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  • From: KAKerby@aol.com
  • To: permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [permaculture] pc aquaponics
  • Date: Tue, 9 Oct 2012 12:50:54 -0400 (EDT)

Koreen, my Dad grew up in Florida, after moving their as a boy from
Illinois. He lived on both Atlantic and Gulf coasts, and we've been there
many
times to visit extended family who still live in the Ft. Lauderdale area.
I, on the other hand, grew up along the Front Range of the Rockies, where
water was such a scarcity, all the time. I remember my first trip to
Florida, and I didn't even marvel at the beaches or the sun or the warmth.
But
rather, the greenery and the WATER. Oh, you folks seemed wealthy in water!
Only later was I to learn that water is actually as precious in Florida as
it is just about everywhere else.

There was a brilliant man named Maynard Murray, MD, who in the mid 20th
centuries got to wondering about using seawater for agriculture. He started
doing experiments on the side, bringing in railroad cars of seawater to his
native Ohio and applying the seawater in varying amounts, at varying
concentrations and dilutions, straight to farmland. His theory was that
seawater is the great receptacle of nutrients (good, bad and otherwise as we
have
since learned). His work as a physician exposed him to a tremendous amount
of nutrient deficiency and the health issues that arise from nutrient
imbalance in the human body. One of his leaps of brilliance was that we
shouldn't be fertilizing the plant, but rather fertilizing the soil. A
subtle
but crucial difference, which has since been seconded and built upon by
other
brilliant people. Another leap of brilliance on his part was that the
human body has much the same preferred ratios of nutrients, that seawater
has,
in terms of nutrient ratios in combination with each other. Other
scientists of the time (and even now) were looking for that magic bullet to
solve
all the problems, or looking for single answers to solve single problems.
He was one of the first to document that when you provide all the
nutrients, in the correct ratios to each other, even at very weak dilutions
overall,
the body rises into a state of health previously only dreamt of. But his
genius didn't end there. He knew from his formal scientific training that
no one would ever believe his theories even with the research he was able
to do on his own. So yet another brilliant notion he had was to engage the
assistance of the various land grant universities in his upper midwest area
(and eventually throughout the USA), to test his ideas right there on the
farm. Without going through the whole thing, farmers across the board saw
better yields, less disease, less pests, greater livestock health,
dramatically reduced incidence of pregnancy loss, newborn weakness, and
failure to
grow. Things like "the runt of the litter", which is such a rule in hog
husbandry that folks just generally assume it'll happen (even today),
basically evaporated under his nutrient supplementation guidelines. And it
was
both plants and animals, not just this-or-that crop or animal or particular
disease issue.

Now, why he didn't win a Nobel for that, I have no idea. He already was
centuries ahead of his time, and even today 70 years later a lot of folks
have never heard of him. But he wasn't done yet. He was using more and
more
water, shipped to him in railcars, that he eventually simply moved to
....... FLORIDA........... to continue his research. And when there, he
grabbed onto the brand new idea of hydroponics as a stellar new way to bypass
the
mistakes made by generations previously, and just jump right into building
healthy, diversified cropping systems, right from the get-go. So the rest
of his career was spent working with and perfecting hydroponic methods,
based on sea water as a source for most of the nutrients. He wrote a single
book about all his experiences, called Sea Energy Agriculture. It went out
of print for awhile but Acres USA brought it back, and it's still available
through them. When I read his little book (non-technical and can be
easily read in a weekend) I remember thinking "why isn't everyone doing
this?????" But alas, some of our best pioneers call to us and amidst the
din of
life, we don't hear them.

Now, right about the time I was looking to reading his book, I was also
starting to hear mention of this thing called aquaponics. And it seemed
like a really interesting idea to me, because the strength of Dr. Murray's
approach was to bring ALL the trace nutrients, in the correct balance, into
the equation. But what about the macronutrients? His book doesn't talk as
much about that. Yet here's aquaponics, where the fish are providing a lot
of the mactronutrients, but perhaps need the trace nutrients to balance
out the approach. It seemed to me a match made in heaven, because this
would
be nearly a perpetual motion machine, as someone else mentioned aquaponics
is sometimes marketed as. But this time, the ingredients aren't merely
showing up magically out of thin air. Instead, they are all around us,
covering 70% of the earth's surface, provided by the motion of the planet and
the
living systems already in place. All we have to do is marry the two
ideas.

I'm sure it's a lot more involved than that, and I would dearly love to
spend an inordinate amount of time fussing with it to see if I could get it
to
work. To my knowledge, no one has experimented with this enough that
they've worked out all the kinks, then made that information public
knowledge.
Sadly, this is where the trail went cold for me personally. I did follow
up with Dr. Murray's research, and apparently a relative (son, brother,
something along those lines) took his research into the marketplace, and
<sadly, or even tragically> protected a lot of the last 30 years' worth of
research as proprietary information, which folks can buy via their product
line. But as for information in the public realm? Nope.

So that's as much information as I have on the topic of marrying seawater
to crop/livestock nutrition, whether in soil-based or soilless media
systems. It seems to me there is tremendous potential there, but I don't
know if
anyone is looking into it. One of the things I love about the
permaculture culture (if I can call it that) is the notion of shared
information for
public benefit. I think if there was ever a community of folks to take this
idea and run with it, it would be the PC community. I wish I could grab
this idea myself and really work it through its paces. I'm sure I'll play
with it on a small scale at some point. But I think this is at least one
potential bright shining dawn. An end to mined minerals from Location A,
then shipping them to Location B, to put them right back into the ground
again. We'd still have to ship the minerals from the coast to the inland
areas,
but perhaps there are kinder gentler ways to do so? And in what
proportions? All those discoveries await.......
Kathryn Kerby
frogchorusfarm.com
Snohomish, WA


In a message dated 10/9/2012 4:52:40 A.M. Pacific Daylight Time,
cory8570@yahoo.com writes:

Thank you for sharing Kathryn and Pierre. I live in Florida where much of
the "soil" is in fact sugar sand. Even in relatively old forests, the sand
content of the soil is significant. One of the problems we deal with here
is finding plants that 1. are palatable and 2. have nutrition that can grow
in sugar sand.

Most of us in the state spend a lot of time and effort building soil
artificially, above the sand, and figuring out ways to prevent it from
sinking
into the sand and disappearing in our baking hot summers. We use
hugulkulture, biochar, lots of organic matter (like wood chips, which come
from the
"waste stream", as they would otherwise go into the landfill) of (often) old
growth trees cut down in our city. We take seaweed off the beach for
minerals, and the impact is minimal, but again, at some point, if urban ag
gets
big enough, we will impact ecosystems if we continue to do that. We scrounge
for manure, in cities where keeping farm animals and chickens is closely
regulated or illegal (and humanure is a huge solution here, in one of the
most densely populated counties in the US, but there is a lot of resistance
on personal and policy levels still).

Beached seaweed in Florida is almost an ecosystem in its own right, with
various creatures, including migratory birds, dependent upon it. Those of us
who are looking from a systems viewpoint are asking questions about how we
are going to produce enough fertile soil, using only our local organic
matter without imports, to feed our populations in Florida.

We are surrounded by water and ocean fish, but the seafood populations
around here have already been severely depleted. We are fortunate to not
have
to deal with the Corexit poisoning or "Dead Zone" created by Midwest
agriculture in the Gulf - the ocean currants keep that away from us, for the
most
part. But other coastal areas in the Gulf have quite a problem on that
front.

Going fishing is a short term, small solution but not a long term solution
for the whole population. We do have dozens of lakes and ponds in the area
and could explore systems that integrate with existing pond ecosystems,
like islands (I'd love to talk to someone who is doing that successfully).

We have some experimental ocean fish farms happening in the area (fish
raised in protected cages in the ocean), which makes sense if you're going
to e
nclose fish. They get all their minerals and some of their food naturally.
If the farms get too big, they will impact the coastline ocean ecosystems.
The Eritrea system sounds wonderful on many fronts - I like that they are
staying away from the coastline which is such a vital and productive edge
in many places when left to Zone 5.

Kathryn, is anybody using nutrients from seawater in aquaponics, and if
so, how are they removing the salt and other things that don't work in the
system? I've heard that there is some saltwater aquaponics occurring which
might make a lot of sense near oceans where the minerals could be easily
accessed.

I feel that it is vital that permaculturists influence aquaponics. The
people I've spoken to are open to that. I attended the aquaponics conference
in Florida last year, to see what it was all about, and there were many
dedicated people working to improve the technology. I didn't meet anybody
who
was totally closed off to the idea of integrating permaculture principles
and a number of them had heard about permaculture and were trying to use it
in some fashion. The head of the International Aquaponics Association told
me that she is aware that they need to work on the nutrition area to reduce
footprint (the fish food is ), and is interested in doing so, as an
Association. I think we need to reach out, not draw back, and bring the
principles
to the subject to make it as workable as possible. We need a diversity of
solutions and aquaponics makes a lot of sense from a number of angles, in
cities especially.

There is one situation - if we figure out how to feed dense populations in
high rises, and if we figure out how to produce renewable energy in high
rises or locally (like algae fuels, hydrogen/solar combos, etc), judging by
history, we will continue propagate and expand until the whole planet is
covered with us. But the fact that permaculturists might see the downside to
that is not going to stop the Aquaponics Association or the "free energy"
people from looking for those solutions.

All of which make me feel that it is vital to continue to educate people
and raise their ethics level and consciousness so we have more people in all
sectors who can make "whole systems" decisions. And thank you again
Kathryn for sharing with us information and viewpoints that help us to
better
make those decisions. Sharing these viewpoints with each other will only
make
our systems stronger, ultimately. I love doing team designs for that reason
- inevitably, someone on the team thinks of something that no one else did
and the design is the better for it. I'm thankful for permaculture email
lists where this kind of conversation can happen.

Best, Koreen


www.growpermaculture.com
www.facebook.com/growpermaculturenow
www.meetup.com/sustainable-urban-agriculture-coalition


________________________________
From: Pierre Marx <pierremarx@ymail.com>
To: permaculture <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Tuesday, October 9, 2012 12:02 AM
Subject: Re: [permaculture] pc aquaponics

Oops, should have read Kathryn's response first before chiming in. Well
said Kathryn.

Cheers

Pierre Marx




>________________________________
>From: "KAKerby@aol.com" <KAKerby@aol.com>
>To: permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org
>Sent: Tuesday, 9 October 2012 12:45 PM
>Subject: Re: [permaculture] pc aquaponics
>
>OK, I've been gone for a number of hours, a bunch of emails on this topic

>have come in, and I'd like to address some of these statements in turn.
>But it'll be in summary form, so hopefully no one takes offense that I'm
>just trying to answer things as quickly as possible.
>
>First, aquaponics is most definitely an aerobic setup. The claims made
>about faster growth are precisely because aquaponics is MUCH MORE aerobic

>than standard soil-based farming. The roots are exposed to much greater
rates
>and volumes of gas exchange, so poor gas exchnage is no longer a
>bottleneck for plant growth rates. That exchange rate can be varied
depending on
>both the system design and the cycling rate. One of the three major
>hydroponic and aquaponic methods, known as flood-and-drain, features a
container of
>planting media and intact plants which is repeatedly flooded, then
>drained, then flooded again, at whatever cycle is appropriate for the
plants. So
>you could have system conditions ranging from near-saturation to
>near-desert rates of moisture for the root zone, whatever the plants
need. With that
>system, each new influx of water fills the container, thus driving out
any
>atmosphere (mix of O2, CO2 and N2 and trace elements) from the root
zone.
>That "flood" stage is generally the shorter of the two phases. The
longer
>"drain" stage draws atmosphere back down deep into the root zone, for a
>dramatically faster gas exchange rate than would ever occur in
soil-based
>growing. The other two most popular setups, Nutrient Flow Technique and

>Floating Raft Technique, generally feature part of the root mass
submerged, and
>part of the root mass in an extremely high-humidity but non-submerged
>atmosphere. So again, there's no drowning or anaerobic conditions. If
a hydro-
>or aquaponics system ever goes anaerobic, something is very dramatically

>wrong.
>
>Second, I concur wholeheartedly that soil is a precious commodity, and
>should be treasured as such. So the comment that someone was turned off
by
>seeing a photo of an aquaponics system in the foreground, then very tidy
>inedible landscaping in the background, is a philosophical objection I
would
>share. However, I have to point out that it wasn't a valid indicator on
>whether aquaponics can or cannot be part of a sustainable setup.
Rather, it
>was merely an indication of that particular person's taste in
landscaping.
>You could take that same setup, and put it in a poor village in some
distant
>poverty-stricken nation, and perhaps feel better about the fact that
it's
>feeding everyone in the village. Same system. And there are countless
>variations on that system to match up with needs all around the world.
So if
>some aquaponics fan had a front yard that didn't meet up with your
personal
>preferences for landscaping, that's hardly an indictment against the
>approach as a whole.
>
>Also on the topic of soils, I would point out that merely having access
to
>soils does not guarantee that folks can grow what they need, as much as
>they need, and when they need it, on those soils. Or even if they could
grow
>what they need during ideal years, conditions might be so unpredictable
>that they couldn't count on those soils to produce what they need, year
after
>year. We live in one of the most productive agricultural areas of the
>world. We are greatly blessed that we can work with both forested and
rich
>fertile floodplain soils. We have a mild climate, with a nice long
growing
>season. But even here, there are things we can't grow reliably,
including
>staples like corn and alfalfa. Try feeding 100 head of livestock without

>those two staples, and you'll be up at night trying to balance your feed
>ration with whatever you can scrounge instead. Been there, done that.
We are
>very fortunate to be able to go out and buy those materials when we can't

>grow them. But other families and other farms in other places aren't
nearly
>that lucky. They must eat from whatever they can grow. Even when the
>soils are just right in terms of fertility, tilth, moisture, temperature
and
>solar exposure, one storm, one flood, one early frost or late frost or
any
>other combo of "bad luck" events, can wreck the crop. In some fortunate
>parts of the world, that's not a big deal. We buy in what we need to
replace
>what we lost. Other folks aren't so lucky, and they go hungry.
Aquaponics
>removes a lot of that variability. That's why we want to use it here.
It
>would be our backup for those crops which are iffy at best even in our
>prime agricultural area. And it will allow us to grow some critical
crops
>which, despite our near-ideal setup, we still can't grow here.
>
>The question of equipment and volunteers and employees is a complication,

>which ironically makes aquaponics shine even brighter. We are in WA
state,
>USA. It might surprise folks to learn that we CANNOT have farm
volunteers
>here. It's against state law. We can either have interns, that must be

>enrolled in a public school and taking a class for credit in which we are
a
>formal part of the curriculum, or we can have employees, paid at least
>minimum wage, and fully insured under our farm insurance coverage plan.
And now
>proposed federal law, which didn't pass this year but very well might in
>the future, states that family members must be "immediate family", ie,
>spouse, children and parents. Cousins and aunts and uncles and
>grandparents/grandkids, etc, would not be considered family, and thus
would be required to
>be hired, for at least minimum wage, with full insurance coverage. So as
>neat as it sounds to have some big farm in the family, working that farm
>requires some careful thought because manpower is no longer quite so easy
to
>access.
>
>OK, so if we can't have lots of people, let's get some large-scale
>machinery in here instead. Sadly, that's not very practical either. A
70hp
>tractor, and all the implements listed in a previous post, would cost
more than
>our house is worth. We have a 20 hp tractor that was manufactured the
same
>year my dad was born. Our haying equipment was made when draft animal
>power was still in use in the USA, and that equipment can be drawn
either with
>our small tractor or a team. We shopped very carefully for that
>equipment, and saved a great deal of money, by buying smaller than
everyone said
>we'd need. We didn't finance any of it. Yet it still set us back quite
a bit
>financially, and we still have repairs to make before any of it is field
>ready. So yes, a lot of folks are having serious problems getting into
>farming, because even if they have access to land they need either
manpower or
>machinery to work it, and both of those options are not nearly as easy
to
>come by as they used to be.
>
>Which brings us to aquaponics. Because machinery and manpower are both
so
>expensive here, we have to make the absolute best use of our time, at a
>scale that we can reasonably accommodate without either equipment or
>employees. One of the major questions we're facing right now with this
bigger
>farm, is whether we want to take on all that extra work, knowing that
we'd have
>to have employees (thankfully, we'd have access to their machinery
instead
>of buying it ourselves). But I can produce the same products via
>aquaponics that I manage by myself, as I can with field crops requiring a
lot of
>expensive equipment and/or hired help. That's because of two things.
First,
>it is so much more productive per square foot than any soil-based
system.
>Second, it allows for harvests in small batches, rather than one
>all-or-nothing harvest. I've known of growers who raise just enough
feed for their
>animals to last one day with aquaponics. They plant one tray per day,
they
>harvest one tray per day. The rest of the trays are growing and don't
>need to be messed with other than watering. The manpower is minimal,
and
>they're doing the work I'd have to have machinery AND manpower to
successfully
>harvest in the field. And that's only if the weather cooperates. If
the
>weather doesn't cooperate, or the machinery breaks down, or the manpower
>quits or is busy or sick or otherwise unavailable, that harvest rots.
Shucks,
>that's too bad. And most years, at least one of those issues comes
along.
>Try telling your family that they don't get to eat because the tractor
>blew a hydraulic seal. Aquaponics has its own list of woes, but they
don't
>tend to be quite so dramatic, so costly, or so all-or-nothing in scale.
>
>Finally, I know a lot of folks will puzzle about this next question, but
we
>believe it is utter folly to farm with anything less than profitable
>outcomes. We subscribe to the theory that for any farm to be truly
>sustainable, it must meet the Three E's: Environmental, Ethical and
Economical
>Sustainability. So everything we do here, is for the love of the land
and love
>of the life, but it's also how we pay the bills. If we can't pay the
bills,
>for instance if we borrowed money to buy all that nice big machinery, we
>won't be farming very long. And then all this nice talk about
sustainable
>this-n-that goes right out the window. The next guy comes along and
>converts all this wonderful farmland into condos. Or a junkyard for old
cars. Or
>a landfill. Or whatever. I know some folks farm because they want to.

>Some folks farm because they have to, since they can't get food
otherwise.
>We farm because we feel called to do so, but we must meet those 3 E's in
>order to continue doing so for any length of time. Again, aquaponics
removes
>a lot of the harvest uncertainty, and thus the financial uncertainty,
from
>this gig called farming. That means it's not merely a nice tool in the
>toolbox. For us that means it's borderline essential. Farming without
it is
>riskier than it needs to be.
>
>I guess after all this, I would suggest that folks can decide they're not

>interested in aquaponics, and that's fine. They can decide they don't
want
>to use aquaponics, and that's also fine. They can decide wow there's
more
>here than they realized, go learn about it, and maybe implement it or
maybe
>not, according to their own needs and interests. All that is fine.
Where
>I tend to get twitchy, is when folks hear the term "aquaponics", and they
>only know a little about it, and they start making assumptions about it,
>and then they start making opinions and decisions based on those
assumptions.
>Or worse, start advising people based on those assumptions. I would
>strongly encourage folks to learn about this approach before forming
opinions
>about it. Don't just go with what you've seen in the headlines, or on
>Youtube, or heard someone say that someone said that someone said that
it's just
>a bunch of hooey. Either learn about it, and speak from a position of
>knowledge and experience. Or simply say "well, I've heard about it but
don't
>know much about it, so I can't really say." That's all I ask.
>Kathryn Kerby
>frogchorusfarm.com
>Snohomish, WA
>
>
>
>In a message dated 10/8/2012 2:23:18 P.M. Pacific Daylight Time,
>dhondt@eircom.net writes:
>
>
>My problem with aquaphonics is not just disolved chemicals aka
nutrients.
>Soil is an ecosystem consisting for at least ten % out of microorganisms
>and
>often a lot more. To a large extend these soil organisms are aerobic. It
>is
>as good as impossible to maintain a large aerobic community in water.
>john
>
>> On 10/7/2012 9:52 PM, Scott Pittman wrote:
>>> I too have serious misgivings about aquaponics. It is always
presented
>>> as
>>> some kind of perpetual motion machine that provides for all its needs
>>> within
>>> the system, which I doubt. I also do not believe that it could
>possible
>>> have the nutrients necessary for providing wholesome and nutritious
>>> foodstuff. We are talking about the primary nutrient source being
fish
>>> dung
>>> in this closed system, where does the selenium, calcium and
phosphorous
>>> come
>>> from? The co-evolution of plants with soil organisms and minerals has
>>> created the human nutrition story and without soil I think the actual
>>> nutrient content will be woefully inadequate.
>>
>> I would never try to grow food for myself in an aquaponics system
unless
>> its nutrients came from extracts of soil-based systems (don't quite
know
>> how that would work given the anaerobic aspects of aquaponics systems.
I
>> did find through a Google search a site with pictures of a soil-based
>> aquaponics system but they were growing ornamental aquatic plants in
>> submerged perforated barrels with a soil mix in them. The root crowns
of
>> the plants were slightly above water level.
>>
>>> I would love to see some data on nutrient content of hydroponic vs
soil
>>> based vegetables.
>>
>> There is probably no comparison with the nutrient dense food crops
grown
>> in enriched soil with balanced nutrients and minerals.
>>
>>> I would also point out that both the rice paddy system and chinampa
>>> systems
>>> are soil based systems with a lot of water to maintain growth they
are
>>> not
>>> by any means hydroponic or aquaponic. You might also throw in the
fast
>>> disappearing mangroves as an example of aquaponics but again you
would
>be
>>> wrong.
>>
>> In Eritrea they are developing an array of sustainable farming systems
>> that use sea water, They impound water in lagoons and grow shrimp in
>> them. That nutrient-rich water is released down stream to fertilize
and
>> irrigate salt-tolerant land based crops. These crops are used to human
>> as well as livestock feed and to make rope or cloth. They are also
>> propagating, planting and harvesting mangroves for firewood, livestock
>> feed and construction wood. They are not reducing the populations of
>> mangroves along the coastline where their project is located. There is
a
>> PBS documentary about this well worth watching, maybe viewable online
or
>> for $$$ for the dvd.
>>
>> LL
>>
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