Rolling out hydroponics at the WoW Field Centre
Volunteers at the WoW Field Centre next year will get a chance to help on the design thinking and early prototypes for ‘LAND TWO’, our first aquaponics unit and our second hydroponics demonstration unit.

Since our charity’s last look at hydroponics, algae farming has become its new ‘green baby’. Some hydroponic farmers produce Green Crude – algae bred for its oil content, whilst others farm algae for use in foodstuffs or in pharmaceuticals. One of the first algae research facilities in the early 1970’s, managed by Rod Cousins at Scottish Sea Farms, designed vertical plastic tube culture systems – a design change that enabled the industry to farm algae commercially.

The concept of our LAND TWO hydroponics farm has been designed by architect Tim Griffiths who also designed WoW’s first membership certificate and many of our touring exhibitions.

There’s enough space (and water) at our Field Centre for the pilot hydroponics scheme but as you can see from the artist’s impression below, the full LAND TWO farm is going to need more land and more water. We’ll cross that bridge as we near it 😉

If the future of aquaponics, hydroponics and airponics interests you, please volunteer on one of our charity’s ‘Aquaponics Junkyard Challenges‘ and really get to understand how to make aquaponics work in any conditions, Globally.

The challenge ahead for ALL of us is how to feed the World’s growing population as it soaks up more land for housing.

Let’s work out what we are going to do, together.

LAND TWO Hydroponics Farm

Are you keen on ponics and could you construct a carbon dioxide filter, in record time, from a roll of grey duct tape, two lithium-hydroxide canisters, two LCG bags, two hoses, two socks and one bungee cord? Then we challenge you to construct a fully functioning hydroponic, aquaponic, bioponic, airponic or any other ponic system you want, from the collection of parts at our field centre.

You don’t have to be a NASA engineer to accept our challenge and unlike Apollo 13, there’s no risk of three astronauts dying in a space capsule whilst you are busy thinking, but there is one risk to make you think hard and that’s all about whether we can collectively produce enough nourishing food as the global human population expands. If we can’t, millions will die.

Minimal use and re-use of unpolluted water looks to be the top farming solution for the future.

“Wait a minute! What about limiting population growth?”

“That’s not going to appeal to all families.”

“How about changing to sea grown food?”

“That plan would only work if all global industries stopped dumping their pollutants into the ocean – and all polititians would need to revoke all the licenses that allow ocean pollution.”

Accept the Ponic Challenge