where fog occurs overnight, some people utilize so-called “fog harvesters” to acquire fresh water. These are typically pieces of netting that collect fog droplets, which then roll down into a container below. Various researchers have tried to increase the efficiency of these harvesters, such as by making them from a combination of hydrophilic (water-absorbing) and hydrophobic (water-repelling) materials. Now, a team of scientists have done something a little different – they’ve created a cotton-based fog-harvesting material that switches between being entirely hydrophilic and entirely hydrophobic.

The scientists – from The Netherlands’ Eindhoven University of Technology and Hong Kong Polytechnic University – started with ordinary cotton fabric. Ordinarily, plain cotton can only absorb about 18 percent its own weight in airborne water droplets. The team then applied a coating of a polymer known as PNIPAAm.

At temperatures up to 34ºC (93ºF), PNIPAAm has a spongy, hydrophilic structure. This allowed the coated cotton to absorb a whopping 340 percent of its weight in droplets. Once the temperature gets any higher, however, the polymer’s structure “closes up” and becomes hydrophobic. In the case of the treated cotton, this caused the absorbed water to be released in liquid form.

That water was reportedly pure and safe to consume, plus the polymer was able to stand up to repeated cycles of use. Additionally, while traditional fog harvesters rely partially on wind to help shake the collected droplets loose, the new material works even in completely still conditions.

Cotton is already pretty cheap, and the PNIPAAm is likewise said to be fairly inexpensive. The idea is that sheets of the treated cotton could be laid directly over crops (or receptacles, presumably) at night, then left to absorb and release water on their own. It has also been suggested that the material could be used to make water-harvesting tents, or perspiration-wicking athletic clothing.

gardening made easy with the "seed wheel"

Mon, 16 Jul 2012 00:00:00 Z

Daniel Robson ‘Seed Wheel’ is based on a subscription service that takes all the guesswork out of gardening. Specifically tailored to the customer’s location and season, each seed wheel is a customized, modular package of seeds with a minimum of non-recyclable waste.

The seed wheel has perforated lines to allow for multiple planting. When ready to plant, the pod itself can be used as a dibber to push the seeds in, even eliminating the need for gardening tools!

New sensor measure fruit's ripeness

Mon, 07 May 2012 00:00:00 Z

Every year, U.S. supermarkets lose roughly 10 percent of their fruits and vegetables to spoilage, according to the Department of Agriculture. To help combat those losses, MIT chemistry professor Timothy Swager and his students have built a new sensor that could help grocers and food distributors better monitor their produce.

The new sensors, described in the journal Angewandte Chemie, can detect tiny amounts of ethylene, a gas that promotes ripening in plants. Swager envisions the inexpensive sensors attached to cardboard boxes of produce and scanned with a handheld device that would reveal the contents’ ripeness. That way, grocers would know when to put certain items on sale to move them before they get too ripe.

“If we can create equipment that will help grocery stores manage things more precisely, and maybe lower their losses by 30 percent, that would be huge,” says Swager, the John D. MacArthur Professor of Chemistry.

Detecting gases to monitor the food supply is a new area of interest for Swager, whose previous research has focused on sensors to detect explosives or chemical and biological warfare agents.

“Food is something that is really important to create sensors around, and we’re going after food in a broad sense,” Swager says. He is also pursuing monitors that could detect when food becomes moldy or develops bacterial growth, but as his first target, he chose ethylene, a plant hormone that controls ripening.

Plants secrete varying amounts of ethylene throughout their maturation process. For example, bananas will stay green until they release enough ethylene to start the ripening process. Once ripening begins, more ethylene is produced, and the ripening accelerates. If that perfect yellow banana is not eaten at peak ripeness, ethylene will turn it brown and mushy.

Fruit distributors try to slow this process by keeping ethylene levels very low in their warehouses. Such warehouses employ monitors that use gas chromatography or mass spectroscopy, which can separate gases and analyze their composition. Those systems cost around $1,200 each.

“Right now, the only time people monitor ethylene is in these huge facilities, because the equipment’s very expensive,” Swager says.

Detecting ripeness

Funded by the U.S. Army Office of Research through MIT’s Institute for Soldier Nanotechnologies, the MIT team built a sensor consisting of an array of tens of thousands of carbon nanotubes: sheets of carbon atoms rolled into cylinders that act as “superhighways” for electron flow.

To modify the tubes to detect ethylene gas, the researchers added copper atoms, which serve as “speed bumps” to slow the flowing electrons. “Anytime you put something on these nanotubes, you’re making speed bumps, because you’re taking this perfect, pristine system and you’re putting something on it,” Swager says.

Copper atoms slow the electrons a little bit, but when ethylene is present, it binds to the copper atoms and slows the electrons even more. By measuring how much the electrons slow down — a property also known as resistance — the researchers can determine how much ethylene is present.

To make the device even more sensitive, the researchers added tiny beads of polystyrene, which absorbs ethylene and concentrates it near the carbon nanotubes. With their latest version, the researchers can detect concentrations of ethylene as low as 0.5 parts per million. The concentration required for fruit ripening is usually between 0.1 and one part per million.

The researchers tested their sensors on several types of fruit — banana, avocado, apple, pear and orange — and were able to accurately measure their ripeness by detecting how much ethylene the fruits secreted.

Lead author of the paper describing the sensors is Birgit Esser, a postdoc in Swager’s lab. Grad student Jan Schnorr is also an author of the paper.

John Saffell, the technical director at Alphasense, a company that develops sensors, describes the MIT team’s approach as rigorous and focused. “This sensor, if designed and implemented correctly, could significantly reduce the level of fruit spoilage during shipping,” he says.

“At any given time, there are thousands of cargo containers on the seas, transporting fruit and hoping that they arrive at their destination with the correct degree of ripeness,” adds Saffell, who was not involved in this research. “Expensive analytical systems can monitor ethylene generation, but in the cost-sensitive shipping business, they are not economically viable for most of shipped fruit.”

Swager has filed for a patent on the technology and hopes to start a company to commercialize the sensors. In future work, he plans to add a radio-frequency identification (RFID) chip to the sensor so it can communicate wirelessly with a handheld device that would display ethylene levels. The system would be extremely cheap — about 25 cents for the carbon nanotube sensor plus another 75 cents for the RFID chip, Swager estimates.

“This could be done with absolutely dirt-cheap electronics, with almost no power,” he says.

‘Film farming’ uses no soil and just one-tenth the water

Thu, 12 Apr 2012 00:00:00 Z

We’ve seen numerous innovations over the years that aim to enable farming for those with scarce resources. We’ve encountered various solutions that help overcome space limitations, for example, and now we’ve come across a concept that focuses on a limitation of a different kind: Fresh water — or the lack of it in so many parts of the world. With water efficiency in mind, Dubai-based Agricel recently launched a farming system that uses a film-like material instead of soil and allows farmers to use 90 percent less water.

In film farming, plants are cultivated not in soil but on a hydromembrane composed of water-soluble polymer and hydrogel. This hydromembrane absorbs water and nutrients from the culture medium; to access them, the plant itself develops a network of fine and dense roots closely attached to the hydromembrane surface. To promote the absorption of nutrition via osmotic shift the plant also increases its production of sugars and amino acids, resulting in sweeter and vitamin-rich produce, Agricel says. Pathogens, meanwhile, are unable to penetrate the hydromembrane, making film farming resistant to bacteria and viruses without the need for pesticides. Film farms also use 80 percent less fertilizer, according to the company.

With a cost comparable to soil-based agriculture and cheaper than hydroponics, film farming is expected to offer a return on investment of between 40 and 70 percent, says Agricel, which offers an online guide to building a film farm in 60 days. Agricultural entrepreneurs: one to look into?

super-soil harnesses the power of Pampers

Fri, 10 Sep 2010 00:00:00 Z

Hydrogels have many applications today, from food processing to mopping up oil spills, but they are most familiar as the magic ingredient in disposable diapers. The difference with agricultural hydrogels is that they don't just trap moisture; they let it go again, very slowly, almost like time-release medication, into the root system of plants. That continuity of moisture is what brittle landscapes like deserts need to become fertile again. Water activates a mineralization process, setting free nutrients in the soil so that life can grow.

But water alone won't make gardens flourish in sand. So van Cotthem, an honorary professor of botany at Ghent University in Belgium who has helmed several international scientific panels studying desertification, invented a "soil conditioner" called Terracottem. It's an 8- to 12-inch layer of dirt impregnated with hydrogels, along with organic agents that nourish the natural bacteria in the soil.

Scientists are exploring different uses for hydrogels. Enhanced soils, they believe, could be the key to farms in space. The recipe is simple: a few drops of water and glass-like marbles to provide a kind of scaffolding for roots in the soil.

Eco floor

Thu, 15 Jul 2010 00:00:00 Z

The Eco floor from Van Der Velden concrete was developed in 2009 to reduce the ammonia emmisions from cattle sheds.The floor is not only low emission, but also animal friendly by combining rubber and concrete.

The design has the characteristics of an 'ordinary' grid floor. The design is such that rubber elements (cartridges; replaceable) are placed in spaces in the concrete grid area. The rubber elements, which fit perfectly, are provided with rubber 'flaps' that automatically open and close, driven by the weight of manure and urine. If manure and urine fall on to the flap, they open so the manure and urine fall into the basement area under the grid floor. The flaps close again after the manure and urine have fallen. Thus, the air exchange between basement and shed are limited and therefore the ammonia emissions from the dung cellar are virtually prevented.

Preshafruit

Mon, 15 Feb 2010 00:00:00 Z

To make Preshafruit fruits and juices, High PressureProcessing (HPP) is used. The "mechanism" of HPP is low energy - vitamins,texture and flavour are unchanged.

Preshafruit juices and fruithave been on quite a journey. Before they get to you, they are pressurisedPreshafruit fruits at 600MPa which is 6000 times the atmosphericpressure found at sea level or about 6 times more pressure than isfound at the bottom of the deepest part of the world's oceans, theMariana Trench 11 kilometres below sea level.

This pressureinactivates the vegetative micro organisms (bacteria, yeasts andmoulds) found in food while keeping the vitamins and bioactivecomponents such as those responsible for aroma and flavour unchanged.

Roll-Out Veg Mat

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 00:00:00 Z

Home food production can be strenuous work, often taking hours of labour to set up and maintain. This aspect of home horticulture was one of the main complaints of large unit families who have little or no spare time throughout their day.

What was needed was a simple, fun solution which could encourage families and individuals to grow there own food saving them money and of course the environment.

The final design solution was a simple nutriant enriched corrugated cardboard seed mat.

Each season a new mat becomes available for purchase, allowing individuals to produce a constant year round harvest of fresh home grown vegetables with little labour time and minimal effort.

'Beehive fence' deters elephants

Tue, 09 Jun 2009 00:00:00 Z

A simple fence made from wood, wire and beehives can deter elephants from raiding farmers' crops.

A pilot study in Kenya has shown that such fences reduce the number of raids by elephants by almost half.

The work is the culmination of previous research which showed elephants are naturally scared of African honey bees.

A much larger trial is now under way in the hope the fences will provide an elegant solution to years of conflict between elephants and farmers.

In Kenya, elephants are not confined to national parks or reserves. As they roam, they often come across increasing numbers of farms created by pastoralists who are being encouraged to settle down and grow crops.

The elephants break into the farms and raid them for food such as ripe tomatoes, potatoes and maize.

Elephant Pumps

Mon, 01 Sep 2008 00:00:00 Z

"Elephant Pumps" that were introduced to rural areas in Zimbabwe and Malawi during the last few years. These rather simple, enhanced rope pumps (based on an ancient Chinese technology) where designed for use in rural areas, where the supply of readymade spare parts isn't that easy.

Now, what makes the Elephant Pump so different from the other popular low-maintenance pump "Afripump" is that it's locally assembled and maintainable by the local community. Both systems - Afripump and Elephant Pump - may have their pro & cons (80-100m depth, high durability, low-maintenance).

On school pumps Pump Aid often incorporates a "bicycle" system onto the Elephant Pump since this has proved enormously popular with children. Most children in Zimbabwe have never had the chance to ride a bicycle so can even come to school early to "play" on the pump thereby helping to fill the school water tanks. The job of collecting water, once a tiresome chore, becomes fun and children no longer have to leave their classrooms to walk miles carrying buckets of water on their heads from a distant muddy pool.

Skyscrapers that produce agricultural products for urban locavores

Tue, 15 Jul 2008 00:00:00 Z

The idea, which has captured the imagination of several architects inthe United States and Europe in the past several years, just caught theeye of another big city dreamer: Scott Stringer, the Manhattan boroughpresident in New York.

When Stringer heard about the concept in June, he said heimmediately pictured a "food farm" addition to the New York Cityskyline. "Obviously we don't have vast amounts of vacant land," he saidin a phone interview. "But the sky is the limit in Manhattan."Stringer's office is "sketching out what it would take to pilot avertical farm," and plans to pitch a feasibility study to the mayor'soffice within the next couple of months, he said.

Photos on grass

Fri, 11 Jul 2008 00:00:00 Z

The artists essentially use grass as a form of photographic paper,projecting a black-and-white negative image onto a patch of grass as itgrows in a dark room, and using the natural photosensitive propertiesof the grass to reproduce photographs. As Wimbledon is the onlyremaining Grand Slam tennis tournament that takes place on grass, itwas a natural fit for Ackroyd & Harvey's work, which has alsoappeared on the National Theatre Lyttleton flytower and Dilston Grovein Bermondsey. For this work, they photographed three people atWimbledon prior to the tournament, and displayed the resulting grassversions of the photos on three large panels in Merton Park, where thetennis fans have been camping and then queuing for tickets this year.

Robot goshawk at airports

Tue, 15 Apr 2008 00:00:00 Z

Airports that are troubled by the many birds that hover near the runwaycausing a probable threat to the aircrafts may get some relief if theyinvest in this Robotic Falcon. The Falco Robot GBRS (Gregarious BirdRemoval System) is the product of a European company called BirdRaptor. After 11 years of development, a life-size mechanical replicaof a female goshawk with a 5.25-foot wingspan has been developed. The2.2-pound UAV requires power for only about a minute after takeoff,then "flies like a goshawk, exploiting thermal updrafts."