produce on salt water

[MonsieurM]

I just thought of an easy way to start cultivating your produce over sea water (preferably in a shallow cove or lagoon)


I was watching a doc on the Aztec Civilisation and they talked about Chinampa:

Chinampa is a method of ancient Mesoamerican agriculture which used small, rectangle-shaped areas of fertile arable land to grow crops on the shallow lake beds in the Valley of Mexico.

Chinampa - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

It got me thinking about this inventor :
Mark TONKIN

Salt Water Irrigation

http://www.rexresearch.com/tonkin/tonkin.htm

A British company has created an irrigation system that can grow crops using salt water. <br /><br />The dRHS irrigation system consists of a network of sub-surface pipes, which can be filled with almost any water, whether pure, brackish, salted or polluted. The system can even take most industrial waste-water and use it without the need for a purification process.

It just clicked together and I'm sure you can imagine the rest:

Chinampa + Salt Water Irrigation= fresh produce

Ancient Genes Used To Produce Salt-tolerant Wheat

Researchers develop highest yielding salt tolerant wheat

let me know what you think...



Cove



Lagoon




links:
Irrigation system can grow crops with salt water (Wired UK)

http://www.rexresearch.com/tonkin/tonkin.htm

Build your own Chinampa

[MonsieurM]

I think you could recycle a lot of products to build a "modern" version of the Chinampa.

or read this thread to learn more:

http://www.energeticforum.com/agriculture/6543-aquaponics-getting-started-3.html

[Savvypro]

The following is copyed from post 37 of the Soil Remineralization thread (http://www.energeticforum.com/agricu...html#post95763):

I just came accross the following article and thought about this thread.

The news article:

Watering Tomato Plants With Diluted Seawater Boosts Levels Of Antioxidants

Source: Watering Tomato Plants With Diluted Seawater Boosts Levels Of Antioxidants


The paper abstract:

The aim of this study was to assess whether the nutritional value of cherry tomato can be improved by irrigating plants with diluted seawater (12%; EC = 10 mS/cm in comparison with a control at EC = 4 mS/cm). Berries of cherry tomato cv. Naomi were analyzed at the red-ripe stage for the contents of NADPH and NADP+ as well as for the amounts of the main antioxidants, such as ascorbic acid, lipoic acid, tocopherols, and phenolic acids. As compared to the controls, the fruits of salt-treated plants showed a higher titratable acidity and a higher concentration of reducing sugars. The fruits picked from tomato plants irrigated with diluted seawater produced berries characterized by a higher nutritional value. Following salinity, berries showed higher amounts of vitamin C, vitamin E, dihydrolipoic acid, and chlorogenic acid. It was hypothesized that protocatechuic, vanillic, caffeic, and ferulic acids were utilized to counteract the damaging effects of salinity-induced oxidative stress, allowing tomato fruits to maintain a high reduced status even following salinization.

Source: Irrigation with Diluted Seawater Improves the Nutritional Value of Cherry Tomatoes - Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry (ACS Publications)

[MonsieurM]

You have given the answer yourself, because the environment i suggested is close to the sea, in a shallow cove or lagoon , so the produce are constantly in contact with sea water in diluted form (as fog, evaporation, morning dew and so on). So the produce get their fresh water through the pipe at the bottom while at the same time get their diluted sea water from the top through water deposited by the various natural phenomenon.

[MonsieurM]

you could also add a greenhouse to the chinampa with a little extra sea water surface covered to collect the evaporated water for later use. It is not necessary to cover the chinampa with it(but it is useful, if you want to saturate the atmosphere with saline humidity), its main purpose is water collection.

[Savvypro]

You have given the answer yourself, because the environment i suggested is close to the sea, in a shallow cove or lagoon , so the produce are constantly in contact with sea water in diluted form (as fog, evaporation, morning dew and so on). So the produce get their fresh water through the pipe at the bottom while at the same time get their diluted sea water from the top through water deposited by the various natural phenomenon.

[MonsieurM]

you are quite right about the loss of habitat caused by deforestation and sea degradation. Not being an engineer, i would think then the best way would be to create a floating (in open sea) multiple level aquaponic system. just like the following example:

YouTube - &#x202a;GOOD: The Science Barge&#x202c;&rlm;

in simple words: a floating farm





Floating Permaculture Farm

and the following system would still allow you to have fresh water and diluted sea water (through evaporation) at a low cost

Ningyu Zhou -- deslination heliostat

The new invention, by scientists at the School of New Materials and New Energy in Hehai University (HHU) and Nanjing Fiberglass Research and Design Institute, has been reported in the local media.

According to Zhou Ningyu, a senior engineer with HHU, the new desalinating device consists primarily of a heliostat, which absorbs solar power and turns it into heat. The heat is then used to bring water to boiling point, and when vaporization occurs the salt becomes separated.

[Goncalo]

the best way would be to create a floating (in open sea) multiple level aquaponic system.

The problem I see with that kind of structures is that salty water is highly corrosive. How long would it take until structural damage would make it unsafe?