
Underwater greenhouses are growing strawberries - Someone
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2015/06/30/the-worlds-most-beautiful-greenhouses-are-underwater-and-growing-strawberries/
======
placeybordeaux
Seems a bit silly.

------
PepeGomez
I don't see the point of growing strawberries underwater, but it could perhaps
be used for shade-lovingplants like coffee.

------
bagosm
I see it 20 years from now: "Ocean floor crops: Gift or curse? Ocean floor
pollution and released nutrients ecosystem problems"

------
Issac
Really interresting I hope to see more of this =) such projects are truly
inspiring, what we still can develope and build in this world.

------
rbanffy
If the water is coming from desalination, why not desalinate and feed a
surface greenhouse? The only advantages are the co2 and temperature.

------
DanielBMarkham
It would interesting to see if large-scale production would be feasible.
Backyard farms are great, but it's only with the economies of scale that
farming makes any sense commercially.

So could there be an undersea farm, with living quarters, hundreds of acres of
plants, a system for conserving and recycling the soil, and protection from
storms?

It's not a crazy idea. If you could move farming into shallow ocean waters,
you'd free up a lot of land. Just guessing, but you also might have natural
protection from cosmic events like CMEs. It bears watching.

------
gambiting
Ughhhhh websites should do automatic unit translation, I'm pretty sure oceans
are not at nearly boiling temperature.

~~~
ajmurmann
Yeah, that would be really neat. We are already doing it in enough cases for
time.

------
MrBuddyCasino
"I see possibilities for developing countries where harsh conditions make it
difficult for plants to grow."

I wonder what the economics are. This can't possibly be cheaper than
traditional greenhouses?

~~~
marianoguerra
Maybe in desertic and hot countries they are cheaper

~~~
pvaldes
Well, how could be cheaper?. Soil and light in deserts are practically free,
and you can build an insulated underground room, live in the same building and
go to the work just walking. Not need to spend gasoline moving a ship and also
spend electricity in air compressors.

This is agriculture without polinizators; not correct light spectrum; much
higher production costs that earth based companies for the same common
products in the market; and high probability of losing the harvest. Not
telling the investors that thousands of marine organisms will cover any
external transparent surface in a few months (blocking all the light if not
regularly removed); or that their investment could end just buried by sand; or
that the master plan is based in obtaining permits for eight different
organisms (and explain them that you need to jump over most current marine
laws). It seems that they not even asked a oceanographer what are those thing
named 'water masses' and how they move.

Do they want to use copper sulfate for potato fungus? Is super-toxic for
marine forms of life. Do they want to use lots of manure? Is not legal to
deliberately dump manure in the sea and a risk of faecal bacteria
contamination for beaches. Is their plastic fabric covered by tasty green
microscopic algae guaranteed against sea urchin's mandibles?.

Bad interest conflicts with local fishermen, algae harvesters, ecologists?.
How they plan to deal with this?.

Insurance or private security? This is a high risk activity for the workers.
Aquaculture companies need often to hire private security for marine cages
(because the risk of thief).

Either they can provide a reasonable anwser to this questions or they are not
serious players (or is just a scam).

------
technotony
"The company is also planning to launch a crowdfunding campaign next week to
support further development." Why would a CEO wait till the week after an
article with this many readers to launch such a campaign? Surely he could have
launched it before this article?

~~~
stevewepay
Maybe because it's good marketing? If someone reads about it on the Washington
Post, they're more apt to believe and contribute than someone who sees a
random Kickstarter campaign with nothing but a Youtube video.

~~~
orangeshark
I think the above poster is talking about how everyone will forget about it in
a week. Better to have it started now where everyone can just contribute to
the campaign after they read the article.

------
droopyEyelids
where do they mention how light gets to the plants?

~~~
jewel
It says that the greenhouses are transparent. At 20 feet down that would mean
something like 25% of the sunlight is left [1]. I'm surprised that
strawberries will grow in that little light, since they don't do as well in
the shade.

[1]: Rough estimate based on
[http://oceansjsu.com/105d/exped_briny/13.html](http://oceansjsu.com/105d/exped_briny/13.html).

~~~
realusername
Same for me, I'm was quite suspicious about this.

Especially also that you might not get the whole spectrum at this depth and
this might be problematic for some plants.

------
ars
Maybe I'm missing something, but I don't see what being under the ocean has to
do with anything?

You can get humidity in a simple greenhouse, and there is no more CO2 in air
exposed to the ocean than there is in ordinary air.

~~~
myhf
Ocean-floor real estate is very abundant.

~~~
amelius
Except you will probably need a very specific depth-range.

------
pvaldes
The real question is if we are changing a very productive system for a not soo
good one. Octopuses growth much quicker than strawerries, and are also more
expensive. Any aquaculture system in the same area will provide much more
human food and better revenues (you are using a 3d volume for production
instead a 2d surface).

Marine soil is not apt to cultivate, so you need to put terrestrial soil
underwater (or hydroponics), and this is not cheap. There is also a real
possibility of contamination of beaches with manure after a storm.

~~~
imaginenore
Octopuses are some of the smartest animals. Not a vegetarian, but I can't eat
one. It's like eating a monkey.

~~~
Shivetya
and they don't look good on short cake.

My concerns with this are, how do they deliver power and what its requirements
compared to a surface enclosed farm? Do they get sufficient light at that
depth to not need artificial lighting?

While it is nice to see the sea life adapting that is merely a distraction
from real issue of cost and are there negative affects on sea life?

~~~
pvaldes
I guess that strawberries are specifically choosen by the relatively low light
requirements.

I'm very sceptic about other hidden costs like hand polinization vs minute of
bottle diving, or how they had solved damages of amphibious marine snails in
the fruits.

