TheTheTheGreenGreenGreenhousehousehouse
TheGreenhouse system combines sustainable closed loop crop production with renewable energytechnologies for a truly low carbon solution to the way in which we grow our food.Thegreenhouse is multifunctional in that it provides both a diverse and year round supply of high valuecrops, but also functions as an interactive participatory learning environment.Thegreenhouse is designed to utilise an ecosystemapproach to growing food, utilising wastes asresources.
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Wastes from fish are used as hydroponicnutrients.
•
CO
2
produced by the fish is absorbed by theplants.
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Heat from the sun is converted with an airsource heat pump to store energy in the water(25-28
o
C)
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Plant off-cuts are recycled in wormeries toprovide worms as feed for the fish.
Aquaculture - Fish Production.
In theGreenhouse tilapia are grown as a food fish. Three tanks allow for fish to be grown fromstocking at 20-50g through to a harvest weight of around 500g, fish are continually harvested fromthe system every week and are feed with a mixture of fish pellets and worms from thegreenhouse’swormery. Tilapia are an omnivorous cichlid species from Africa but now widely cultured across theglobe. They are a fast growing and good quality white flesh fish and are also known as “fresh watersnapper” and the “aquatic chicken”.The fish tanks have been designed withwindows to increases the interactionwith the stock and to help observe theircondition, behaviour and size.The optimal temperature of range of 25to 28
o
C also provides an efficient rangefor heat storage.Learning outcomes from the green-house include fish physiology, fish be-haviour, water quality, feeding and nu-trition.
TheTheTheGree
nGreenGreenhousehousehouse
Information boards are placed around thegreenhouse outlining the basic principles of aquaculture and also the parts of a fish (in thiscase tilapia).The Information boards are designed to remindparticipants of the fishes requirements and alsothe correct terminology.Participants in the greenhouses are encouraged tohand feed the fish as regularly as possible (littleand often) as physically seeing the fish respond tofeeding is a vital tool is understanding the healthand condition of the stock.Tilapia can be cultured at up to 70kg/m3however in an aquaponics system densitiesof 20-30kg/m3 are more manageable.Tilapia are mouth brooders and can easilybe breed, however for the growing of foodfish, male fish are favoured due toincreased growth rates and reduced intercompletion.
TheTheTheGreenGreenGreenhousehousehouse
Hydroponics - Vegetable, Fruit & Flower Production.
Edible crops are grown on floating rafts in deep water circulation channels. The floating rafts suspendthe plants above flowing oxygenated nutrient rich water providing them with an ideal growingenvironment, the rafts also act to insulate the body of water to prevent heat loss.The crops themselves are grown inplugs in a nursery systemLettuce plugs are planted on thefloating rafts at day 21 from seedand then grown on for a further 28days before harvest.This 6x9m greenhouse is designed toproduce around 72 lettuces perweek.A range of crops can be grown fromfresh herbs to flowers, tomatoes,peppers and salad crops.Strawberries are also grown in theGreenhouse in “strawberry towers” where water trickles down verticalplanters filled with expanded clayballs, the towers produce prolificyields of fruit and provide a tastyreward for those involved.The greenhouse is capable of producing a wide variety of crops ranging from salad crops, to herb, soft fruit,flowers as well crops such as cucumbers, tomatoes andpeppers.The Greenhouse is flexible in terms of the type of cropsthat can be grown and their respective planting andharvesting schedules, however it should be understoodthat the plant and fish biomasses must be maintained inbalance.
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