March is National Nutrition Month! So Let’s Talk About How the USDA is providing Nutrition to our population.

March is our National Nutrition Month; but, unfortunately, most of us don’t know it. We have to confess that until we started writing this Blog post, we didn’t realize it either; and we’re in the nutritious food business.

Because it’s National Nutrition Month, we’re once again post-poning our Series on “Obesity in America” to celebrate and inform our readers about all of the Food related Programs that we are running in the U.S. including who these programs serve and the costs of those services.

But before we go there, we want to point out our original cartoons by our Marketing Director, Grace Sylke who is loving her new Pixton.com software. If you want to see them bigger or share them, go to our Pinterest Page.

Here is one of the Best National Programs we’ve got going; and it needs your Support.

FARM to SCHOOL

“Farm to School is a program in the United States through which schools buy and feature locally produced, farm-fresh foods such as fruits and vegetables, eggs, honey, meat, and beans on their menus. Schools also incorporate nutrition-based curriculum and provide students with experiential learning opportunities such as farm visits, gardening, and recycling programs. As a result of Farm to School, students have access to fresh, local foods, and farmers have access to new markets through school sales. Farmers are also able to participate in programs designed to educate kids about local food and agriculture.”
(Quote taken from Wikipedia)

This program started in 1996, and was fueled by “the desire to support community-based food systems, strengthen family farms and improve student health by reducing childhood obesity”. (Wikipedia) The plan was based on a triple win situation; and it was spearheaded with pilot projects in California through the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School System and The Edible Schoolyard in Berkeley, which was created by the famous food activist, Alice Waters. (To learn more about Alice Waters, go to our Food Revolution Part 2 Series in our May 2014 Newsletter featuring the Revolutionaries)

This program is now almost 20 years old, and it’s still going strong. Below, are some statistics that describe how effective this program was in the 2011-2012 school year based on a Census taken in 2013. A second Census is being conducted this year.

In 2014, the USDA issued approximately $5 million in Farm to School Grants to help school districts across the country further develop their farm to school programming.

In 2010, the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act was passed. It’s a Federal Statute that was signed into law by President Obama as part of the reauthorization of funding for child nutrition in the original Child Nutrition Act passed in 1966. The Farm to School Program is a Grant Program under the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act. To learn more about the original act enacted in 1966, click the above link. During the signing of the original act, then president, Johnson, remarked that “good food is essential to good learning.”

The Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act funds child nutrition programs and free lunch programs in schools for 5 years and continues through 2015. In addition, the bill sets new nutrition standards for schools, and allocates $4.5 billion for their implementation. More on the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act below.

The Farm to School Program is allocated a mere $5 million of the nearly $36 billion (that’s a “B” for billion) dollar child nutrition five year funding budget. They have partnered with the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition to establish stronger Farm to School priorities in the 2015 reauthorization of the original Child Nutrition Act, and they are pushing for an additional $100 million in funding over the next decade.

If there were ever a program that deserves more funding, it’s this one because it’s so inclusive of both children, farmers and local communities. There are two bills representing this program. Click on the Bills to follow their progress. Both Bills were referred to Committee on February 25th, 2015.

S. 569 and H.R. 1061

Please communicate with your Senators and Congressional Representative to help get them passed.

Here’s another incredible National Program that warrants your support.

FEEDING AMERICA

We first learned about FEEDING AMERICA when we went to Tucson, AZ in late 2011 to install three of our Aquaponics USA Food Forever Growing Systems in three elementary schools there.

We did an Interview with the Lead on that project, Zotero Citilacoatl who was the Youth Farm Project Manager for the Community Food Resource Center of the Community Food Bank of Southern Arizona. We were new in the field of food and agriculture, so we had no idea that the Southern Arizona Community Food Bank was being supported by FEEDING AMERICA until we did that interview.

In many ways, we are very beholden to FEEDING AMERICA because it was that organization that funded the Grant that purchased those first three Food Forever School Growing Systems that we sold. We are now selling most of our Growing Systems to schools all over the U.S. To learn more about our School Growing Systems, go to our webpage that describes our School Packages and Pricing structure.

FEEDNG AMERICA leads our nation in the fight against hunger through it’s nationwide network of Food Banks that feed more than 46 million people through food pantries, soup kitchens, shelters and other community-based agencies.

FEEDING AMERICA has had a long history and a different name. It all started with John van Hengel.

John lived from February 21,1923 until October 5, 2005; and after he took a vow of poverty as a devout Roman Catholic and started working at Immaculate Heart Church in Phoenix, Arizona in the late 60’s, he began to solicit unwanted food for the poor from grocery stores, local gardens and nearby produce farms. These efforts led to the creation of the first Food Bank in the world, which was located in Phoenix, Arizona and called the St. Mary’s Food Bank in 1967. “In addition he worked for many years as a consultant to U.S. cities starting their own food banks. He also traveled the world teaching other countries how to set up food banks which are now in operation throughout Europe and in many other countries, including Israel, Australia and Mexico.” (Quote taken from the Find A Gravewebsite)

In 1975, St. Mary’s was given a federal grant to assist in developing Food Banks across the nation. This organization became America’s Second Harvest with Mr. van Hengel in charge. America’s Second Harvest merged with Foodchain, another food distribution charity.

Then in May of 2007, the American Idol TV Program named America’s Second Harvest as the recipient of the Idol Gives Back Charity Program and the company was put on the map. They changed their name to FEEDING AMERICA in 2008. Since then, several high profile people and companies have adopted FEEDING AMERICA including Bob Dylan in 2009 with an announcement by Columbia Records that all U.S. royalties from his Christmas in the Heart album would go to FEEDING AMERICA in perpetuity.

Today, Tony Robbins, the well known motivational speaker, is supporting a 100 Million Meals Challenge, and he’s inviting us all to help match his gift of 50 million meals to FEEDING AMERICA so, together, we can provide 100 million meals for the 49 million Americans who struggle with hunger. When combined with Tony’s gift, every $1 you give helps secure and distribute 20 meals through the FEEDING AMERICA network of food banks.

If you’re being called to contribute, just go to FEEDING AMERICA and join Tony’s 100 Million Meals Challenge.

What’s happening with Nutrition in the USDA?

Our USDA is supporting a number of beneficial Nutritional Programs beyond the Farm to School Program. Some of these programs are serviced based on age and ethnicity. Others like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) formerly known as Food Stamps, service a broad swath of our nation’s population. So let’s start with one of the children’s programs:

The Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Program (FFVP)

“The Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Program (FFVP) was authorized by the Farm Security and Rural Investment Act of 2002. The pilot program began in 4 states and 1 Indian Tribal Organization (Zuni, New Mexico).

The purpose of the pilot was to determine the best practices for increasing fruit (both fresh and dried) and fresh vegetable consumption in schools.

As a result of the Program’s popularity, the Child Nutrition and WIC Reauthorization Act of 2004 (more on WIC below) added 4 more states (Pennsylvania, Mississippi, North Carolina, Washington), 10 schools in South Dakota’s Pine Ridge Reservation, and 8 schools in Arizona’s Tribal Council (3 schools in the Gila River Pima Community and 5 schools in the Tohono O’odham Community).

The Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act of 2006, Public Law 109-97, appropriated money to expand the Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Program to include: Utah, Wisconsin, New Mexico (25 schools), Texas, Connecticut, and Idaho. The Farm Bill amended the National School Lunch Act by eliminating section 18(f) and adding section 19, the FFVP and provided significant changes from the previous program.

The Program is now Nation-wide in selected schools in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Guam, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands.” (Quote taken from USDA webpage on the Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Program )

Food Distribution Program on Indian Reservations

This is an idillic representation of an Indian Reservation with ceremonial teepees set up to honor the food. There are 310 Native American Reservations in the U.S. and typically, many of America’s poorest people reside in them. When we speak about 3rd World and Developing Countries, we are also speaking about these Sovereign Nations, which constitute 3rd World Countries within our borders. Thank goodness, there’s a program designed to pick up those Native Americans who do not have access to the larger, all inclusive Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program commonly known as (SNAP).

“Low-income American Indian and non-Indian households that reside on a reservation and households living in approved areas near a reservation or in Oklahoma that contain at least one person who is a member of a Federally-recognized tribe, are eligible to participate in FDPIR.

Households are certified based on income standards set by the Federal government and must be recertified at least every 12 months. Elderly and disabled households may be certified for up to 24 months. Households may not participate in FDPIR and SNAP in the same month.

The Food and Nutrition Service (FNS), an agency of the USDA, administers FDPIR at the Federal level. The program is administered locally by either Indian Tribal Organizations (ITOs) or an agency of a State government. Currently, there are approximately 276 tribes receiving benefits under FDPIR through 100 ITOs and 5 State agencies.” (Quote taken from USDA’s Food and Nutrition Service, Nutrition Program Fact Sheet)

The Meals on Wheels Program

Without the Meals On Wheels Program many of our Senior Citizens would starve. “Meals on Wheels operates in virtually every community in America through a network of more than 5,000 independently-run local programs. While the diversity of each program’s services and operations may vary based on the needs and resources of their communities, they are all committed to supporting their senior neighbors to live healthier and more nourished lives in their own homes.

Meals On Wheels galvanizes the resources of local community organizations, businesses, donors, sponsors and more than two million volunteers – bolstered by supplemental funding from the Older Americans Act – into a national safety net for our seniors. Meals on Wheels ensures that seniors have access to adequate nutrition even when family support, mobility and resources are lacking.

For seniors who are mobile and attending Senior Centers and other gathering places, Meals On Wheels also delivers to many of those community gathering places.

This amazing service for our Seniors not only drops off daily nutritious meals, it offers seniors the opportunity to visit with a friendly, caring person who is also doing a safety check to mitigate against the risks of medical emergencies, falls and other accidents.

Meals On Wheels is partially supported by the Older Americans Act (OAA) of 1965, which was the first federal level initiative aimed at providing comprehensive services for older adults and was passed as part of Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society initiative.” (Quote taken from Meals On Wheels America)

Within the last two years, there has been a movement in Congress spearheaded by Senator Bernie Sanders to Reauthorize the OAA. Two Bills were created. Senate Bill S.1562: Older Americans Act Reauthorization Act of 2014 was not enacted in 2014 and the House of Representatives Bill, H.R. 4122, by the same name was referred to Committee on Feb. 28, 2014. This was the last action on the Bill.

Let’s show our support for Reauthorizing these two Bills and getting them passed in 2015 as our elder Boomers remain the largest segment of our population and will need more Meals On Wheels.

To follow these Bills, go to GovTrack.us.

Senior Farmers’ Market Nutrition Program (SFMNP)

This is an interesting USDA Program focused on Seniors. It’s the Senior Farmers’ Market Nutrition Program (SFMNP).

“The Senior Farmers’ Market Nutrition Program (SFMNP) awards grants to States, U.S. Territories, and federally recognized Indian tribal governments to provide low-income seniors with coupons that can be exchanged for eligible foods (fruits, vegetables, honey, and fresh-cut herbs) at farmers’ markets, roadside stands, and community-supported agriculture programs.

The SFMNP is administered by State agencies such as the State Department of Agriculture or the Agency on Aging.

The purposes of the Senior Farmers’ Market Nutrition Program are to:

(1) Provide resources in the form of fresh, nutritious, unprepared, locally grown fruits, vegetables, honey and herbs from farmers’ markets, roadside stands and community supported agriculture programs to low-income seniors,
(2) Increase the domestic consumption of agricultural commodities by expanding or aiding in the expansion of domestic farmers’ markets, roadside stands, and community supported agriculture programs, and
(3) Develop or aid in the development of new and additional farmers’ markets, roadside stands, and community supported agriculture programs.” (Quote from USDA Overview of the Program)

Like Farm to School, this program benefits both the recipient of the vouchers as well as the sellers of the fruits, vegetables, honey and herbs. It’s another win/win program that supports everyone involved.

USDA Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP)

No line up of USDA Food Assistance Programs would be complete without listing the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program now known as SNAP and formerly known as Food Stamps.

“SNAP offers nutrition assistance to millions of eligible, low-income individuals and families and provides economic benefits to communities. SNAP is the largest program in the domestic hunger safety net. The Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) works with State agencies, nutrition educators, and neighborhood and faith-based organizations to ensure that those eligible for nutrition assistance can make informed decisions about applying for the program and can access benefits. FNS also works with State partners and the retail community to improve program administration and ensure program integrity.” (Quote from the USDA website on SNAP )

As of the last count, which was October 2014, there were 46,674,364 Americans on SNAP, which constitutes 14.6 percent of the 318,857,056 people in our popu-lation. Households on food stamps got an average benefit of $261.44 during the month, and total benefits for the month cost taxpayers nearly $6 billion. That’s $6 billion per month, which would be $72 billion per year. (Statistics from an on-line publicly supported news website, CNS NEWS )

“Close to 70 percent of SNAP participants are in families with children; more than one-quarter are in households with seniors or people with disabilities.

After unemployment insurance, SNAP is the most responsive federal program providing additional assistance during economic downturns. It also is an important nutritional support for low-wage working families, low-income seniors, and people with disabilities living on fixed incomes.

The federal government pays the full cost of SNAP benefits and splits the cost of administering the program with the states, which operate the program.” (Quote taken from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities)

Being the best known and the largest food assistance program out there, often places SNAP in the crossfires of criticism; and many believe it is being over used and under managed allowing for abuse and fraud. Nevertheless, this program has been and continues to be a god-send to many Americans in need of food assistance.

All About the Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act

This Act was passed in 2010 as part of the reauthorization of funding for child nutrition (see the original Child Nutrition Act). It’s focal point is improving child nutrition; and it serves to set policy for the USDA’s core child nutrition programs including the:

National School Lunch Program (NSLP)
School Breakfast Program (SBP)
Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC)
Summer Food Service Program (SFSP)
Child and Adult Care Food Program (CACFP)
Farm to School Grant Program
(Quote from USDA website School Meals, Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act)

Except for the WIC Program and the Farm to School Grant Program, we are not going into detail regarding each of these programs. For more information, click on the above Links to see what each of these programs entails.

In March of 2010, “the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimated that implementing this bill would have discretionary costs of $35.9 billion over the 2011-2015 period, assuming appropriation of the necessary amounts.” Most of these costs are for the reauthorization of WIC, which received an appropriation of $7.3 billion in fiscal year 2010 and would, therefore, need at the very least 5 times that for the designated 5 year period of 2011-2015 period. (Quote taken from the Congressional Budget Office Cost Estimate dated March 24, 2010)

The Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act has nothing to do with the SNAP Program and is a separate expenditure that is focused on children except in the case of Adult Care Facilities where Adults are being serviced.

That means that between the Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act and the SNAP Program, the USDA is spending nearly $80 billion annually to provide nutrition for people in need.

The Women Infants and Children Program (WIC)

“In 1974, WIC was established as a permanent program to safeguard the health of low-income women, infants and children up to the age of 5 who are at nutritional risk.

This mission is carried out by providing nutritious foods to supplement diets, nutrition education (including breastfeeding promotion and support), and referrals to health and other social services.

WIC benefits are not limited only to food. Participants have access to a number of resources, including health screening, nutrition and breastfeeding counseling, immunization screening and referral, substance abuse referral and more.” (Quote taken from USDA website page on the Women, Infants and Children (WIC) Program)

WIC recipients become eligible for this program based on their annual income and must fall at or below 185 percent of the U.S. Poverty Income Guidelines as of the revised guidelines effective from July 1, 2014 to June 30, 2015.(Information gleaned from the USDA website page on the Women, Infants and Children (WIC) Program)

There was a rather shocking group of statistics put out by the USDA in 2010 as part of their State-Level Estimates of Infants and Pre-School-Age Children at or Below 185 Percent of Poverty. These stats compare 2009 to 2010 and show that almost every state had rising numbers of children in this category. It appears that the recession that was triggered by the pop of the housing bubble in 2008 among other things has plunged more households at or below 185 percent of poverty.

“WIC is not an entitlement program as Congress does not set aside funds to allow every eligible individual to participate in the program. WIC is a Federal Grant Program for which Congress authorizes a specific amount of funds each year for the program. Based on the 2010 figure, WIC annual cost is around $7 billion; and it is the most costly program in the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act Program Group.

WIC is:
1. Administered at the Federal level by FNS
2. Administered by 90 WIC state agencies, through approximately 47,000 authorized retailers.
3. WIC operates through 1,900 local agencies in 10,000 clinic sites, in 50 State health departments, 34 Indian Tribal Organizations, the District of Columbia, and five territories (Northern Mariana, American Samoa, Guam, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands)”
(Quote taken from USDA website page Wic at a Glance)

Currently, WIC serves a staggering 53% of all infants born in the United States. This means that over half of the children born in the U.S. need Nutritional support by the government; and this is another example of how fragile our economy is post the 2008 crash.

In Conclusion:

In conclusion, we have to say that as we wrote this month’s Newsletter, we really learned a lot. We had no idea about how many different Nutrition Programs are being funded and how much those programs cost.

We’ve seen comparisons regarding the percentage Americans spend on food out of their annual incomes compared to other countries; and those figures show that we spend so much less.

But now we’re wondering if these statistics are taking into account how much the U.S. Government, via it’s tax payers, is spending on Nutrition.

Maybe if we took the nearly $80 billion that is being spent annually by the USDA and divided it up among all of the taxpayers and then did the comparison again, we’d get a higher percentage number spent on Food in the U.S. We’re pretty sure those billions aren’t reflected in the above graph.

On the other hand, we spent $799.8 billion on our Defense Budget in fiscal year 2014. There’s another mind blowing number for you. We’re actually spending almost 10 times more on Defense than we’re spending on Food for the needy.

Bottom line, we have to feed our people in need; and we need to defend all of us so relax and enjoy this last day of Nutrition Month.

Thank You for following our Blog. We hope you enjoyed reading this one as much as we enjoyed doing the research and bringing you this information.

P.S. Remember to tell your friends and family who want to learn more about our Food System or who are interested in Aquaponics to check out our Blog. If you’d like to see this Blog Post as a monthly Newsletter, go to our March 2015 Newsletter, Number 15.

Sustainably,

Aquaponics USA/World

Inside our Fishroom and Growroom

February 2015 Newsletter Number 14 Table of Contents (first 7 are Sidebars) A Word From Our Editor, Grace Sylke Don’t miss our Pinterest Wall Read our January 2015 Newsletter Read our December 2014 Newsletter The New To Grow Visit our Aquaponics USA/World TV Channel Happy Valentines Day, Yesterday! All About Planting Seeds Visiting the Tilapia Nursery The 80º Vertical System Two Weeks Later A Word from our Editor, Grace Sylke We’ve once again delayed Part 2 of our new Series on“Obesity in America”to bring you this update about what’s been happening in our Fishroom and Growroom. You’re even getting a tutorial on how to start your own seeds from scratch. Quick Links   Aquaponics USA Aquaponics World Aquaponics USA Blog Aquaponics USA & Aquaponics World TV Aquaponics World Pinterest Wal Aquaponics World facebook Aquaponics USA facebook Aquaponics USA twitter Aquaponics World twitter Aquaponics USA Food & Health News Be Sure To Check Out Our Aquaponics World Pinterest Wall Pinterest keeps growing like the weeds that are NOT in our Aquaponics Grow Beds. You can share your favorite images on a Wall you create. We recently created a Wall of Lettuce. Walls are Walls. We love sharing our Lettuce and Pinterest Walls. Read our January 2015 Newsletter It’s all about our ever changing Greenhouse and our newly installed 80º Vertical Food Forever™ Farm Growing System. Get Access to all of our 2014 Newsletters from our December 2014 Newsletter, which is Part 1 of the Series, “Obesity In America” All of our 2014 Newsletters are Linked Up in our December 2014 Newsletter. We don’t only talk about Aquaponics. We talk about important issues relating to our Food System like the “Food Revolution, Parts 1-4”, “The Organic Industry In The U.S. Parts 1-3” and other important Food System topics. Watch For the new Food Documentary,The Need To GROW This documentary, which is still in production is all about The Need To Grow healthy, local food and the need to change how we regard agribusiness turning it into “an ecological system that includes all of humankind, all the animals, the rivers, the oceans, and the microbes–rather than an industry artificially cut-off from nature.” Quote take from The Need To Grow website. Oh, and We’re In It.Click on the Trailer from the Home Page. Go To Our Aquaponics USA/ Aquaponics World TV Channel Today we have 2,037 Subscribers and 343,801 Views. You’ll enjoy seeing what we’ve been doing since we started Aquaponics USA in 2009. It’s amazing how fast this field is growing. Watch for our up-coming Video of our new 80º Vertical System in our Greenhouse. We’ll show you how easy it is to harvest this new system. Coming in early April. Yesterday. Hope you Made it a Good One! Valentines Day comes around every year. To some it’s a really special un-Holiday. To others it’s a day of remembering when it was special and you were with the one you loved. How about making it a “Love Everyone & Everything Day”. Now that’s special! Heck, let’s do that Everyday! And don’t forget your fish. Read Aquaponics USA Food & Health News This Paper is a must read for anyone interested in Food & Health. It’s a Daily so you can start your day taking in some of the most important information about these two important topics all sorted and gathered right out of the web for you. Our Monthly Special This cylindrical 4″ Airstone has a 2″ Diameter and is the best Air Stone we have found yet. It really pumps out the air; and we are now using it in all of our Fish Tanks. For February through March 15, we’re offering this Air Stone with a 10% Discount exclusively to our Newsletter Subscribers. Just give us a call prior to ordering so we can lock in your Discount. 760-671-3053 Inside our Fishroom & Growroom  Where Things Are Moving Along Swimmingly Dear Subscriber: We’ve once again post-poned our Series on “Obesity in America” to focus on what’s happening with our Aquaponics Micro Food Forever™ Farm over here in the High Desert of California. This is a small Demonstration Farm built so we could do R&D on our system designs, learn what works and what doesn’t work before we put these sustainable, organic Farms into the marketplace. Our January Newsletter, which you can read here, was all about our Greenhouse and the cutting edge new 80º Vertical System we recently installed within it. So we decided to make this Newsletter about the rest of our Micro Food Forever™ Farm, which are the enclosed areas that include our Fishroom and Growroom. Food Forever™ Farms can grow vegetables and food fish in Greenhouses or Warehouses so we are demonstrating Aquaponics food growing technology in both of those environments. Here’s Our Latest Evolution in Seed Germination We were having a heck of a time getting our seeds to germinate past a certain size. They would sprout, grow and then when they got to be about one inch high, they would start to croak. We put them in the Greenhouse under natural Light. We put them in the Growroom under fluorescents and then LED’s; but the same thing kept happening. It was a real mystery. We were able to save most of our seedlings; but we were being forced to plant them into the Growroom or Greenhouse Systems while they were very small causing them to take up precious grow out space for way longer than necessary. Above, you see our solution and it’s working like a charm. This is a Shallow Flood & Drain Grow Bed full of seedlings. We’re calling it our Seed  Incubation Table (SIT™); and are having fun with the acronym because it’s all about putting them in the Bed and then comes the “Sit and Wait” part of the process. We quite literally don’t have to do another thing as the seedlings are being automatically watered with the system water, which eliminates daily watering. This new system even allowed us to leave our sprouted seedlings in the SIT™ for longer than they needed to be there while we finished building our new 80º Vertical System. While we’re talking about seeds, let’s go through a little lesson on how to plant them. You need a few things to germinate seeds starting with a Seed Starter Kit, which we sell on our Aquaponics USA website. So the next question is what do you do with the Kit? You take the Seed Tray and the Seed Planting Cube with 98 Seed sites and soak them in your bath tub or in a tray that is deep enough to cover them with water. But this is not ordinary water. This water has to have a pH of 5.5. Now we need to go further into the chemistry weeds on this subject because we need to explain what the heck is pH?   The “H” in pH stands for Hydrogen and the “p” stands for the power of that Hydrogen–the concentration of hydrogen ions in a solution. That Hydrogen concentration is very important for living things because Hydrogen ions are positively charged and can, therefore, alter the charge environment of other molecules in a solution by putting a force on the molecule causing it to change its normal shape. For a protein molecule this is crucial because the shape of a protein is related to its function. A low pH count corresponds to a high hydrogen ion concentration and a high pH count corresponds to a low hydrogen ion concentration. A substance that when added increases the concentration of hydrogen ions (lowers the pH) is called an acid; and a substance that decreases the concentration of hydrogen ions (raises the pH) is called a base. There are also substances that enable solutions to resist pH changes when an acid or base is added. These substances are called buffers. Buffers help organisms maintain a relatively constant pH.  Pure water is considered neutral with a pH of 7. Solutions with a pH less than 7 are said to be acidic and solutions with a pH greater than 7 are said to be basic or alkaline. Tilapia prefer a pH range of 7-8, which is on the alkaline side of the scale. But most Aquaponic farmers keep their pH levels between 6.8 and 7.0, which is a compromise for the fish and the plants as the plants prefer a more acidic environment. Drastic shifts in either direction can be lethal to both the fish and the plants. So watching pH levels is very important in aquaponics. So that means you also need to have a pH Meter, which it just happens we also sell on our site. You start by calibrating your meter according to the instructions on the box. Then you measure what the pH is of your water as it comes out of your faucets. Your goal is to soak your Seed Cube in a pH environment of 5.5, which means you need to start your seeds in an acidic environment. If your water is alkaline, meaning it has a natural pH of 7 or above, you have to make it acidic; and you do this by adding good old Distilled White Vinegar. You carefully add the vinegar while watching your pH Meter until it goes to 5.5 and stays there. Then you place your seed tray with the seed cube into the water and let it soak for about a half hour. Once your tray has soaked up the 5.5 pH water, you take it to the location where you’re going to plant your seeds into it; and perform a simple final act before doing that. You take a pen or pencil and open the holes in the cube so you can easily place your seeds into them. I have my Humble Seed packages ready to be planted into the Seed Cube. We sell these great seeds on our website. Humble Seed’s premium herb, fruit, and vegetable seeds are packaged in re-sealable Mylar® bags then themed and bundled in FDA food-safe containers. Once you get your seeds planted into the Seed Cube, you need to label them so you know what’s what when you plant them into your Grow Beds. We use large popsicle sticks that you can get in the Craft Deptartment of Walmart. We cut them so they don’t obstruct the humidifying dome when it’s placed onto the tray. We used a different Brand of Seeds here because it’s easy to see them in their seed sites. The company that sells these seeds is called Parmount Seeds; and they specialize in seeds for large Greenhouse operations. The final step of seed planting is finding the perfect location for your seeds to sprout. You can actually leave them indoors in the dark for a couple of days before you place them in the sun or under Grow Lights. We’ve tried a lot of different places and lighting to start and grow our seeds ending up with the new SIT™ solution that is working so well for us. But if you don’t have an aquaponics set up that warrants it’s own Flood & Drain Table, you can place them on a shelf in your Greenhouse, in an empty Grow Bed, on a table under a Grow Light or even on a window seat that gets lots of sunlight. In this photo, we’re sprouting our seeds using Seed Kits with 6″ Humidifying Domes placed inside an empty Deep Media Bed in our Greenhouse. At that time, we were demonstrating 60º Vertical Growing instead of the 80º Vertical Growing we’re now demonstrating. Later, we moved that Grow Bed over to the other side of the Greenhouse where it’s growing 3 incredible Tomato Plants today and built a sprouting shelf where it sits. In this photo we’re sprouting our very first batch of seeds to plant in the five Deep Media Grow Beds we originally installed in our Greenhouse. These seedling trays started with 3 inch tall Humidifying Domes and went to 6 inch Domes. A few days before planting, we simply removed the Domes because the seedlings got too tall for them. And in this photo we’re using an LED Grow Light and a portable table to sprout our seeds. Believe me, we’ve tried it all; and finally landed on what we described above as our SIT™ system. Notice the spray bottle under the table on the left. If you don’t have a self watering SIT™ set up for your seeds, you’ll need to hand spray them using system water a couple of times a day until you plant them. So Let’s Go Into Our Fishroom where the Valentine’s Mood is flourishing. In this room, we have five 120 gallon Fish Tanks with about 200 Tilapia including the fingerlings. Fingerlings are fast and skiddish so photographing them is a bit of a challenge. We would like to actually get them out of this tank and place them in a our new Fingerling Aquarium, which will sit on the wall next to the one above them; but that, too, is a major challenge as it would involve stressing every fish in the tank to capture them. Oliver often says he believes fingerlings have “Transporter Technology” as they seem to be able to traverse the tank in zero time. We do our best to not stress our fish as stressed fish easily become subject to disease and premature death. Below is a photo of our installed Fingerling Aquarium, however these fish have grown past finger size and would more appropriately be called hand size. This Aquarium is bolted to the wall at one end of the Fishroom; and we plan to add one or two more as we get more fry. You can see that the system water is running right through this aquarium as we learned a sad lesson when we tried to raise a couple hundred fingerlings in their own separate system with a small Grow Bed that wasn’t sufficient for their water filtration needs. The two knobs you see at the top right are attaching theAutomatic Fish Feeder to the aquarium; and it looks like these guys have just been fed as they’re all gathered at the drop location. In the photo below, we were actually able to get a shot of the fingerlings before they transported off camera. We actually managed to sneek up on five of them. To give you an idea of how tiny they are, in the foreground is the tail of an adult Tilapia in their tank. These five aren’t even the size of a finger as their name indicates. If/when we take them out of this tank, we can’t put them in the Aquarium pictured above because the young Tilapia are protein lovers and carnivores and these little guys would be devoured. The large Tilapia, their progenitors, in this tank aren’t so interested in a new protein source so they leave them alone. They live on algae and Fingerling Crumble, which we sell on our Aquaponics USA website. Back to our Greenhouse for a Quick Peek  at what happened in the 2 Weeks since we sent out our January Newsletter. The 3 kinds of Lettuce we planted into our new 80º Vertical System has grown out and is almost ready for harvest. What a sight it is to see. This is a 16 foot long wall of lettuce so thick you can no longer see the ducts that it’s growing in. And there’s a Chef down in Palm Springs who can’t wait to get his hands on this pesticide free, organic lettuce. His name is Scott and he owns New Leaf Catering so if you’re in the area and have an event coming up, be sure to visit his website. We Have a Great Daily Newspaper. It’s the . . . If you want to keep up on what’s happening in the Food & Health World, just Subscribe to the Aquaponics USA Food & Health News. It’s a Daily Paper full of important articles, recipes and the latest scientific research on both Food and Health. Consumer Alert! A new company has just joined the dark side with Monsanto & Friends to get a GMO Apple approved by the Federal Government. The FDA has yet to weigh in; but it’s looking like a slam dunk. This is the Okanagan Company; and they are under the misguided opinion that we need an apple that doesn’t brown or bruise when it’s cut open. What we need are healthy, wholesome Organic Apples and not more Franken Food by ego maniacs who think they can create nutritious food better than Mother Nature. Go to Politico to read the article announcing this sad day of birthing the poison apple for innocent, unaware consumers who aren’t allowed to know those apples are GMO because there is no mandatory labeling. We got so disturbed by this diabolical announcement, we had to create three images to spread the word. All of these images are on our Aquaponics World Pinterest Wall so PLEASE have at them and spread this Consumer Alert far and wide. These poison apples are not on the market yet. Maybe if we scream loudly enough, Okanagan will realize they took a wrong turn when they came to the fork in the road; and they followed the fork that leads to their destruction. Thank you so much for following our Newsletters. We hope you had a happy, romantic and fun-filled Valentines Day. If you’re a Pinterest Fan, you can find several of these photos on our Aquaponics World Pinterest Wall. So have fun sharing them. And if you’re just discovering our Newsletters, you can get Links to all of our 2014 Newsletters by clicking over to our December 2014 Newsletter. You can also read our January 2015 Newsletter here. And don’t forget to Forward this Newsletter to your colleagues, friends and family who care about our Food System and how we’re growing our food. Sustainably, Aquaponics USA/World Get your 10% Discount on any of our Food Forever™ Growing systems from Aquaponics USA! This Offer is good until April 1st, 2015.

 

Aquaponics World Keeps Changing Everything

January 2015 Newsletter Aquaponics USA/World              Lucky Number 13 Table of Contents   Our 60º Vertical Duffy Duct System for Greenhouses   A 60º Vertical Wall growing Red Oak Leaf Lettuce   We did it again. Tore everything (except the Deep Media Beds) out of the Greenhouse   Back to the drawing board to build 7 ft. 80º Vertical Ducts   It’s a Trough alright; but not for a Raft System   The Drawing of the new 80º Vertical System   The Drawing Program that made it all possible–Artboard   The finished 80º Vertical Duffy Duct System   Moving Lettuce from Stage one Grow Out to Stage Two Grow Out   The 80º Vertical Duffy Duct System planted   A Word from our Editor, Grace Sylke We’ve delayed Part 2 of our new Series on“Obesity in America” to bring you this informative Newsletter about what’s been happening in our Greenhouse. Actually, it’s a brief history of that ever changing Greenhouse. QUICK LINKS:   Aquaponics USA Aquaponics World Aquaponics USA Blog Aquaponics USA & Aquaponics World TV Aquaponics World Pinterest  Aquaponics World facebook Aquaponics USA facebook Aquaponics USA Twitter Aquaponics World Twitter Don’t miss our Aquaponics World Pinterest Wall Pinterest is growing in leaps and bounds. It’s a fun way to share your favorite images on the web. We’ve got some great ones to share. Read our Previous Newsletter! It has Links to all of our 2014 Newsletters. We don’t only talk about Aquaponics. We talk about important issues relating to our Food System like the “Food Revolution, Parts 1-4”, “The Organic Industry in the U.S, Parts 1-3” and other important Food System topics. Go To Our Aquaponics USA & Aquaponics World TV Channel We have some really popular and informative YouTube Videos up on our TV Channel; and we’ll be doing a new one on our 80º Vertical System real soon.      Aquaponics World, LLC     Just Keeps Changing Everything Dear Subscriber: If you’ve been following our progress over the years since we first came onto the Aquaponics scene in early 2009, you already know we’re innovators. Our retired aerospace engineer turned Aquaponics Systems Designer, Oliver Duffy, just keeps improving his designs never being satisfied to settle for almost great and certainly never following the pack. We started our Aquaponics journey as backyard Deep Media system designers, which we are still doing through our Aquaponics USA company that sells Deep Media Home and School Systems. In those days our Greenhouse looked like this with five Deep Media Beds. Then we started exploring commercial aquaponics and talking about the possibility of designing Vertical Aquaponics systems on a large scale to sell vegetables for profit. Quite frankly, we were laughed at by some pretty heavy hitters in the field in those early years of commercial aquaponics. Suddenly, everything changed and anyone who was a real contender in the field started designing commercial systems that no longer grew leafy greens in Deep Media Systems. It was the time of the emergence of Deep Water Culture Beds often referred to as Raft Systems. Raft Systems have become the standard for commercial aquaponics; and it seems the pack has simply settled on them as the answer. Raft systems were not new technology as they came onto the scene in the 70’s with the now famous Dr. James Rakocy over at UVI (University of the Virgin Islands); but until around 2011, for the aquaponics companies that formed in the field outside of University settings, Deep Media was all the rage. Now, it’s the ubiquitous Horizontal Raft System that is showing up everywhere in commercial systems that are growing leafy greens. Below, this Raft System, showing only the troughs, was built for the 2013 Greenhouse Expo in Bahrain. The plants will be held in polystyrene rafts floating over the troughs. The polystyrene has holes drilled in it to hold the plants. There’s nothing wrong with these Horizontal Raft Systems as they’re made out of wood and pond liner; and are, therefore, relatively inexpensive to build; and they grow beautiful leafy greens. But their downside is they are all “Horizontal” and take up a massive amount of Greenhouse or Warehouse space to put out their crops.    In the aquaponics field, space is precious so designing systems with the ability to put out more plants in less space is highly desirable. So Oliver designed Vertical NFT Ducts to grow Leafy Greens. We call them Duffy Ducts™ in honor of his last name.  In February of 2014, we tore the five Deep Media Beds, pictured above, out of our Greenhouse and installed this space saving 60º Vertical Duffy Duct™ System. We made our ducts out of vinyl fence posts; but soon discovered these slick, thick fence posts were way too expensive to enable us to build Food Forever™ Farms, which would require thousands of them. This isn’t news as we’veBlogged, YouTubed and Newslettered about our first Vertical duct system on a few occasions. For the purposes of this Newsletter, we wanted to recap the history that’s been going on in our Greenhouse since 2009. The above system isn’t only saving precious space. It’s saving one of the most important natural resources on our planet today–WATER! The little bit of water that’s trickling down these ducts is way less than what you see filling the troughs in the Raft System above. The only way to accomplish this feat in an aquaponics system is to have ultra clean, clear water in the system; and that is no easy task. Actually, that’s where the rubber hits the road in aquaponics system design. And that leads right to our proprietary technology that is in a Patent Pending process called our Solids Separation BioConversion System (SSBS). Our SSBS is a state of the art water conversion invention that makes Vertical Aquaponics NFT Growing Systems possible. For those of you who don’t know, NFT stands for Nutrient Film Technique; and these systems have been around for a long time as they’ve been borrowed (pretty much like everything else) from Hydroponics technology. But rarely, if ever, do you see NFT systems placed in a Vertical configuration unless Horizontal NFT’s are stacked. The system below is a Horizontal NFT system; but you can see how the troughs could be staked one above the other on railings to turn them into a layered vertical system. That’s not what we’re doing. We’re actually turning our Duffy Duct™ System Vertically at a 60º angle to full Vertical and growing what looks like walls of leafy greens. Here’s a Wall of Red Oak Leaf Lettuce that was growing in our Greenhouse last year. But by this time, we had already discovered our big price problem and had torn out all of the vinyl fence posts that had grown 3 crops of perfectly beautiful lettuce for us. We replaced the vinyl fence posts with vinyl downspouts, which you can barely see in this picture. We left the support structure in place only replacing the ducts. Here’s a picture of our vinyl fence posts in the Bone Yard along with some of the Deep Media Beds we tore out of the Greenhouse in February of 2014. If you’re thinking this can get to be an expensive proposition, you’re right; but we’re doing R&D on the perfect Food Forever™ Farm system and that means these Farms not only have to grow leafy greens using less space and water, they also have to be affordable for our clients so the vinyl fence posts had to go. This first adjustment to the design happened around July of 2014. The new downspouts grew beautiful crops of lettuce right into December. In fact, we had so much lettuce we had to sell it so we contacted a couple of free lance chefs in Palm Springs, Chef Giovanni of Freelance Gourmet and Scott of New Leaf Cateringand took a car load to their facilities so they could use it to make Holiday Party Salads. Below is a picture of Oliver helping to package and box lettuce in our kitchen. But we weren’t done yet. We had one more almost complete tear out to do this month. And this time we once again tore out everything in the Greenhouse except our two Deep Media Beds in the back that are putting out the biggest and most delicious tomatoes we have ever grown. Below is a photo of Grace trimming those tomato plants. We finally figured out how to properly trim these tomato plants so they continually produce massive amounts of indeterminate tomatoes right through winter. Another reason our tomatoes are doing so well this winter is we also insulated the North side of our East/West facing Greenhouse. This side does not get sun; and it was allowing a lot of heat that we were generating with a Blue Flame heater to escape the Greenhouse. Last February, when we tore everything out of our Greenhouse for the first time (this is getting to be a habit), we covered the Greenhouse with a light diffusing Greenhouse plastic so now the sunlight coming in is diffused and goes everywhere. This silver insulation actually bounces light back into the Greenhouse and increases the overall light. The fish tank you see in the background is temporarily being used as a sump for the flooding and draining that’s happening in the two Deep Media Beds. It does not have fish in it and it will be removed once our new duct system is complete. So now what are we doing in that ever evolving Greenhouse? Here’s a big hint. We’re building more Vertical Duffy Ducts™ using downspouts; but this time, they’re going to be 80º to full Vertical and taller; and they’re going to be in one straight line all facing the South side of our Greenhouse where they will get the best light. With this new design, we’ll be able to grow 240 heads of luscious lettuce; and we’ll be demonstrating to our indoor clients the new 80º to full Vertical capabilities of this system. It just so happens that because our Greenhouse faces East/West we can use this new 80º configuration of our Duffy Duct™ System in a single wall. Right now as I write this Newsletter, Oliver and our System Technician, Keil Plotczyk, are completing the hooking up of the hoses onto the top of this new 80º Vertical Duffy Duct™ System and we’ll be planting into it soon. We’ll also be able to show you a picture of the new system before this Newsletter goes out. Of course that means we just added to our Bone Yard; and below, you see the shorter downspouts that grew several crops of beautiful luscious lettuce from August through December of 2014. These downspouts are actually white; but look blue as they are sitting inside a green screen room that attaches to the North side of our Greenhouse. If anyone is interested in purchasing our used vinyl fence posts or downspouts, please give us a call at 760-671-3053 because our Bone Yard is filling up. So what happened next? No, we didn’t join the pack and build a Trough for a Raft System!  We did build a trough alright; and we used pond liner for the first time. This is the trough for catching the water that’s going to be passing through our 80º Vertical NFT Duffy Duct™ System; and I just went out to the Greenhouse to see it all complete. WOW! It’s breath taking. It’s too late to take pictures today so this Newsletter is being delayed a day so you can see it all planted and growing lettuce. Here is our 80º Vertical Duffy Duct™ System Design as it was meticulously measured out and tweaked by our System Designer especially for our own Greenhouse. The brown at the bottom is the front side of the trough you saw pictured above. This system has a single Wall of 24 Ducts all facing the South Wall of our Greenhouse. There are no fish tanks in the Greenhouse as we moved all of our fish into the Fishroom when we finished building it early last year. Our goal is to create a demonstration Micro Food Forever™ Farm with all of the bells and whistles of a full-sized Farm. This new design demonstrates what’s possible in an enclosed warehouse as that is where we can use this 80º Duffy Duct™ System most efficiently. The only reason we’re able to put it into our Greenhouse is because our Greenhouse is long, narrow and the ducts are all facing the South Wall where the sun shines in. When we place the 80º Vertical Duffy Duct™ System into a warehouse with Grow Lights, the system design changes dramatically and is proprietary; but the essence of the design is being shared here. The Drawing Program Oliver used to create this design is called Artboard. And he’s feeling it made the design of our new Greenhouse 80º Vertical configuration possible because it allowed him to easily move things around to make them fit exactly how they had to fit into the challenging space restricted requirements. And Here It Is–Our 80 degree Vertical Duffy Duct™ System! This system had to be precisely calculated to fit in our Greenhouse, be easily planted and harvested (that’s a proprietary feature we’re not showing) and allow enough space for plant grow out and Tours in our narrow 8 ft. wide Greenhouse. This is what Oliver, our System Designer, came up with. The Next Step? Transferring the Lettuce into the new Stage Two Full Grow Out Vertical Duffy Duct™ System. Here’s Grace moving a tray of Butter Lettuce that has been growing in the Growroom under LED’s. The seeds were planted into Seedling Trays on Nov. 21st. Then the Seedlings were moved into the Growroom’s First Stage of Grow Out on Dec. 23rd. On the 25th of Jan., this photo was taken as this Butter Lettuce went into the Greenhouse. We left these plants in Stage One Grow Out longer than we normally would have because we were building the new Stage Two Grow Out Duct System in the Greenhouse. The New 80º Vertical Duffy Duct™ Stage Two Full Grow Out System Planted! This Lettuce Wall contains three different kinds of lettuce including Butter, Red Oak Leaf and Romaine. In about two weeks, it will be ready to harvest. As for the tomato plants, they just won’t quit putting out tomatoes. We’ve come a long way since we built this Greenhouse in late 2008; and we’ve learned a lot. As we said earlier, we’re innovators and this is truly a state of the art innovation in Aquaponic Vertical Growing. Thanks for reading our first Newsletter for 2015. If you’re a Pinterest Fan, you can find several of these photos on ourAquaponics World Pinterest Wall. So have fun sharing them. And if you’re just discovering our Newsletters, you can get Links to all of our 2014 Newsletters by clicking over to our December 2014 Newsletter. And don’t forget to Forward this Newsletter to your colleagues, friends and family who care about our Food System and how we’re growing our food. We trust your New Year is getting off to a great start!   Sustainably, Aquaponics USA/World Get your 10% Discount on any of our Food Forever™ Growing Systems from Aquaponics USA! This Offer is good until March 1st, 2015

August Newsletter: It’s All About Grow Lights!

August Newsletter: It’s All About the Grow Lights!

August Newsletter #7 Table of Contents A Word from our Editor, Grace Sylke It’s All About Grow Lighs A Grow Light Showroom, I mean Growroom Fluorescent T5’s 600 Watt Halide Induction Lights Older LED’s New LED’s “The Need To Grow”, a food documentary in production Aquaponics USA/World TV Rosamond High Gets A Food Forevr Growing System The Aquaponics USA Teacher Training Manual The Aquaponics USA Resources & Curriculum Ideas Manual A Word from our Editor, Grace Sylke We’re once again getting this Newsletter out just prior to the end of the designated month; but the good news is we have a Monthly Newsletter that’s been well received and is growing in popularity thanks to everyone of YOU, our Subscribers. We recently completed a four month Newsletter Series about the FOOD REVOLUTION from April-July, (if you haven’t seen that series, it’s quite a story; and all you need to do is click the above Link. Then read April-June before you read July as it’s a series.) We are now back to sharing our experiences doing R&D in our Greenhouse and Growroom. This August Newsletter is all about the Grow Lights in our Growroom; and September is going to be about our Vertical Duffy Duct System in the Greenhouse. It’s an ongoing adventure in R&D over here when you have an aerospace engineer designing the system. Speaking of R&D, you’re not going to believe what’s in the pipeline for our Indoor Food Forever™ Farms. It’s a game changer; but we won’t be sharing those plans for a while. Suffice it to say, this new Aquaponics Technology has even caught us by surprise. Quick Links: Aquaponics USA Aquaponics World, LLCAquaponics USA TV Aquaponics USA BlogThe Need To Grow Rosamond High School Southern Kern Unified School District July Newsletter What’s been happening at Aquaponics USA and Aquaponics World while we wrote about the Food Revolution in the past 4 months?  A LOT! If you missed the 4 part (one each month) FOOD REVOLUTION Series, you can read them all by clicking on our July Newsletter: This Newsletter is All About GROW LIGHTS! Dear Subscriber: We’ve been very busy over here at Aquaponics USA and Aquaponics World since we debuted our Micro Food Forever™ Farm in late February; and we’ve learned a lot. This Newsletter is all about what’s happened and what we learned so sit tight and buckle up for a ride on our roller coaster of running two Aquaponics companies. It’s All About Grow Lights  Everything we’re doing over here is all about Research Development. Actually, for innovative Aquaponics System Designers, R&D is necessary and on-going. However, some Aquaponics System Designers have gotten stuck in the same system designs. That’s not what’s happening here. We’re about as fluid as the water running through our systems. Right now, our biggest R&D project is around finding and testing the best, most economical and energy efficient Grow Lights, which is why the photo below shows a Growroom with four different kinds of Grow Lights running in it. We’re going to give you the skinny on every one of them right here in this Newsletter so keep reading. The other major R&D project is about designing and running a Vertical Duffy Duct™ System. Next month, we’ll explain why after just twelve weeks, we tore out everything we had just put up in the Greenhouse and replaced them with something else. All that work! All that money! And out it came after growing the first two crops! EGAD! When I (Grace) freak out over things like taking out everything and replacing it with something else, Oliver, our retired aerospace engineer turned Aquaponics Systems Designer, calmly explains it like this: “Grace, that’s what R&D is. You do the Research by testing things. If things don’t work the way you want them to work or cost out the way you hoped, you tear them out and find something that works better or costs out more efficiently.” He’s used to doing R&D work. Kiel, our Systems Technician, and I go into shock for a couple of days. Kiel doesn’t know it yet; but our proprietary Solids Separation BioConversion System is about to go through a big tweak soon, too. We can’t tell you about that part of the Food Forever™ Farm System because it’s in the Patenting Process. Our Growroom with 4 Different Types of Lights.(The Fluorescent T5’s are not shown, as we tested and removed them.) Visiting our Growroom is like walking into a Grow Light Showroom because that’s exactly what it is right now. In the foreground, and colored red, are four LED fixtures. Behind them is a 600 Watt Halide Grow Light. Behind the Halide are six LED Bars. Behind the LED Bars are four Induction Lights. Below, are the intimate details of what we’ve discovered doing the R&D on these different kinds of Grow Lights. We’re going to tell you what they cost, how well they work, what kind of power they take and how much heat they aim towards the plants. We’ll also discuss what we’ve found to be the advantages and disadvantages of each kind of Grow Light including the already removed Fluorescents. Fluorescent T5’s (not shown above) These are T5 Fluorescents. During the first two years of running our Growroom we used these Fluorescents for grow-out; and they worked great. They are great for growing leafy greens and need to be kept close to the top of the canopy. They have even light distribution and draw about 400 Watts each for a total of 800 Watts for a 4 x 4 foot (16 square feet) area. They cannot be used for flowing plants like tomatoes as they do not have enough red light and cannot be set up high above the plant. The heat from the lights is transfered to the plants because of the low positioning of the light above the plants. These 8 tube lights sell for $249 each, or $498 for two to cover 16 square feet. Halide This is a 600 Watt Halide bulb in a Dominator XXXL reflector. It has a 60 Watt 8 inch fan attached. The Lumatek ballast (not shown; but you can see it in our recently released YouTube Video at Aquaponics USA TV) is adjustable from 400 to 600 plus Watts. Overall, this light uses about 500 Watts in the 400 Watt setting to 720 Watts in the 600 Watt setting due to ballast efficiency and fan power. The light from the reflector covers a 4 x 4 foot area (16 square feet) evenly. The Halide bulb is tuned for leafy greens but can be replaced with a High Pressure Sodium (HPS) to grow flowing plants and either bulb can be up to 1000 Watts with the appropriate ballast. The above pictured 600 Watt light and ballast sells for about $520. Surprisingly, this halide puts out very little heat to the plant, as the bulb does not emit any appreciable amount of infrared. Induction Grow Lights Induction Grow Lights are similar to fluorescents inasmuch as they are a glass tube with phosphors painted on the inside. When electrically activated, the phosphors emit light of different colors (wavelengths) depending on the phosphor chemistry. The main difference is that fluorescents have electrodes inserted in the end of the tubes and induction lights do not. Induction lights are made in a continuous loop, have a coil wrapped around them in two places and the energy is magnetically delivered to the light’s interior. This method of energy insertion is much more efficient than using electrodes that deteriorate over time thereby limiting the fluorescent’s life to only a few thousand hours. Induction lights last for 70,000 hours at full brightness and 100,000 hours to 70% of full brightness. They cover the full spectrum and, therefore, can be used to grow a wide variety of plants. These Inda-Gro induction lights will cover a 4 x 4 foot area (16 square feet) but the light distribution is not equal, with much more light directly under the light than out near the side edges of the 4 x 4 foot area. When using multiple Induction lights, we have found that setting them 3 feet apart gives a good distribution of light down a row of lights.They put out more heat than expected, especially right below the light. Each light draws 420 Watts of electricity and requires extra Red LEDs to improve flowering plant fruiting, like tomatoes. They sell for about $795 each. Older LED’s We purchased these LED’s several years ago. They were designed for growing cannabis and it was what was available at the time. Each circle has 16 red, 4 blue and one green LED. They work well for sprouting and growing flowering plants due to the amount of red light. But, they do not work well for growing out leafy greens (or the vegetative stage of all plants) due to the lack of blue light. Each one of these fixtures draw 150 Watts and 4 of them together draw 600 Watts to cover a 4 x 4 foot (16 square foot) area and have even light distribution. Most of the heat generated by the lights is convected upwards from the back of the fixture. At the time we purchased these they were selling for about $1,200 each, so they were quite expensive. New LEDs These six LED Grow Bars are custom designed to grow leafy greens. They contain four different colors (wavelengths) of LEDs to meet the requirements of both chlorophyll “A” of 430nm (Indigo) and 662nm (Red), and chlorophyll “B” of 453nm (Blue) and 642nm (Red-Orange). They have equal numbers of the different color LEDs with a total of 24 LEDs per bar. Each bar has it’s own power supply that draws 40 watts with a total of all six bars at 240 Watts to cover a 4 x 4 foot area (16 square feet). We have one bar over each duct at 8 inch separation. They have 120 degree lenses on the individual LEDs and require a 5 inch height above the canopy (shown at 12 inch height) in order for all the colors to converge and supply each plant with a full spectrum of available light. These bars do get quite warm to hot, but that heat is far enough away from the plants, and of such small overall quantity, that it is not a factor due to the overall low power requirement. Also, due to their small form factor, they can be used in a greenhouse as supplemental lighting without interference to the natural sunlight, especially if the greenhouse uses a diffused light covering. In addition, these lights allow for lots of air movement. We do not have a price set for these lights as these were custom ordered. We are still testing these lights but they look very promising. THE NEED TO GROW, Is a new documentary in production about how we’re changing our Food System. It’s going to be an Award Winner so watch for it. Produced by Ryan Wirick and Rob Herring, it features some of the most important people in the Food Movement including Jeffrey Smith and Verdana Shiva. And we’re in it, too, so you’ll be hearing a lot about this film from us. We’re so excited about it we can hardly keep our new Logo Baseball Caps on straight. We did manage to keep them on when the film crew converged on our Demonstration Micro Food Forever™ Farm on Sunday, August 17, 2014 to film our contribution to “The Need To Grow”. Hours later, as the crew packed up, we looked at each other and said, “It looks like they filmed everything but the kitchen sink and the cats.” It was a fun and exciting day. “In 2014, Ryan Wirick founded Earth Conscious Films with the intention of creating motion pictures that not only inform and entertain, but also empower people with the tools needed to solve the most pressing issues facing our species and the planet.” (from “The Need To Grow” website) His first Earth Conscious Film is “The Need To Grow”, which addresses the solutions to a corporately controlled food system. The DVD cover quotes Buckminster Fuller saying: “You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete”. This film is all about these new models. “Rob Herring is a graduate of Tisch School of the Arts at NYU where he received the Drama Award for Film and TV. He had a successful career in theater, including two StageSceneLA Awards (one for Best Actor) and an Ovation Award nomination. He recently Co-Directed/Produced his first feature film, a romantic comedy entitled “Nothing In Los Angeles“, which has been selected for numerous festivals around the country and already received two Best Picture honors.” (from “The Need To Grow” website) When it hits theaters, this incredible film is going to be a show-stoping, Award-winning achievement in documentary filmmaking. It’s a MUST SEE Achievement! Aquaponics USA/World TV If you prefer to see a Video describing these Grow Lights, we just created one, which we’ve uploaded to our You Tube Chanel. Just click on Aquaponics USA/World TV. This Aquaponics USA Food Forever™ Growing System, FFGS-20, was installed at Rosamond High in Rosamond, CA in late July, 2014 (We added the colorful and informative Wall Posters) On July 31st, the Aquaponics USA crew drove a couple of hours west to another part of the California High-Desert called Antelope Valley. There, Kiel, our Systems Technician, and Oliver, our Systems Designer, installed this system; and we also conducted a Training for Mr. Ben Gilliam, the Teacher who has this system in his Eco-Science classroom and other staff of Rosamond High including the Assistant Principal, Mrs. Debi Keys. Mrs. Keys referred to the system as “her baby” as she spent eight months working on the California Grant that made it possible to bring the first of several Aquaponics USA Systems into the Southern Kern Unified School District as part of their new Eco-Science Program. Seeing this first FFGS-20 System being installed was a dream come true for both Mrs. Keys and her District Superintendent, Mr. Jeffrey Weinstein, who has been supporting her all the way. Our new Teacher Training Manual that comes with every Aquaponics USA School System. This is a new Teacher Training Manual we created especially for Rosamond High late last month. We plan to share it with all Teachers who can use it to first train themselves and then to train their students on how to operate their Food Forever™ Growing Systems. Teachers Also Receive This Resources & Curriculum Ideas Manual There still aren’t many actual Text Books associated exclusively with specific grade levels that are teaching Aquaponics in the classroom; but it won’t be long before there are. Until then, we’ve created this Resources & Curriculum Ideas Manual that covers all grade levels and offers some helpful suggestions for teaching Aquaponics. Get Your Discounted and Bundled School Price Sheet here where we offer unlimited Tech Support to Teachers An Aquaponics system can be used to demonstrate various principles taught in technology, plant life cycles and their structure, how to make effective use of recycled materials, low-tech/high-yield gardening, ecological issues, biology, chemistry, physics and sustainable farming. A system can be used to demonstrate in real time how the nitrogen cycle works, the parts of a seed, its germination and the growth rate of seedlings. The subjects are endless. Several Culinary Arts students are learning to grow the food they’re being taught to prepare while supplying their school cafeteria with healthy fish and organic vegetables. This takes the “Farm to School” programs that have been popping up all over the nation to another level.   We have a parked website, The Edible Schoolroom, which we would love to build out to feature all of the schools in the Aquaponics USA School Program. We look forward to working with US Schools.   Thank you for Forwarding our Newsletter to your Friends, Family and Social Media Associates and making it a popular and sought out Resource among people who are interested in the Food Movement, Aquaponics and Alternative Sustainable Agriculture. We so appreciate YOU, our Subscribers because without you, we are wasting our time. Sustainably, Aquaponics USA/Aquaponics World Get Your 10% Growing System Discount Use this Discount Coupon to claim a 10% Discount on any of our Food Forever™ Growing Systems. Also, be sure to Click the Forward email Link just belowto share this Newsletter with friends and family. This Discount is good through September 30th, 2014

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FOOD REVOLUTION Part 4 (Final in this Series)

 

July 2014, Newsletter #7 Table of Contents A Note from Our Editor The Tireless Allied Forces including Organic Consumers Association Food Democracy Now Institute for Responsible Technology Food Tank Slow Food USA FARM TO SCHOOL Natural News We Added Him to our Revolutionaries List, Mr. Michael Potter Another Revolutionary, Aaron Woolf Our Last Revolutionary, Anthony Gucciardi Monsanto has the US Government Wrapped The (Almost) Monsanto Protection Act Where Does Aquaponics Fit? Our Editor, Grace Sylke  Our Grace created the “MONSANTO, We’ve Got You Covered”Slam Sign you’ll see in this Newsletter. Please feel free to spread it around. You can Pin It, Facebook it, Twitter it. Make one of your own. The more Slam Signs the Better. This is the last Newsletter of the Four Month Series called FOOD REVOLUTION. It contains Links to all of them. Together, they are quite a story. ThankYou for following them. Quick Links: AquaponicsUSA.com AquaponicsWorld.net Aquaponics USA TV Aquaponics USA Blog April Newsletter Part 1 May Newsletter Part 2 June Newsletter Part 3 Organic Consumers Association Food Democracy Now Institute For Responsible Technology Food Tank Slow Food USA FARM TO SCHOOL Natural News Natural Society It isn’t USDA, it’s Aquaganic! The infamous “NationalList” The FOOD REVOLUTION Final Part 4: More Allies More About #1 Adversary, Monsanto More Revolutionaries Where Aquaponics Fits In See Our April Newsletter for Part 1: History See Our May Newsletter for Part 2: What is it? Why is it? Who Are The Revolutionaries? See Our June Newsletter for Part 3: The Battlegrounds, The Adversaries, The Allies     Dear Subscriber: This is a Revolution you’re participating in whether you know it or not. Some of us are participating in it consciously and some of us are unconscious participants. Every time you purchase a food item, you’ve helped the Revolutionaries or you’ve helped the Adversaries.  These Newsletters are about becoming more conscious. We’ve gotten more conscious just writing them. Yes, it takes time and effort to make sure you’re on the side of the Revolutionaries; but this War maybe the most important War we’ve ever engaged in on planet Earth because it’s a War for the very existence of pure, healthy, wholesome NATURAL food not food created by the Biotechs who actually think they can engineer food better than Mother Nature. Please make a commitment to join the FOOD REVOLUTION and bring back our right to eat real food.   Who Are The Tireless Allied Forces?   These are the Organizations in the trenches. They are actively engaged in the fight. Some are broadly focused. Others are more narrowly focused; but they are all fighting for our right to eat real food. They are often grassroots organizations and sometimes one-man bands. They’re fighting with education, scientific research and community organization tactics.    Find out about them. Join their causes. Support them. They are our Warriors in the fight backing up the Revolutionaries on the Food Battlefield, which is the entire planet Earth.   We’ve only listed 7 of these Organizations; but there are many more. Do your homework. Find the others and join them. This is how YOU can get involved.    #1. Organic Consumers Association   Organic Consumers Association is an online and grassroots non-profit 501(c)3 public interest organization campaigning for health, justice, and sustainability. The OCA deals with crucial issues of food safety, industrial agriculture, genetic engineering, children’s health, corporate accountability, Fair Trade, environmental sustainability and other key topics. They are one of the only organizations in the US focused exclusively on promoting the views and interests of the nation’s estimated 50 million organic and socially responsible consumers. This organization works in several arena’s including the movement demanding labeling of GMO’s. It was formed in 1998 in the wake of the mass backlash by organic consumers against the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s controversial proposed national regulations for organic food. (More on that later). The OCA represents over 850,000 members, subscribers and volunteers, including several thousand businesses in the natural foods and organic marketplace. (Taken from their “About” Page) #2. FOOD DEMOCRACY NOW! “Food Democracy Now! is a grassroots community dedicated to building a sustainable food system that protects our natural environment, sustains farmers and nourishes families. “Our food system is fundamentally broken. A few companies dominate the market, prioritizing profits over people and our planet. Government policies put the interests of corporate agribusiness over the livelihoods of farm families. Farm workers toil in unsafe conditions for minimal wages. School children lack access to healthy foods–as do millions of Americans living in poverty. From rising childhood and adult obesity to issues of food safety, air and water pollution, worker’s rights and global warming, our current food system is leading our nation to an unsustainable future.” Food Democracy Now, lead by Dave Murphy and Lisa Stokke is an over “650,000 strong organization of American Farmers and citizens dedicated to reforming policies relating to food, agriculture and the environment. Murphy has been called ‘the most crucial and politically savvy actor in the on-going efforts to help move American agriculture into the 21st century’ as a result of his ‘Sustainable Dozen’ campaign, which resulted in four candidates being placed in high level positions at the USDA and his efforts to reform food and agriculture under the Obama administration.” (Taken verbatim from their “About” Page with minor changes) #3. IRT Their “About” Page says the following: The Institute for Responsible Technology is a world leader in educating policy makers and the public about genetically modified (GM) foods and crops. They investigate and report their risks and impact on health, environment, the economy, and agriculture, as well as the problems associated with current research, regulation, corporate practices, and reporting. Founded in 2003 by international bestselling author and GMO expert Jeffrey Smith, IRT has worked in nearly 40 countries on 6 continents, and is credited with improving government policies and influencing consumer-buying habits. IRT’s work comes from a dedicated team of subject experts, consultants and staff who generously donate their time and experience. In addition, IRT employs media experts, social network campaigners, writers, graphic designers, communications specialists, fundraisers, outreach professionals and support staff, who operate both at our headquarters in Iowa, and from virtual offices in the US. IRT’s Campaign for Healthier Eating in America mobilizes citizens, organizations, businesses, healthcare professionals, and the media, to achieve the tipping point of consumer rejection of GM foods. (Taken verbatim from their “About” Page with minor changes) #4. Food Tank Danielle Nierenberg is the President of Food Tank, a Food Think Tank focused on building a global community for safe, healthy, nourished eaters. They spotlight environmentally, socially, and economically sustainable ways of alleviating hunger, obesity, and poverty and create networks of people, organizations, and content to push for food system change. Food Tank is for the 7 billion people who have to eat every day. They offer solutions and environmentally sustainable ways of alleviating hunger, obesity, and poverty by creating a network of connections and information for all of us to consume and share. Food Tank is for farmers and producers, policy makers and government leaders, researchers and scientists, academics and journalists, and the funding and donor communities to collaborate on providing sustainable solutions for our most pressing environmental and social problems. Food Tank highlights hope and success in agriculture. They feature innovative ideas that are already working on the ground, in cities, in kitchens, in fields and in laboratories. These innovations need more attention, more research, and ultimately more funding to be replicated and scaled-up. And that is where they need you. We all need to work together to find solutions that nourish ourselves and protect the planet. (Taken verbatim from their “About” Page with minor changes) #5. Slow Food USA Slow Food USA is part of the global Slow Food network of over 150,000 members in more than 150 countries. Through a vast volunteer network of local chapters, youth and food communities, they link the pleasures of the table with a commitment to protect the community, culture, knowledge and environment that make this pleasure possible. Their mission as an international grassroots membership organization is good, clean and fair food for all. They believe food should be tasty, seasonal, local, fresh and wholesome; and that  our food should nourish a healthful lifestyle and be produced in ways that preserve biodiversity, sustain the environment and ensure animal welfare – without harming human health. They also believe that our food should be affordable by all, while respecting the dignity of labor from field to fork. Slow Food USA has 170 local chapters and 40 campus chapters that coordinate local activities, projects and events. Working together with members and supporters across the nation, they preserve and share local foods and food cultures. They defend and advocate policies that promote holistic alternatives to the industrial system. Through tastings, workshops and social opportunities, they explore and celebrate the Slow life. Conviviality is central to their mission. They are a global community, connecting people to the land and to each other through local projects, educational events, and shared meals. They become catalysts for change by sharing the joy of Slow Food and prioritizing wholesome living over convenience. (Taken verbatim from their “About” Page with minor changes) #6. FARM TO SCHOOL Farm to school enriches the connection communities have with fresh, healthy food and local food producers by changing food purchasing and education practices at schools and preschools. Students gain access to healthy, local foods as well as education opportunities such as school gardens, cooking lessons and farm field trips. Farm to school empowers children and their families to make informed food choices while strengthening the local economy and contributing to vibrant communities. Farm to school implementation differs by location but always includes one or more of the following: Procurement: Local foods are purchased, promoted and served in the cafeteria or as a snack or taste-test; Education: Students participate in education activities related to agriculture, food, health or nutrition; and School gardens: Students engage in hands-on learning through gardening. (Taken verbatim from their “About” Page with minor changes) #7. Natural News Natural News is a science-based natural health advocacy organization led by activist-turned-scientist, Mike Adams, the Health Ranger. The key mission of Natural News is to empower consumers with factual information about the synthetic chemicals, heavy metals, hormone disruptors and other chemicals found in foods, medicines, personal care products, children’s toys and other items. Natural News covers holistic health, nutritional therapies, consciousness and spirituality, permaculture, organics, animal rights, environmental health, food and superfoods, and performance nutrition. The site strongly criticizes drugs-and-surgery medicine, vaccines, corporate corruption, animal testing, the use of humans for medical experiments, the chemical contamination of foods, heavy metals in consumer products, factory farming and government corruption. Natural News also warns its readers about science gone bad and frequently cites examples of science resulting in catastrophies that it calls “crimes” against humanity. Examples of such subjects cited by Natural News include: Agent Orange Thalidomide Nuclear weapons GMOs and “genetic pollution” Aspartame and chemical sweeteners Chemotherapy The presence of hidden cancer viruses in polio vaccines The continued use of mercury in vaccines and dental amalgams The long history of pharmaceutical experiments on human beings, including the Tuskegee syphilis experiments conducted on African Americans in the USA. (Taken verbatim from their “About” Page with minor changes) We Had To Add Him To Our REVOLUTIONARIES LIST! To see the others on that List, click on our May Newsletter above. Meet one of our Heros, Michael J. Potter, owner of Eden Foods; and he couldn’t have a better suited last name because he’s the good guy fighting some real dark forces in this battle for Real Food. He isn’t in the trenches. He goes right into the middle of the NOSB Boardroom, which is the National Organic Standards Board where what is determined to be USDA Organic and what is not is decided. Sadly, what most of us don’t know is that the NOSB has been co-opted by the Big Food Companies like Coca Cola, Kellogg, Cargill Chemical and General Mills as these companies have bought up most of the nation’s once family owned organic food companies, kept their labels and now parade them out into the marketplace as the original thing. If you want to know more about this deception, go to our June Food Revolution Newsletter above. Because BIG FOOD has become BIG ORGANIC, they populate the NOSB and make the decisions about what new additives can be labeled Organic. So in late May of 2012, Mr. Potter went to the NOSB Meeting where some important decisions about additives were taking place; and he voiced his objection to adding “Carrageenan” to what is called the “National List”. This infamous List is the list of all the non-organic ingredients that have been allowed in foods that are labeled USDA Organic; and as these Big Food companies started stacking the Board, the list of nonorganic materials approved for organic foods increased from 77 items in 2002 to 250 nonorganic substances in 2012. Take a look at this ungodly “National List” for yourself and don’t blink because it’s growing right before our eyes. After Mr. Potter, our Hero, voiced his concern that Carrageenan has been linked to malignancies and other stomach problems, using research conducted by Dr. Tobacman, Associate Professor of Clinical Medicine at the University of Illinois College of Medicine, he was thanked for his input; and the NOSB Board then voted to keep Carrageenan on the National List. Here’s what Mr. Potter had to say about that: “‘The board is stacked,’ Mr. Potter says. ‘Either they don’t have a clue, or their interest in making money is more important than their interest in maintaining the integrity of organics.’ Which either/or do you think it is? “He calls the certified-organic label a fraud and refuses to put it on Eden’s products.” Quote taken from article in The New York Times, July 7, 2012 entitled “Has ‘Organic’ Been Oversized?“ Over here at Aquaponics World we’ve also turned our backs on the co-opted USDA Organic Certification Label and created our own Certification. We call it “Aquaganic”. You can read all about it on our Aquaponics World website, Aquaganic Page. Sorry to have popped any idealistic bubbles around heads that thought USDA Organic Certification meant the food you’re buying has no unhealthy additives. If you want to make sure you’re getting real food, buy Mr. Potter’s Eden Foods. They don’t carry that misleading label. Another REVOLUTIONARY,  Aaron Woolf Aaron Woolf is the producer/director of the hit documentary, King Corn. Other work has appeared on the Sundance and Discovery Channels and on numerous networks abroad including France’s ARTE, Italy’s RAI and Australia’s SBS. His films have won Rockie, Logie, and Peabody Awards. Woolf graduated from Middlebury College and earned a masters in film at the University of Iowa.  In the mid-1990s, Woolf turned to non-fiction storytelling, and trained his lens on individual stories that he felt touched on global trends. Woolf’s film, King Corn, followed Ian Cheney and his best friend, Curt Ellis, on a yearlong odyssey to understand where their food comes from… by growing it. In what The Washington Post calls “Required viewing for anyone planning to visit a supermarket, fast-food joint, or their own refrigerator,” the city-slickers learn to drive a combine, cash in on government subsidies, and homebrew high-fructose corn syrup. The film’s Peabody-winning findings, shared with theatergoers in 60 cities and in a PBS national broadcast, change the way audiences eat. Watch the Trailer. It’s a Real Eye Opener. And remember about 85% of the Corn grown in the US is Genetically Modified. EGAD! King Corn Our last REVOLUTIONARY,  Anthony Gucciardi, founder of  Natural Society Anthony Gucciardi became a natural health advocate after coming down with late-stage Lyme Disease and having traditional remedies that included the injections of powerful steroids lead to a rapid deterioration of his health. Anthony created his own lifestyle regimen and overcame not only the Lyme Disease but the physical challenges left from the prolonged use of steroidal drugs. After a short period of enhanced nutrition and the alteration of other lifestyle factors, Anthony had alleviated himself of virtually all pain and symptoms from which he had been suffering. It was at this point he crafted the concept that, even beyond health, it’s always essential to seek information for yourself and produce your own research. To help people follow this advice, he along with his partner, Mike Barrett, created Natural Society, which is now the third or fourth (depending on which stats you examine) largest natural health website in the world with millions of viewers per month. Many of their posts are food focused. More Bad News About The Biggest Adversary To Real Food On The Planet, MONSANTO! Josh Sager published an incisive article one month before the November 2012 US Presidential Elections that carefully documents how Monsanto has cornered and co-opted the US political system. The title of the article was “Monsanto Controls both the White House and the US Congress”. Read it and weep. Or read our quoted synopsis below and then weep. In essence, the article points out that no matter who is elected, Monsanto will be worshipped and Americans will continue to be the Guinea Pigs for these mad Biotechs. Case in point, “throughout his first term, President Obama has presided over the passage of several Monsanto-friendly legislative initiatives and has appointed numerous people associated with Monsanto to high-level positions.” “By giving several billion dollars to agro-businesses, one of which is Monsanto, the ‘Southern Africa FY 2010 Implementation Plan’ promoted the expansion of these businesses into the provision of food for Africa. This expansion is aimed at increasing food supplies in Africa, but it will have the unintended consequence of promoting Monsanto’s takeover of the African food markets. Put plainly, Monsanto will crowd local African farmers out of the market and will make a profit that would be more beneficial in the hands of local African farmers and in the local African economy. “On the issue of GMO labeling, Obama is rhetorically supportive of mandating GMO products to be labeled, but his administration has been largely silent on the issue. During the creation of the 2012 Farm Bill, there was a fight over mandating that genetically modified foods be labeled. Despite Obama’s supposed support for such labeling, his administration was essentially silent on the issue during this fight and, as a result, no mandate was passed; and 2014 brings more corruption and collusion between the Senate, the President and Monsanto. (See next Article). “In totality, legislation passed under the Obama administration has been beneficial to large agro-businesses, one of which is Monsanto. Very little has been done to increase regulation on GMO producers and several laws have been passed that directly benefit such corporations. “Due to the vested interest that Monsanto has in controlling regulation that affects its business, it has both donated to politicians and promoted the appointment of people who work for them to positions within the American government. As of yet, Monsanto has been successful in keeping its regulatory burdens low and getting its representatives into positions within the US government. The infiltration of regulatory agencies by corporate actors that is referred to here is called the “regulatory revolving door”. Individuals who work for industry go to work for the government, make public regulations, and then return to the private sector after leaving the public service. “While there are numerous points of overlap between Monsanto and the United States Government under the Obama administration, the three most important connections are that of Michael Taylor, Roger Beachy, and Islam Siddiqui. All three of these Monsanto affiliates were appointed to high level positions within the government by the Obama administration. “During his first term, President Obama appointed two Justices, one of whom was Elena Kagan, the former Solicitor General of the United States. During her time as the Solicitor General, Kagan filed a brief in support of Monsanto.” Unfortunately, things would NOT have been different if Romney had won the 2012 election. “In 1977, Bain Capital-the company that Romney ran, and in which he made most of his money-was starting out as a corporate consulting firm; Monsanto was among the first major clients of Bain. The multi-million dollar relationship between Bain Capital and Monsanto lasted from 1977 to 1985 and had significant effects on both corporations. Bain Capital, and its officers, made large amounts of money through its relationship with Monsanto and gained a significant client with which to base its consulting practice upon. Monsanto was given business advice by Bain and the corporation’s recent successes in GMO produce are traceable back to the suggestions that Romney made to Monsanto administrators.” (This is one long quote taken from the above designated article by Josh Sager and reprinted in the Global Research website, on May 24, 2014) It’s obvious our Government is NOT going to aide us in this FOOD REVOLUTION. In fact, our Government is on the side of the Genetic Engineers and against the people. If you thought the news above was bad, wait until you hear about what almost happened called The MONSANTO   PROTECTION ACT. Actually, it did happen; but only for a brief moment in time. Also from the Global Research News website, May 25, 2013 (we’re beginning to like Global Research News) an article entitled “Monsanto Protection Act Signed By Obama, GMO Bill ‘Written By Monsanto’ Signed Into Law“. It’s another Read it and weep moment that makes it clear our Government has got Monsanto covered while Monsanto makes sure the people of America are Covered. Here’s the essence of what the Monsanto Protection Act tried to do but failed when Senators, Barbara Mikulski and Jeff Merkley successfully led a charge to get it off the books in September of 2013 only a few months after it passed. But for a few short months this is what Congress passed (some unknowingly because it was hidden in the Spending Bill, HR 933) and this is what the President signed. “The Monsanto Protection Act, essentially both written by and benefiting Monsanto Corporation, was signed into law by United States President Barack Obama. The infamous Monsanto Corporation would have benefited greatly and directly from the bill, as it essentially gives companies that deal with genetically modified organisms (GMOs) and genetically engineered (GE) seeds immunity to the federal courts, among other things. “The bill stated that even if future research shows that GMOs or GE seeds cause significant health problems, cancer, etc, anything, that the federal courts no longer have any power to stop their spread, use, or sales.” Are YOU KIDDING ME! “The bill was apparently written by freshman Sen. Roy Blunt, in collusion with Monsanto, with them helping to craft the exact language of the document.” Sen. Roy Blunt, of  Missouri where Monsanto is headquartered, again a last name that fits the deed because this Bill was killing our Constitutional rights to justice with a Blunt Instrument, is a Republican. And, of course, “The Center for Responsive Politics notes that Sen. Blunt received $64,250 from non other than Monsanto to go towards his campaign committee between 2008 and 2012. The Money Monocle website adds that Blunt has been the largest Republican Party recipient of Monsanto funding as of late.” Kudos to Senators Mikulski and Merkley who along with hundreds of thousands of Petitions and Marches with thousands of participants from the Real Food Allied Organizations like the ones listed above, were able to kill the Monsanto Protection Act. The FOOD REVOLUTIONARIES won that battle; but the War wages on. However, there’s more good news because now we know exactly what Monsanto wants. They want immunity. Isn’t that interesting. If they really believe their Franken Food is good for us, why would they need immunity? So Where Does Aquaponics Fit Into The FOOD REVOLUTION? This is a picture of what’s growing in our Aquaponics USA/AquaponicsWorld Food Forever™ Farm Greenhouse right now. Actually, all the green sucker leaves at the top have been trimmed off since this picture was taken. That’s one of the secrets of growing tomatoes. You have to keep them trimmed. Not one petro-chemical, not one pesticide and not one trace of Genetically Modified Organisms are involved in growing these tomatoes or any of the leafy greens in our Vertical Duffy Duct Systems that take up most of this Greenhouse. There’s talk about the iPhone that goes something like this: Steve Jobs brought an item into the marketplace that no one knew they wanted until it arrived. Aquaponics food growing technology is kind of like that. Millions of people still don’t know it exists and have never heard the word, “Aquaponics” before. But as soon as they are introduced to it, they want it. They want it because Aquaponics is capable of producing the most wholesome, healthy, natural food on the market today without using harsh petro-chemicals, pesticides and GMO technology.  And it’s about to take the marketplace by storm. It’s a key player in the FOOD REVOLUTION. If we can eat locally grown food that is fertilized naturally from the dissolved solids of living fish, why would we want to eat food that’s been irradiated, or sprayed with pesticides and petro-chemicals and labeled USDA Organic while it’s full of additives from the infamous “National List” that has been co-opted by the Big Food Companies? The truth is WE WOULDN’T. And WE WON’T. Aquaponically grown food is a NEW CHOICE, A BETTER CHOICE and once we educate the public about that new choice and get enough Aquaponic Products out there, the FOOD REVOLUTION will be won by the good guys because there is no contest. Aquaponics is our ace in the hole. It’s the antithesis to GMO’s; and it won’t be long before it kicks Monsanto and friends right out of the marketplace. Help us win this FOOD REVOLUTION. Spread the word about Aquaponics, purchase Aquaponic Products whenever you can, request them at your favorite Food Store. The future is ours. WE’VE GOT THIS! Thank You from the bottom of our hearts for following our Newsletters and our Blog. We’re guessing by now you get that we’re on a mission. This 4-Part Series on the FOOD REVOLUTION has gone way beyond our original concept. This Final Newsletter contains All 4 Parts if you missed one as they all work together to make a complete story. Just go back to the top or click on our Quick Links Section. Now, we’re going back to working like crazy to get our Aquaponically grown Products into the marketplace; and you’ll be the first to know when they arrive. Ironically, it’s looking like Missouri will be that place; and it’s ironic because that’s right where Monsanto is Headquartered. Life works in strange ways. We’ll tell you more about that project in the August Newsletter and Blog Post. Sustainably, Aquaponics USA/Aquaponics World

 

Don’t miss our latest Video posted April 26th, 2014

 

We’ve just recently completed the conversion of our Growroom and our Greenhouse into demonstration areas showing how our commercial-sized Food Forever™ Farms work. If you’ve been following us, you won’t recognize the interiors of these growing areas as our commercial system is entirely different than our small school and home systems; and there are only two Deep Media Grow Beds. Instead, we’re using proprietary technology called Duffy Duct™ Growing Systems that come in both Vertical and Horizontal configurations.

Below is one of four walls of Vertical Duffy Ducts™ that are in our Greenhouse capable of growing 224 heads of lettuce. Here we are growing Romaine, which we plan to sell as Living Romaine with the roots attached.

You can watch our new Video right here or over at YouTube where you will see the entire reconfigured Greenhouse with these amazing walls of Romaine Lettuce, plus our new Growroom and Fishroom.

We so appreciate you following our Blog. Until next time, GET GROWING!

Sustainably,

Aquaponics USA & Aquaponics World

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Why Aquaponics? Why NOW?

This is a Copy of our January 2014 Aquaponics USA & Aquaponics World Newsletter. If you’d like to view this Newsletter as it appeared in its Constant Contact format go here: http://conta.cc/K08S4i

We have posted all four of our Newsletters on our Word Press Blog starting with January first and progressing through to April. This is the first year we’ve put out Monthly Newsletters. We hope you enjoy reading them as much as we’re enjoying sharing our journey.

Sustainably,

Aquaponics USA & Aquaponics World, LLC

There’s a 3-pronged threat facing our planet and Aquaponics is the answer.  Dear Subscriber: Sorry to be the bearer of bad news in this, our first Official Monthly Newsletter. So let’s start again and wish you all a Happy New Year. You can expect to receive a Newsletter from us every month during 2014. It’s one of the Projects on our new How To Get Things Done Projects List. We’ll share more about that later. This first Newsletter is all about the important role Aquaponics is playing in the Food, Water and Fish Crisis. We Have Entered A Time of Crisis: And our world is now dealing with a shortage of food, water and fish. You can read all about these shortages on our AquaponicsWorld.net website. Just click on The Food Independence Project pdf. on our Home Page. It’s a real eye-opener. Also be sure to look at some of the TED Talks and Videos about these important issues. We talk about how the world is losing it’s soil and that soils could vanish within the next 60 years due to Big Agra farming practices unless drastic action is taken. We talk about the world-wide demand for water has tripled in the last 50 years leaving even highly developed countries like the U.S. facing water shortages. And we talk about how we have recklessly overfished our oceans and pushed many species of wild fish to near extinction levels. These are serious problems we’re facing. But there’s something new added to the mix–Fukushima. We know this is shocking and really sad to have to say, but Pacific Ocean fish is no longer safe to eat. The plumes of radiation from Fukushima have contaminated our Pacific West Coast. We have to learn to grow our own fish; and that’s one of the reasons why Aquaponics is so important at this challenging time. But don’t despair, Aquaponics is here and . . . If you’re an optimist like we are over here at Aquaponics USA and Aquaponics World, you get it that a perfect storm like this wouldn’t arise if there weren’t a solution that could solve the problem arising with it. Aquaponics is that solution. It’s all about the Water, Intelligent One. Aquaponics food growing technology is a recirculating aquaculture system, also known as RAS so it saves 90% of the water used in tillage farming. Water doesn’t get lost in the ground. It just keeps recirculating through the system over and over and over. There is some water loss due to plant uptake and evaporation; but it’s minimal compared to traditional soil farming. We’re Under Construction at Aquaponics World! We’re located in the high desert of California above Palm Springs; and in case you’re wondering, we have winter here–cold, below freezing nights. So we’re building an enclosed fishroom where we’ll be putting our fish tanks and other components to demonstrate our Food Forever™ Farm designs. This will be the fish part of our Micro Farm, a miniature version of a full-scale, 10,000 sq. ft. Food Forever™ Farm. Our Deep Water Culture (DWC) Beds, Duffy Ducts™ And these are the Grow Beds that we’ll be installing in the Growroom that sits next to the Fishroom. We’ll be growing leafy greens, including lettuce, sweet basil, greek basil in these individual DWC Beds that can grow more food using less water than standard DWC Beds. Back to the new Aquaponics World Fishroom with its Dilution Solution! Where we’ve added a new component to our system, the Dilution Solution Tank. This is where you can safely input the few additives like pH-UP, chelated iron or Maxicrop that might be required to optimize your system. These solutions are simply poured into the top of this 60 gallon rain barrel where they mix with the filtered water from the Solid Separation System before entering the fish tanks. Another Proprietary Component in the Fishroom: This is our Water Enhancement Technology that we call WET. It’s a Mineralization Tower that greatly reduces the amount of suspended solids while putting out dissolved solids. With the increased amount of dissolved solids and added nitrates provided by this process, the plants now have a greater amount of nutrients with which to grow. By keeping the fish waste solids in the system and mineralizing them, the amount of nutrients available to the plants is about double that of a system that completely removes the solids. This process allows for the growth of more plants while keeping the water clean. Another Proprietary Aquaponics World Food Forever™ Farm Design   A design was needed that split the system water into two paths, one with very clean water that could be used efficiently in the grow beds, and one path that would send the water containing the fish waste solids to be processed in its own system. It was desirable to have a continuous flow during the process. Thus was born the Solids Separation System, or SSS, which is proprietary to our design.   The operation of the SSS has the system water continuously flowing through it without interruption. All water being pumped from the fish tanks passes through the SSS where one of its outputs deliver water containing fish waste solids to be processed and then returned to the fish tank and another output with very clean water that is sent on to the rest of the system where fish waste water would interfere with those components’ processes. All water from both these post SSS processes is eventually returned to the fish tanks. So What’s Happening at Aquaponics USA, our backyard Home and School System company? Aquaponics USA is fast becoming the Go To Place for Schools to purchase their Aquaponics Learning Lab Systems that we call Food Forever™ Growing Systems. Here’s an Aquaponics USA System going into an All Purpose Room in a Tucson Elementary School. We’ve recently teamed up with a large insurance company that wants to sponsor our Food Forever™ Growing Systems in Schools around the Nation. It looks like we’ll be installing a system in a Houston High School this Spring. Get in on the Aquaponic Gardens Campaign for Schools and other Charitable Organizations. You can become a Fund Generator and earn while you generate funds for the campaign. Go here to learn more: Aquqaponic Gardens Campaign  A third party entrepreneur has designed this fund generating campaign. The Goal of this campaign is to generate $1,000,000 a year in order to donate Aquaponic Gardens to Schools and Charitable Organizaitons. The Plan is to GenerateFunds™ in order to purchase and donate Aquaponics USA’s Food Forever™ Growing Systems to the Schools and Charitable Organizations. We’re so honored to have been chosen by this inventive entrepreneur  whose Goal is to bring Aquaponic Gardens to Schools and other Charitable Organizations. The Aquaponic Gardens Campaign has a “go fund me” page attached. If you just want to get in on a great crowd funding cause–Aquaponics USA Systems in Schools, go here: gofundme We’re honored to have been chosen to participate in this charitable campaign to bring our systems into Schools and other organizaitons. Thank You, Jason Nole, creator of the Aquaponic Gardens Campaign. Aquaponics USA is teaming up with an organization that plans to turn school grounds into Fruit Orchards and Classrooms into Aquaponics Labs. It’s the beginning of an exciting collaboration that will change both the outside and the inside of schools across the U.S. Stay tuned for all the exciting details about this new project. We’re Writing a Book and hope to have it published by mid 2014. You’ll be the first to know. We don’t want to give away the surprise so we’re keeping real Mum about it. It’s going to be unlike any other book written on the subject of Aquaponics. One last thing. We said we’d share about our How To Get Things Done Project; and this is it. If you’re wanting this year to be more productive, buy this book! The fact that you’re looking at this Newsletter is testimony to this program working. Everything you need to know is right here. The book speaks for itself. We’l be recommending books in all of our Newsletters at this bottom location. That will do it for our first Newsletter. Our next Newsletter will be all about the Food Revolution and how you can get involved. We so appreciate our Subscribers and are so pleased to be able to share with you. Aquaponics USA/World Aquaponics USA

Growing Fish & Plants in an Aquaponics Micro Food Forever™ Farm

This is a Copy of our March 2014 Aquaponics USA & Aquaponics World Newsletter. If you’d like to view the actual Newsletter as it was created in Constant Contact go here: http://conta.cc/1gYWudR

Growing Fish & Plants in an Aquaponics Micro Food Forever™ Farm is Awesome. Dear Subscriber: It’s been about one month since we completed our big conversion over here at Aquaponics USA & Aquaponics World turning our Greenhouse and our Growroom into a single system Aquaponics Demo Micro Food Forever™ Farm; and the results are amazing. We turned our demonstration Greenhouse and Growroom from demonstrations of our Aquaponics USA Food Forever™ Small School and Backyard Growing Systems into a demonstration of a Micro Food Forever™ Farm. Small Backyard and School Systems are a completely different design than our Micro Food Forever™ Farm, which at the moment doesn’t have one Deep Media Grow Bed set up. Everything you’re about to see growing in our Greenhouse and our Growroom are growing in proprietary combination Deep Water Culture/Nutrient Film Technique Grow Beds that we call Duffy Ducts™ after their designer, Oliver Duffy. The image above is our new Aquaganic™ Trademark Logo. Aquaganic™ food is the healthiest food on the planet because it is beyond Organic. It’s grown in a Pesticide, Petrochemical and GMO free Aquaponics systems where the fish are fed fish food that has no land animal parts like pig’s feet or cow tails as a protein supplement. Here’s what our Micro Food Forever™ Farm Growroom looked like one month ago. The pink light you see here is coming from four LED Grow Lights we are using to grow our Seedlings. The Seedling Area has 11 Growing Holes instead of 6 making it possible to grow lots more tiny seedlings before they are transplanted into the Grow Out Horizontal Duffy Duct™ System. Here’s what that Growroom looks like today! In this photo, you can see the Butter, Head, Romaine and Black Seeded Simpson Lettuce. Here’s the front of our Groowroom where we  are growing Swiss Chard and Butter Lettuce.   We are testing out a new Grow Light. It’s called an Induction Light; and it’s similar to the T5’s we have everywhere in our Growroom except here in the front. We’re finding there are several advantages to Induction Lighting. First and foremost, they are about twice as efficient as either T8’s or T5’s. Secondly, they last 5 to 10 times longer. A typical Induction Light designed as a Grow Light will last for 70,000 hours at nearly 100% brightness and continue on to 100,000 hours at 70% brightness. Our Growroom Is Pumping Out So Much Lettuce We’re Starting a Locally Grown CSA Program To Sell It! In this photo we’re growing Living Romaine and Black Seeded Simpson Lettuce along with some Living Cabbage. All of our produce comes with the roots still attached for a long shelf and cooler life. Our Basil Is Growing So Tall It’s Touching The Lights! One of the fastest and easiest things to grow in a Food Forever™ Farm System is Basil. It rapidly grows huge leaves and tall plants. Induction Lights hang about a foot above Fluorescent Lights, which will be perfect for growing Basil Plants this tall without them hitting the top of the Grow Lights. We’ve Added Some Tasty Head Lettuce To Our Lettuce Selection. The loose, curly leaf Head Lettuce is crispy, firm and fits perfectly in our Clam Shell containers for packaging and delivering to our Community Supported Agriculture participant markets. You’re Not Going To Believe What’s Happening In Our Greenhouse! Our system designer, Oliver Duffy, has outdone himself this time. He’s designed a Vertical System that can pump out 224 heads of Lettuce and still we have almost as much room for Deep Media Beds as we had in our original Greenhouse. The photo above is what the  original Greenhouse used to look like. Here’s A Series Of Pictures Showing Our Vertical System We’ve Named After Our System Designer, Oliver Duffy. This Duffy Duct™ System is working so well, it’s actually what has prompted us to start the Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) Program in our local Hi-Desert Community. We’re being overrun with Living Romaine Lettuce that is delicious, gorgeous and huge. In The Previous Photo, You Only See One Wall Of A Two-Wall Inverted “V” Duffy Duct™ System. Here’s a peek at the other side of the Inverted “V” Duo Walls! We Have Two Sets Of Inverted “V” Walls In Our 28×8 Sq. Ft. Greenhouse Growing 224 Heads of Living Romaine! This Vertical System has been in the design stages for quite a while so it’s a real joy to see it in action; and it’s working beautifully. We’re planning to add a hoop house next to this Greenhouse with as many of these Inverted “V” Lettuce Walls as we can put in it. So stay tuned. Here’s the Aquaponics USA CSA Program Invitation! If you live in the Hi-Desert of California above Palm Springs, own or manage a small local market or restaurant, you’re invited to join our CSA Program. We’ll be enlarging the CSA Program to include local residents once we get that Hoop House built because then we’ll have enough Living Lettuce, Herbs and Leafy Greens to include our local residents. In the meantime, restaurant owners and market owners can call (760) 671-3053 to get an appointment with us to discuss and join our Hi-Desert CSA! Watch this Section of our Newsletter for a List of all the participating Markets and Restaurants in Morongo Valley, Yucca Valley, Joshua Tree & 29 Palms! If You’re A Local, You Can Purchase Our Living Lettuce At Sue’s Health Foods Store In Yucca Valley! Sue has been encouraging and supporting us for over a year now; and her Sue’s Health Food Store was the first market to sign up for our CSA Program. You can pick up a head of delicious, nutritious Living Romaine Lettuce from her cooler or get a clam-shelled box of crispy loose leaf Living Head Lettuce. No other company is selling Living Romaine or Living Head Lettuce. We’ll be delivering some Living Butter Lettuce to her store soon. Look for our zer0 Pesticides, Petrochemicals & GMO’s™ Brand!   Get Involved! Join The Aquaponic Gardens Campaign! It’s Rolling Through A School District Or Charitable Organization Near You!   Our Mission is to Generate $1,000,000 each year in order to donate Aquaponics USA’s Food Forever™ Growing Systems to Schools and Charitable Organizations. You’re Invited to help support our FundGenerators and their efforts to donate Aquaponic Gardens to Schools and Charitable Organizations. The Aquaponic Gardens Campaign is seeking supporters that are able to sign up for business services from their A+ rated FundGenerating Service providers. All Schools & Charitable Organizations are welcome to request their Aquaponic Garden donations! For More Information Go To:https://aquaponicgardenscampaign.shutterfly.com/ Or Email Jason Nole at: AquaponicGardensCampaign@aol.com Or Call: 760-717-4414   You Can Help Fund The Aquaponic Gardens Campaign! Just Visit our Go Fund Me Site at:  http://www.gofundme.com/AquaponicGardenCampaign   Everyone is invited to become a FundGenerator™ where they can immediately begin to reach out to their network of friends, family and other contacts that wish to support the Aquaponic Gardens Campaign for Schools and Charitable Organizations.The purpose for FundGenerating™ is to collectively generate $1,000,000 every year to invest into Aquaponic Gardens for Schools and Charitable Organizations. FundGenerators™ FundGenerators™ earn 25% of all “Commission Dollars” that they Generate for their Campaigns.  The Campaign donates 60% of all “Commission Dollars” directly to the Schools and/or Charitable Organizations. 15% of all “Commission Dollars” go towards operating the Aquaponic Gardens Campaign for the cost of doing business. Thank You for being one of our valued Subscribers. We so appreciate you reading our Newsletters. Next month we promise we’ll feature The Food Revolution. Sustainably, Grace Sylke Marketing Director Aquaponics USA/Aquaponics World

Ready to Grow Food For Your Family or set up an Edible Schoolroom, Here’s a 10% Discount on any of our Growing Systems. This Offer Is Good Until May 1st, 2014

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly!

WhiteFlies

In the last few posts, we’ve been all about the Good; but this post is about the Bad and the Ugly! What’s that, you ask. WHITEFLIES!

Don’t let their White Wings fool you. These pests are far from angelic. In fact, today I’ve decided they are pure evil; and they’re sugar addicts to boot.

WhiteFlies are not really flies at all as they are related to the aphid family. There’s a species that’s called Greenhouse WhiteFly (GHWH) and their favorite plant is eggplant. But in our Greenhouse they have decided our Basil is their plant of choice. They are also attacking our Okra and even our lettuce.

This is Grow Bed #5 where a lot of sweet Basil is growing. That’s where the major infestation is occurring.

We totally blew it in relation to this infestation because we were going out to the Greenhouse at night when it was cooler. The WhiteFlies were tucked away in their resting mode under the plant leaves and we missed them until they became a full-blown invasion of our beautiful Greenhouse. From our perspective, we had none and a week later we had thousands. UGH!

You can’t tell from these pictures but the Basil and small Okra leaves are full of Sticky Gooey WhiteFly excrement.

When we thought we had none, they were going through the mere 18 days of development time necessary at 86 degrees.

Here’s what Wikipedia has to say about this scourge on Greenhouses: “Developmental time (egg to adult) for the GHWF can take from 123 days at 54° F. to only 18 days at 86° F. GHWF eggs hatch and go through several instars (stages of larval growth) while attached to the undersides of leaves. Shortly after hatching, the GHWF larvae attaches into the leaf tissue and begins feeding on plant fluids. It remains attached until it emerges as an adult. While attached, the larvae is covered with a protective skeleton that makes it difficult to kill with insecticides. Adults can begin laying 4-10 eggs per day within 1-2 days after emergence. As the various stages of the GHWF feeds on the plant, it excretes large amounts of honeydew. A black sooty mold can grow on the honeydew that can interfere with leaf photosynthesis and transpiration.”

We’ve pretty much lost our Basil in the back Grow Bed. It’s all sticky with the sugary excrement  of the WhiteFlies. Good bye Pesto and delicious herbal spice. It’s really amazing how quickly what appears as a few WhiteFlies turns into an endless army of these invaders.

Thank goodness they don’t seem to be interested in the Corn because it’s not mature yet. But they love the Greek Basil.

We’ve taken the first step at reclaiming our Greenhouse by putting up Sticky WhiteFly Traps. However, we didn’t use them soon enough obviously. Sticky WhiteFly Traps are about detection more than they are about waging war with WhiteFlies.

Take it from us who are learning the hard way, everyone with a Greenhouse Aquaponics system should be putting up Sticky WhiteFly Traps (especially in warm weather) for monitoring WhiteFly adults as soon as a crop is seeded. We sell them on our website Accessories page. Each adult White Fly caught on a trap may prevent 100 eggs from being laid on your plant.  And believe me when I tell you to wear a face mask if you put up traps after the infestation and then deliberately shake the plants where the WhiteFlies are residing. I didn’t and I’m going to drink a nice big glass full of GSE (Grapefruit Seed Extract) as soon as I finish this post. Somehow, writing this post has turned into my revenge on WhiteFlies.

This is also REVENGE!

But the Sticky WhiteFly Traps are only the beginning of our counter attack. Because in a couple of days we’ll be receiving our Encarsia formosa (WhiteFly Parasites). We’re getting the Nile Delta WhiteFly Parasite because it will go after all major types of WhiteFly including Greenhouse, Silverleaf, Sweetpotato and Banded Wing. These Nile Delta guys are actually wasps. You can get them at Hydro-Gardens.

Nile Delta encarsia formosa

WASPS! EGAD! That’s fighting with some real big guns. We’re hoping they’re going to be so full of WhiteFlies, they won’t bother with us. Actually, the instructions regarding how to release them say they will only go after WhiteFlies and not plants or people. That’s good news. Here’s how they operate on the battle field.

Below is a photo of a plant leave invested with WhiteFlies. What these WhiteFly Parasites do is actually lay their eggs into WhiteFly larvae. No wonder they are called parasites. WOW! That’s infiltration of the enemy lines at the deepest level. Once that happens the leaves look like the pictures below depending on which kind of WhiteFly is in your Greenhouse. The instructions do say these guys do a better job if you employ them early in the fray. We hope we’re getting a real serious Black Water bunch that can eradicate the infestation after being hired late in the insurrection.

If things go as planed, the back of the leaves where the larvae is turn into this:

The photo above is of a leaf that was invested with a species of  WhiteFly called Silverleaf after the Nile Delta Parasite laid its eggs inside the WhiteFly larvae. This is good news.

Here is a leaf that was invested with Greenhouse WhiteFly after the Nile Delta parasite laid its eggs inside the WhiteFly larvae.  Again, this is the good news.

We’ll keep you posted on the process of eradicating WhiteFlies as it progresses. In the meantime, I feel a whole lot better after hitting the Publish button because I have just aided in the eradication of WhiteFlies all over the world.

We really consider ourselves to be peace loving people. We even take most bugs we find in our desert home outside rather than killing them (except black widows). But those WhiteFlies have turned me into a Warrioress who is defending her Greenhouse and her food.

Thanks for being there. Now for that big glass of GSE!

CORN Galore!

In late July the desert monsoons hit and refreshed everything with a down pour of wonderful wetness from above. This photo is a picture of that event. But wait until you see what is growing inside our rain soaked Greenhouse!

Every now and then wonderful summer monsoons hit the high desert of California. This was one of those days.

We have Corn. So much Corn it’s growing right out of the roof vent. Corn that started out as pitiful, wispy weak looking leaves, which you can see in the center Grow Bed in the next photo (which we’ve posted before). We want you to see what has happened in six weeks of time to those little plants.

Focus on the uninteresting middle Grow Beds where the little wisps of corn have been planted.

Better yet, watch the progression (someone suggested we do time-lapse photos) so that’s what we’re showing. Here’s a photo that was taken about three weeks after the one above.

Queen Corn and their lady in waiting, Greek Basil.

Then comes the most recent pictures that were taken six weeks after the first shot with the wispy Corn. These Corn stalks are so thick, they resemble bamboo; and the Corn is growing all the way up to the top of the Greenhouse roof. It’s an amazing sight to see.

Here’s the Corn growing up against the roof of our Greenhouse.

The Corn Silk is beautiful and long. It’s the female part of the flower of the corn plant.

The male part of the Corn flower is sitting above the silk at the top of the picture. You need both the tassel looking male flowers and the silk to get corn. Here’s why.

“Corn is monoecious (mon-ee-shuss) which means that there are both male and female flowers on each corn plant. In some monoecious plants, male and female parts are in the same flower. In corn, male and female flowers are in different locations – the male flowers form a tassel which is at the top of the plant. The female flower is located at the junction of leaves and stem. It consists of a collection of hairs (silks) enclosed in the husks of what will become the ears. These silks are pollen-receiving tubes. Wind-blown pollen from the male flowers (tassel) falls on the silks below. Each silk leads to a kernel, and pollen must land on all silks for the ear to fill out completely with kernels. Kernel “skips” (ears only partly filled out with kernels) often are the result of poor pollination. ” (from Growing Sweet Corn in the Backyard Garden)

Last year we planted corn for the first time but never got actual corn to eat. Actually, we didn’t really plant it. We placed a group of rockwool cubes with corn seeds in them in a back Grow Bed, never separated them from each other and just waited to see what would happen. Corn grew but it didn’t pollinate because the plants were too crowded together; and they were competing with tomatoes. Anytime a plant tries to compete with tomatoes, it loses because tomatoes take every bit of the nutrients from the water in order to put out fruit.

So this year we decided to get serious about planting Corn; and it looks like we’re going to be eating Non GMO Corn on the cob soon. We’ll be blogging all about that joyous occasion. In the meantime, just watching this Corn grow is an event all of its own. Below is a photo of one stalk growing right out of the Greenhouse roof vent.

This stalk is going to prove once and for all if we can actually get cobs of corn as it’s not being stopped by the roof. For this stalk, the sky is the limit.

 And we’re seeing the correct pollination formula with tassels over silk. YEAH!

But Corn isn’t the only thing growing in our Greenhouse right now. Next to the Corn in those same uninteresting middle Grow Beds in the 2nd picture above is Okra. This is the first time we’ve planted Okra and it loves growing in a Food Forever™ Aquaponics Growing System. Between the tall Okra Leaves and the massive Corn Stalks, walking into that part of the Greenhouse is like walking through a jungle canopy.

Welcome to our jungle canopy with Okra on one side of the Grow Beds and Corn on the other.

In the background of the above photo is Greek Basil. It’s also loving this environment and is growing into lovely bushes of luscious smelling basil.

When Okra flowers it puts out this lovely yellow expression of joy.

So that’s what’s going on inside the Aquaponics USA Greenhouse this summer. Not to mention the R&D for our commercial-sized Food Forever™ Farm Systems that we’re designing under our new business, at Aquaponics World.net. We can’t show you that Grow Bed as the new designs are proprietary. But I can tell you it’s getting real exciting around here right about now.

Thanks for visiting. All the effort, wouldn’t be nearly as much fun if we didn’t have you to share it with.