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Dyson's New Ferris Wheel Hydroponic system · Hydroponics Daily

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  Hello everybody and welcome back to Hydroponics Daily, the go-to podcast for
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  everything soilless cultivation.
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  I'm your host Dr. Russell Sharp and today we're talking about Ferris wheel hydroponic
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  systems and this is because there's a company called Dyson in the UK.
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  You will know them, if you know them, from their vacuum cleaners.
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  They also do hair dryers, they also do
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  LED lights that are marketed for people in australia because
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  they're good in high temperatures but they started off
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  doing wheelbarrows so very agricultural horticultural and they went from the
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  wheelbarrow to vacuum cleaners because and they you'll notice on a lot of dyson
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  vacuum cleaners they have a ball rather than two wheels and that's inspired
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  by their wheelbarrow that they invented.
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  And anyway james dyson who
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  owns dyson made a lot of money
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  billionaire one i think one of britain's richest men not
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  the richest that's the guy who owns
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  manchester united what's his name anyway it's
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  not him he owns inios dyson is
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  a very rich company and they've bought a lot of farmland and
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  it was by a number of names
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  it's now dyson farming and a bit
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  like bill gates owns a lot of farmland however james dyson
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  is using the farmland to innovate in
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  agriculture and horticulture so a lot
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  of people thought it was a way of getting around inheritance tax but
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  he is doing a lot of good he's promoting very innovative ways
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  of growing plants and one of them one of their big plays is dyson strawberries
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  and i think this is a fantastic play because the word dyson and the branding
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  is synonymous with high-end premium engineering and technology.
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  And so if you saw the Dyson brand on some strawberries, you would associate
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  that with these must be really good strawberries. So.
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  It could it's the one brand in horticulture that
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  could that could really justify a
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  premium on it and if you went into two supermarkets
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  in the uk marks and spencers or
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  waitrose these are the the top of the top if
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  they if you if those customers saw dyson on it these are the sort of
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  customers would have dyson vacuum cleaners and hair
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  dryers and things like this and they would
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  definitely buy it they would definitely pay more for the dyson brand so
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  they could justify growing hydroponically and
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  obviously james dyson wants to grow strawberries for christmas
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  as i've said in the past traditionally that has
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  been the license to print money if you can grow strawberries for christmas so
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  how is he how is this ferris wheel talk
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  about this we're going to talk about ferris wheel cultivation and he's
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  they've set up this system that's about the size of two double-decker buses
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  london buses and it's a
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  really interesting technology and it's i think it
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  was in stealth mode for a number of.
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  Until like this week
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  so there's been no pictures of this system that i've
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  seen and i would have seen them because obviously i'm googling hydroponics
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  every day so they've got this various wheels style vertical
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  growing system where the the nft
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  trays the gullies are on
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  a rack and this rack circulates extremely slowly in
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  the large greenhouse and inside the ferris wheel in the wheel are supplementary
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  lights so inside there and this is a really good system because it allows the
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  plants at the top to get sunlight and any of the under leaves you get under canopy.
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  Illumination from the lights inside the wheel and so when it's darker it's darker
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  outside and sunlight goes away, as it will in the UK, especially in the winter
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  when it's cloudy, which it is a lot of the time, you could just increase the
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  intensity of those lights.
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  And so the lights don't even have to be positioned at the top of the greenhouse.
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  And so you're not shading the plants with the lights.
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  Because that's one of the big problems with supplementary lighting in greenhouses
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  is that you're always shading the plants.
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  With this ferris system, none of the plants are getting shaded by the lights.
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  If the lights are on, they're supplementing it and the lights are off, it's inconsequential.
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  It also means that you can make use of more of the glasshouse space.
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  And with a large, what we call Venlo greenhouses, these really tall greenhouses,
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  they're designed for tomatoes and cucumbers. And obviously they grow up as vines.
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  And so they make use of the space much more strawberries. You still want to
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  grow in a Venlo greenhouse, even though they are much shorter,
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  maybe only a foot tall or 30 centimeters tall.
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  The reason you want to grow them in a Venlo-type greenhouse is because they're
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  much more efficient for heating and for CO2 addition.
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  And so you're always still going to have that space, so you might as well make use of it.
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  And this ferrous wheel system of these continually moving racks makes good use
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  of that space. You can fit more plants in there.
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  And so, yeah, it's very interesting. And the question is, does the extra engineering justify the cost?
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  And Dyson have claimed that this
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  system combined with CO2 enrichment
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  and their other technology which we'll talk about later has
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  led to a staggering 250% increase in
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  yield so that's not just one bit of the
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  technology that's leading to that it's all the things combined is
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  leading to a 250% increase in yield which for
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  a high value crop is massive so for the same amount
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  of land use area okay so
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  this their farm is based in lincolnshire in the uk which is
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  traditionally fenland it's very flat it's it's
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  where most of the vegetables in the uk are grown it's not.
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  A big strawberry growing area though so that's interesting so
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  the the the structure is 5.5 meters
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  tall and 1.2 million strawberry
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  plants are mounted on the rotating trays and they rotate very
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  slowly as i said it's led lights it's basically a
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  way of growing it's a vertical farming system that involves
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  a wheel-based system rather than a racking system and
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  these have existed in other areas they haven't invented this system
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  it's not like they're the first person to ever do it first people
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  to ever do it but there tend to be
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  indoor systems in the past and this
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  is not the case with this this isn't this is a greenhouse based system
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  which makes it interesting so it's a proof of concept trial
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  at the moment so it's not it's not massive but it is still it's a 26 acre glass
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  house I think most of the strawberries are grown conventionally within that
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  glass house and there are I think they grow other crops as well so they've run
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  it for 12 months and sport over 6,000 plants in the system so yeah it must have
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  been what did I say 1.2 million strawberry plants.
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  Maybe that's in the whole greenhouse. Other technology that's in there,
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  they've got robot pickers using AI vision to identify ripe berries.
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  That's a big area. When I went to green tech a couple of weeks ago,
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  lots of, or a few companies looking at AI to see when crops are ready for harvest
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  and identify any problems.
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  They've got UV robots that basically go, robots is a strong word,
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  they're basically a UVC unit that basically flies down the rows of the greenhouse
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  and expose the plants at night to UVC to reduce the risk of mould,
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  particularly mildew and grey mould. Grey mould's a massive one on the fruits.
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  They've got anaerobic digester on site to convert plant waste into biogas.
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  Powering the greenhouse and generating heat, and they've got rainwater capture
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  as well. So that's another thing there.
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  So when it comes to sustainability and commercial benefits, higher
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  output per unit area obviously extended harvest season
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  getting those strawberries ready for christmas and other holiday
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  seasons lower pesticide use with the use of
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  the uvc circular energy system with
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  the anaerobic digester and potential to
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  scale it into other crops as well so it doesn't have to just have
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  to be strawberries could be other things like wasabi other high value crops
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  that grow well in nft systems so yeah
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  that's that's the ferris wheel system it'd be
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  really interesting to know how the fertigation solution travels
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  along the gullies is it going into all the plants all the time or is it only
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  going into the row that's at the bottom of the wheel a bit like you know when
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  you get onto a ferris wheel is it going on there at the bottom and then draining
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  when it's around the wheel so if anyone from.
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  Dyson Farming wants to get in touch and wants to allow me to come on a tour
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  of your facilities, that would make my year really going on a tour of the Dyson facilities.
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  I don't know anyone at Dyson Farming. There's a guy called Angel who's at Dyson Farming.
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  I saw him at Greentech actually two weeks ago, but I didn't say hello.
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  He was passing me one of the aisles.
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  So yeah, if you work for Dyson Farming, you know anyone who works for Dyson
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  Farming, tell them that Dr.
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  Russell sharp from hydroponics daily would love to go on a tour good to meet james dyson as well,
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  yeah and if you uh want any fertilizers let me
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  know or buy a stimulant that's been
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  hydroponics daily for today if you've ever grown plants on
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  a ferris wheel type system then that's pretty
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  amazing and if you know anyone who has share them with
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  this share this podcast episode with them and if
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  you've had this shared with you then you are the person who shared it with you
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  a nice cold drink so get them get down
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  the pub and take your friend with you and if you could do me a favor as well
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  if you could screenshot your phone if you're listening to this on a phone screenshot
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  the fact that you've listened to this podcast and post it on social media and
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  say this was a really interesting episode go and listen to hydroponics daily
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  because then that would help share and grow the podcast and that would mean
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  the world to me thank you very much for listening and until tomorrow goodbye.