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Growing media is the name given to material where plants develop their roots and grow – it regulates watering, aeration and nutrient intake. When you are thinking about what plant-growing media you want to use, you need to think about: the amount of drainage required how forgiving the media is the nutritional content of the […]

Vertical farming, also known as controlled environment agriculture (CEA), is the name for growing agricultural products or food in a factory-style situation – without the need for the usual growing media such as soil and sunlight. Instead, it relies on innovative greenhouse technologies such as lighting and nutrient delivery mediums. Today’s mainstream food production systems

The main tasks of commercial horticulturalists are growing, distributing and selling crops, food and plants. One of the most critical parts of this complex role is a scientific understanding of what plants require to grow. Plants are much like humans; they need air, light, warmth, water and nutrients to be healthy. If a plant lacks

The United Nations recently revealed that the world’s population is expected to grow to 9.7 billion by 2050. Feeding all of these people will present us with a considerable challenge. The world is losing more and more of its arable lands daily due to industrial development and urbanisation. A study by the Grantham Centre for

The production of greenhouse crops involved many different tools, with the most important being the growing media. Growing media is the term used to describe the “mixture of components that provide water, air, nutrients and support to plants.” In simple terms, these are the materials you put into a container to grow a plant. Growing

The total number of humans currently living is 8 billion (June 2022) with this number expected to reach 9 billion by the year 2037. This massive growth in world population means space is becoming an issue, as is food production. Fields and greenhouses to grow crops take up space, but vertical farming saves it. What

Gelponics products are a more environmentally friendly replacement for stone wool, which tends to have a high carbon footprint and is non-biodegradable. But what is stone wool made of, and how does Gelponics differ? What is stone wool made of? Stone wool is a lightweight hydroponic substrate made from molten basaltic rock spun into fine

Did you know that conventional agriculture is one of the most significant producers of greenhouse gas emissions, accounting for 25% of all man-made greenhouse gas emissions? Why are greenhouse gases a problem? Greenhouse gases cause climate change by trapping heat, affecting various species in arid climates. The climate change caused by greenhouse gas emissions also

There has been a lot of buzz around the use of peat in the news recently, with the UK Government consulting on measures to end the retail sale of peat in England and Wales in order to curb climate change and protect habitats. But what is peat used for, and how does it differ from

The changes in weather we have seen recently have highlighted the fact that crops grown outdoors tend to be affected by weather conditions. Vertical farming has been hailed by many as the future of global food production as it is “the practice of growing plants under fully controlled conditions in buildings in many stacked layers,