MOVEABLE RACK

PLASTIC GULLY FOR PLANTS

I remium, plentiful produce that can be grown virtually anywhere year round was the goal in the

I 1970s of a team of engineers at General Electric's Syracuse, N.Y., facility. A variation on hydroponics—growing plants in nutrient solution rather than soil—Geniponics survived a 1980 sale to Control Data Corp. but went down in 1984 before rising electricity prices. However, similar systems live on in controlled-environment research at numerous univer-sities and research centers.

First funded in 1973 by the U.S. Depart-ment of Defense as a way to grow salad vegetables on nuclear submarines, Geni-ponics was abandoned by the Pentagon when it decid-ed the submarine space would be better used to house extra weapons. Draw-ing the name from its com-pany name and the estab-lished generic, hydroponics, GE continued work on Geni-ponics with internal funds and grants from other Government bodies, including the Environmental Protection Agency, as part of the GE plan to explore nonmilitary markets.

By 1977, the company had achieved crop yields of 20 pounds of tomatoes per square foot (nearly 100 kilograms per square meter) a year, five times the yields of greenhouses and 2.5 times that of other hydroponics systems.

The improvement in productivity stemmed from the controlled, pest-free en-vironment created within the enclosed growing chamber. GE electrical and mechanical engineers devised ways to maintain the best levels of light intensity and duration, as well as temperature, hu-midity, amount of carbon dioxide, and the composition and flow of the nutrient so-lution.

The GE team designed a system for the plants that constantly circulated the solu-tion past their roots, keeping them moist while giving them enough exposure to oxy-gen. The nutrients' strength and the depth of the solution were measured and main-tained by conductivity and pH sensors linked to a solenoid.

High-pressure sodium lights supplied the needed light in the red/blue wave-bands, and a sensitive air-conditioning system kept the air fresh and cool, coun-teracting the heat from the lighting. To sup-ply the high concentration of carbon diox-ide vital to plants, an infrared analyzer was designed to trigger a solenoid that inject-ed the gas into the chamber when its con-centration fell below a predetermined level.

The Geniponics chamber was designed to be readily adaptable to any building and

WHATEVER HAPPENED

TO GENIPONICS?

Geniponics is GE's answer to the search for reasonably priced and perfect vegeta-bles.—Spectrum, January 1978

climate and so could be set up much closer to a market than open fields or greenhouses—with consequent lower shipping costs. What's more, because the

produce could be picked at peak ripeness, it had a higher vitamin content than a conventional crop.

SUPPLY Although GE experi-TUBE mented with various types

of fruits, vegetables, tree seedlings, and medicinal

GULLY' NUTRIENT DRAIN

plants, encouraging market data led the company to focus on tomatoes. A1978 test-marketing campaign in Scranton, Pa., proved the data correct, and Genipon-ics-grown tomatoes sold for higher prices than most others. The company soon dis-covered, however, that because a Genipon-ics facility ate up so much electricity, it ran profitably only if electricity cost less than 1.5 cents per kilowatt hour, a low price ob-tainable in some parts of the country.

Also in 1978, GE licensed Geniponics to Nobel Industries Sweden A.B., a chemical and plastics company in Sundsvall, Sweden, and built a test facility in Argen-tia, Nfld., Canada, for the U.S. Navy. In both projects high-quality produce grew well in cold, isolated areas. Problems arose when Nobel engineers tried to use outside air to cool the facility. The crops suffered, and more air-conditioning had to be added. In 1985, Nobel Industries sold the plant to Lu-nahens Ror Mekaniska Verkstads A.B., which has continued with the technology. The Argentia facility shut down in 1980.

But GE management found that Geni-ponics fell outside the Syracuse facility's objectives, and the operation was sold to Control Data in 1980. That Minneapolis,

Minn., company planned to develop the technology further, with the goal of licens-ing it to companies looking to sell fresh, high-quality produce in inner-city areas. Such commercial customers, Control Data believed, could economically trade off crop yield against energy cost by relaxing the optimal conditions to any extent they wished.

Among possible licensees was the So-viet Union, which expressed interest fol-lowing a Control Data presentation there in 1984. But wary of possible military ap-plications, the DOD hesitated to transfer the technology, passing the export-license request on to the Department of Com-merce. No ruling has yet been issued.

Before Control Data solicited licensing bids, it conducted experiments, focusing on lettuce, tomatoes, and European cu-cumbers, to determine to what extent relaxed conditions affected crop yields. With less air conditioning and light, the company found, yields deteriorated con-siderably—to half, with tomatoes.

Control Data shut down its Geniponics facility in June 1984, concluding that dis-appointing crop yields and rising electric-ity prices precluded profitability. However, research on controlled environments is still going strong, especially in Europe.

Ted Short, professor of agricultural en-gineering at Ohio State University in

Columbus, is wary of high-ly controlled hydroponic systems, noting that they are often so delicately balanced that a single error in one environmental

component can ruin an entire crop. Agriculturists have long been aware of such systems' high yields, said Short, but market problems and genetic limitations of the plants discouraged construction of Geniponics-like systems. "After a certain point, there's no way to hang more toma-toes on a plant," he said.

The emphasis now, according to Short, is complete computer control of the en-vironment to maintain conditions precise-ly with little human supervision. At Ohio State's Agricultural Research and Develop-ment Center in Wooster, engineers, hor-ticulturists, and others are working togeth-er on computer-controlled greenhouses that maximize production while cutting down on electricity consumption.

One promising experiment employs computers to control the flow of polysty-rene pellets through greenhouse panels to adjust shading and keep excess heat out during the day. At night, the pellets act as insulation, reducing heat loss by more than 80 percent, and reflect stray lamplight back to the plants.

Coordinator: Erin E. Murphy Consultant: Jerome J. Suran, University

of California, Davis

NUTRIENT RETURN GULLY

IEEE SPECTRUM NOVEMBER 1987 17

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