http://www.nemosgarden.com/underwater-vs-standard-agriculture/
http://www.nemosgarden.com/the-structure/
http://www.nemosgarden.com/the-project/
http://www.nemosgarden.com/
The idea
In the summer of 2012, Sergio Gamberini, founder of diving equipment firm Ocean Reef Group, was enjoying a seaside vacation on the Italian Riviera. Resting in between dives, he enjoyed strolling along the edge of the sea chatting with friends.
One day, the conversation veered to his other passion: gardening.
Would it be possible, he wondered, to create the perfect growing conditions for basil, the most popular local herb and an essential ingredient for pesto?
Like most herbs, basil prefers protected, sunny locations with well-drained soils and a constant, stable temperature.
Glancing at the sea, Gamberini was struck with an unusual idea: why not try to grow basil underwater? Bizarre as it might have seemed, the idea made perfect sense coming from a diving aficionado and innovation-minded entrepreneur. In fact, it would have allowed Mr. Gamberini to combine two of his passions: scuba diving and gardening. He made a couple of phone calls and, with the help of his team at Ocean Reef Group, started experimenting, sinking transparent biospheres 20 feet below the surface of the sea and filling them with air.
The habitat
Our underwater farm is composed of 6 air-filled clear plastic pods, anchored to the bottom of the sea by chains and screws, just off the coast of Noli, Italy.
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Continuous monitoring and
communication
Each biosphere is equipped with sensors for CO2, O2, humidity, air temperature and illumination. The external water temperature is checked in the shallower and deeper biospheres.
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The control tower
Built on the shoreline, the Control Tower allows to supervise the functioning of Nemo’s Garden. It is equipped with an ultrasonic surface communication system (used to stay constantly in contact with divers operating underwater), and a full duplex intercom communication system (that allows to communicate with the divers when they get inside the biospheres).
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Hydroponic culture in the biospheres
Our greenhouse gardening is mostly hydroponic-based. Growing plants hydroponically means that they are grown without soil in a controlled environment, instead using a nutrient-rich solution to deliver water and minerals to their roots.
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The project’s goal
The project’s goal was initially a provocation, but suddenly turned in something more ambitious:
create an alternative system of agriculture, especially dedicated to those areas where environmental conditions, economical or morphologic reasons make plants growth extremely difficult.
Nemo’s Garden’s aims to create a system that utilizes natural resources already available, the foremost important one being the oceans and other bodies of water.
Key facts
Nemo’s Garden Project may be described with two keywords:
Self-sustainable
Nemo’s Garden is not only a technological endeavor, aimed at making underwater farming an economically viable, long-term alternative form of agriculture, but most and foremost it is an eco-friendly and self-sustainable project.
The use of renewable energy harnessed from the sun and of fresh water obtained by desalination of seawater, in fact, make Nemo’s Garden a self-sustainable system.
The microclimate and thermal conditions within the biospheres are optimal for plant growth and crop yields, not unlike a conventional greenhouse, yet it requires no additional energy sources.
Eco-friendly
The underwater farm determines very minimal, if none, interaction with the marine environment and related ecosystems, exception made for a positive shelter-like effect in order to support the repopulation for the surrounding marine areas.
A new environment for botanical research and further opportunities
The interest and seriousness of the project has drawn attention to the research side as well. Nemo’s Garden has already been rented to pharmaceutical companies willing to explore this alternative solution in growing plants. These companies believe, like us, that plants grown underwater may unveil interesting discoveries for the future.
“Every year, we are discovering new possible applications for the biospheres,” said Gianni Fontanesi, project coordinator at Nemo’s Garden.
These include eco tourism, fish farming, seaweed farming, or as scientific research labs or underwater stations for monitoring wildlife, scientific research, etc.
About agricultural challenges
In the developed world, industrial agriculture based on large-scale monoculture has become the dominant system of modern farming, although there is growing support for sustainable agriculture. Modern agronomy, plant breeding, agrochemicals such as pesticides (which has increased since 1950 to 2.5 million tons annually worldwide), fertilizers, and technological improvements have sharply increased yields from cultivation, but at the same time have caused widespread ecological damages and negative human health effects.
Agriculture represents 70% of freshwater use worldwide: water management is needed in most regions of the world where rainfall is insufficient or variable. Essentially agriculture draws water from aquifers and underground water sources at an unsustainable rate.
Increasing pressure is being placed on water resources by industry and urban areas, meaning that water scarcity is increasing and agriculture is facing the challenge of producing more food for the world’s growing population with reduced water resources.
Even more, climate change has the potential to affect agriculture through changes in temperature, rainfall (timing and quantity), CO2, solar radiation and the interaction of these elements. Agriculture is among sectors most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change; water supply for example, will be critical to sustain agricultural production and provide the increase in food output required to sustain the world’s growing population.
About underwater farming
The underwater system of agriculture could overlap the problematic issue of pesticides: the closed ecosystem created inside the biosphere is well preserved from the parasites attack. No use of pesticides means to have an ecological environment in strict contact with the seawater, thus avoiding any perturbation of the sea ecosystem.
Concerning fertilizers, actually a liquid product of natural origin is applied to different substrates or to the hydroponic system to supply one or more plant nutrients essential to the growth of plants.
Further investigations will be addressed to the possibility to produce fertilizers from algae found directly in the sea where the underwater farm will be installed. In this way a complete sustainability in the life cycle of growing plants would be attained, re-using the sea products as feed.
Improvements in water management for agriculture are one of key topic of Nemo’s Garden Project. Indeed, thanks to the difference of temperature between the air inside the biosphere and the seawater around the structure, the water at the bottom of the biosphere evaporates and easily condensates on the internal surfaces.
Since the underwater farm needs an external source of water only for the start-up of plants growing, our system could be useful for those locations far from the bodies of water available (i.e., seas, lakes, aquifers, etc.).
Any product that is difficult to grow in harsh environments would benefit from the alternative agriculture system proposed in the Nemo’s Garden Project. However, the limits of what can be grown are yet to be defined. Further researches will be addressed to understand the types of vegetables suitable for the underwater agriculture.