This floating farm turns salty seawater into nutrients for agriculture & improves marine environment!

A Japanese start-up has designed this floating marine farm called Green Ocean using agricultural technology that cultivates seawater as a direct nutrient source! The innovative structure combines salt-resistant technology and sea-friendly architecture to the world a potential solution for the climate change-induced rising sea level problem which comes with heavy salt damage. It harvests rainwater, improves the quality of the water around it, helps with food production while saving water and being a sustainable architectural structure.

Sea level rise is getting progressively worse due to climate change which affects agriculture heavily – it means less land to farm on and also damage to coastal land because of excessive salt. N-ark has developed Green Ocean in partnership with Cultivera which is an agrotechnology R&D company that aims to build the prototype of the floating marine farm by 2022. Seawater agriculture is a special cultivation method that absorbs water and nutrients in the ground and air by mixing and neutralizing alkaline seawater and acidic rainwater. As a result, a huge variety of vegetables can be grown by utilizing the minerals and nutrients contained in seawater!

Green Ocean is a floating, solar-powered, salt-resistant greenhouse constructed with thinned wood and carbon joints. Once it is out on the water, the marine farm will create two new green areas – one will be a food production space that floats on the surface and uses salty agricultural technology and the second will be a layer of algae that will improve the underwater environment. It has a distinctive angular roof that helps to collect rainwater which is then mixed with seawater and used as fertilizer for the plants. Cold seawater is also used for air conditioning within the farms. “By creating a cyclical system environment, Green Ocean plays the role of an adhesive plaster of the Earth,” explains the team.

The basic technology behind seawater agriculture is ‘moisture culture’ which allows cultivation under humidity control. With this method, about 15 cm of the surface layer of natural soil can be reproduced with a special fiber of approximately 5 mm, and vegetables with fortified sugar content and vitamins can be grown by evaporating water with the special fiber by applying water depletion stress to plants. Moisture culture uses one-tenth of the water that is needed in conventional irrigated farming methods and can be applied even in areas where water is not abundant making it a sustainable way to farm at scale.

Designer: N-Ark

The post This floating farm turns salty seawater into nutrients for agriculture & improves marine environment! first appeared on Yanko Design.

Robotic Tractor Kills Weeds with Lasers

Sure Old MacDonald had a farm, but did he have an Autonomous Weeder robot from Carbon Robotics? I think not. E-I-E-I-O indeed! The Autonomous Weeder, designed to kill weeds without harming the soil or water, scans the ground with its 12-camera array, identifies weeds via onboard AI, then kills them with high-powered carbon dioxide lasers. Pew pew pew!

The tractor-size Autonomous Weeder can kill approximately 100,000 weeds an hour and between 15 and 20 acres a day, compared to about a single acre by a human laborer, and without the damaging effects of herbicides or the inexact nature of killing them with fire. Plus the robot can work autonomously both day and night, with no need for food or bathroom breaks.

Carbon Robotics CEO Paul Mikesel mentioned the Autonomous Weeder costs “hundreds of thousands of dollars,” but could pay for itself in a few years based on the scale of a farming operation. There are also lease options available. Me? I was torn between buying and leasing before ultimately deciding to not get one at all since I don’t own a farm. Fingers crossed I don’t regret that decision.

[via Freethink]

This greenhouse-mimicking dome helps harvest rainwater and foster sapling-growth

The Agrodome is environment friendly in more ways than you’d think. Sure, it creates a greenhouse-like environment for plants, enabling better growth, but it also comes made from recycled plastic waste! The Agrodome is made from PET sourced from recycled plastic bottles. The bottles are cleaned, pulverized, and remolded into these domes, which go on to help nurture plants by creating the perfect conditions required for plant-growth!

Outwardly, the dome looks a lot like a clear plastic umbrella. It comes with a dome that transforms inward into a long funnel-shaped structure. This structure is the Agrodome’s support system, and fits right into the soil, funneling water directly into the ground (whether it’s rainwater or artificially-controlled water). The rest of the dome helps mimic the effect of a greenhouse, trapping radiation from the sun to create a warmer environment on the inside, while perforations allow oxygen to vent out. The dome’s central support wedges right into the soil, and can be height-adjusted as the plant grows, creating the perfect outdoor environment for delicate saplings. This means saplings can be directly cultivated in the ground on-site, rather than being first germinated in a nursery before being transported and repotted. When the plants are all grown and self-sufficient, the Agrodomes neatly nest within each other, for easy transportation and storage!

Designer: NOS

This LEGO Technic Farm Machines Rake Hay

Who says farming has to be boring? The Brick Wall built this cool piece of LEGO Technic farm equipment, adding it to his already impressive collection of machines. He actually created two hay rakes. One is a modern-day farm implement, and one is inspired by the rakes of yesteryear. Both are completely functional, so they can actually collect your cut grass for you if you need a robot for such things.


It looks like both machines are driven by a standard LEGO Technic Claas Xerion 5000 tractor. The modern machine looks really cool, with a V-shaped rig and eight spinning rake wheels.

It seems like it does a good enough job collecting grass, but the old style version seems to do a more thorough job with its big grass catcher design. So, see, newer isn’t always better.

Both are very impressive builds and I wouldn’t mind having either in my yard to make my job easier. I continue to be blown away by what talented people can build with LEGO. One day we may all have LEGO robots doing our yard work for us. At least until the odd one blows up here and there and then we are all stepping on LEGO bricks hidden in the grass. That’s when it will end because, at that point, your lawn just becomes a minefield to anyone with bare feet.

[via designboom via Mike Shouts]

Not Your Daddy’s Farm

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When you imagine a farm, this is probably the last thing you’d think of… and that’s precisely its appeal! Called Lotus, this floating architecture is at once a space for growing veggies, dining, and socializing within urban environments. The structure utilizes a vertical design to house its various hydroponic and greenhouse stations. Inside and out, visitors and diners can enjoy waterside views and watch and learn more about there food growing as they dine. Designed to be built on waterways and lakes within cities, they capitalize on centrally located free space to avoid interfering with the existing structures.

Designers: Taeung Kim, Sunae Shin, Sungho An, Seungjun Lee & Mirae Park

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