Sustainability can’t be like some sort of a moral sacrifice or political dilemma or a philanthropical cause. It has to be a design challenge.
– Bjarke Ingels
WATER
In times of drought, the whole country suffers. We pray for rain. We understand what our friends, partners, and neighbors must deal with on a daily basis. And so, as we work to develop and improve our projects, water conservation is at the top of our list. Looking at irrigation options for rooftop farming, we considered a pump system – with electricity being not-so-reliable, the best option there was a small solar-panel dedicated to the water pump. But this isn’t what we call practical or affordable, so back to the drawing board we went.
We aimed to make our irrigation systems as simple, economic, and easy to replicate as possible. With our new planting platforms being deeper that ever before, we had plenty of depth to play with a submerged irrigation system. After a good bit of research on irrigation – ancient, modern, and everything in between – we have developed our own style of wicking system for our partners. We won’t bore you with all the science-y details, but we will share the exciting stuff!
- About a week after planting, the plants’ roots begin drawing water up from the reservoir at the base of the platform (aka “wicking”)
- The reservoir will only need to be filled about every 2 weeks!
That’s pretty exciting stuff!
We have already implemented our new system at both our demonstration site (which you saw on Periscope a few weeks ago) and at Zanfan Lakay‘s new location. Today, these new systems are being delivered and taught to the fine folks at myLIFEspeaks. We have signed on with TWO new project partners (more on that soon) and are looking forward to sharing it with them as well.