Issue 51: OH-Farms – Tropical Greenhouse Growing. Issue 51 March/April – 2000 Story Title: OH-Farms – Tropical Greenhouse Growing Author: GEOFF WILSON Singapore has a range of tropical hydroponic technologies that work well.
GEOFF WILSON visited an enterprise using a modified ‘dynamic root floating’ system (DRF), to produce pesticide-free vegetables. Hot and humid climates demand modification of hydroponic systems. In Singapore, Oh Chin Huat Hydroponic Farms (Pty) Ltd, is one commercial enterprise that has successfully adapted its growing techniques to suit its climate. Commonly called “Oh Farms”, this S$2.5 million investment comprises 215 tropical greenhouses, on 2.4 hectares of the 1500 hectares now devoted to the city-state’s six agrotechnology parks. Top: The Oh Farms enterprise was developed in stages between 1992 and 1995. Bottom: Schematic view of the farm’s layout. Inside the houses are black plastic-lined troughs, containing nutrient solution to a depth of about 5 centimetres.
About Off-Grid. Off-Grid reports on the people, technologies, events and influences throughout the global off-grid community.
The Landbuddy section helps you find others to go off-grid with and the free classifieds are full of ads for off the grid real estate. The Off-Grid101 section is packed with basic information from the right kind of solar cooker to how to gather rainwater. With daily news stories and a busy forum, off-grid.net is an indispensible part of daily routine for many off-gridders. The brainchild of author and campaigner Nick Rosen, the site now has 75,000 visitors a month, mainly from the US and UK, and continues to expand. Off-Grid.net is an eclectic mix of practical advice, news from the on-grid world and issues rarely covered by the mainstream media. We want to see large-scale off-grid developments in towns and in the countryside, so that the hundreds of thousands who would like to live this way are free to do so. Farming - Off the Grid and Self Sustaining. Composting manure is an excellent management technique for farmers who own livestock.
There are several beneficial reasons to take advantage of composting. You are reducing the chance of runoff from your property contaminating and polluting your surface and ground waters. It’s also good for your animals for health reasons. It reduces the possibility of parasite reinfestation. The heat generated in the composting process kills worm eggs. Consider too the fact that animal manure makes an excellent fertilizer. To get started you need to select a high, level area of your property for your compost operation. A three-pile system works best, one ready to spread, one in the process of decomposition, and one to which fresh manure is being added daily. By following a few simple techniques, you can greatly enhance the composting of livestock waste. The process of decomposition of a manure pile can take anywhere from two weeks to three months or more.
The Self-Sufficient Life and How to Live It: John Seymour: 9780756654504: Amazon.com. Talking Permaculture with Joe Polaischer of Rainbow Valley Farm - Part 1. Having been given a brief crash course in Permaculture by Darren on Waiheke Island I decided to find out a bit more about this sustainable farming system by paying a visit to New Zealand's resident Permaculture guru Joe Polaischer.
Joe and his wife Trish Allen have lived in the Matakana area, north of Auckland, for 19 years. They arrived in their house truck, when Matakana was still a small sleepy village, and bought a large piece of land in a valley that all the local farmers believed to be useless, hence it was going cheap. Today those 20 acres are now some of the most fertile in the surrounding area and Rainbow Valley Farm has become a worldwide example of what can be achieved by farming with Permaculture principles.
Joe is asked to travel all over the world to give lectures and workshops on the subject, but what he loves most is to stay at home and work on his garden. This is where I found him a few weeks ago.