The Farmdominium™ Concept

Screen Shot 2016-11-08 at 7.56.43 PM The Farmdominium™ may require some kind of “special district” permit status in order to build what will be the self sustaining village envisioned. Most regions do not anticipate anything like what we wish to build, so being just outside of city limits might be better then inside, unless the city is willing to bend restrictive regulations.

The first Farmdominium™ project could easily be a hub of agrotourism / ecotourism / sustainable community education showcase etc. The kind of zoning that Disneyland has which is special to tourism would be a potential starting point. Ideally the Farmdominium™ would close all of the loops as far as atmospheric water generation, and geothermal power generation from abandoned oil wells. Converting waste to energy streams from the Farmdominium™, and surrounding area into electric power, and other useful materials with zero impact on the local system. The Farmdominium™ design is a ‘Village of the Future’ sustainable development template model that we can spread far and wide, in a rapid deployment model that can meet, and exceed carbon reduction targets set out in recent international environmental agreements.

The Farmdominium™ uses a small fraction of the water required to grow crops, compared to field farming or greenhouse growing operations. So much less water that we can use atmospheric water generators to source our water requirements initially from the surrounding environment, and use the same tech inside the dome to capture the plant transpiration, which are lost in other agriculture models.

No water/fertilizer runoff from a Farmdominium™ .
Power from geothermal.
1 acre foot print = 1,000 acre yield.

The addition of the habitat ring (village) surrounding the farming dome eliminates the need for the occupants of approx 500 residences (2,000 people) to require personal transportation, and provides income from the agriculture production. The Farmdominium™ also includes 150,000 sq ft commercial space, school, etc.

This Re-villaging will have knock-on effects like reducing urban sprawl, allowing farmland to ‘re-wild’ and be planted with forests etc.

The Farmdominium™ rotary plant growing technology increased production by several factors, due to increased vertical sq ft surface area.

A 300′ diameter dome footprint containing 114,000 gardens with 20 sq ft in each garden = 2,280,000 sq. ft. times a five times growth rate due to rotational stress = 11,400,000 sq ft times 3 times due to pressurization of the growth environment = 34,200,000 times 4 seasons = 136,800,000 divided by 43,560 sq ft (acre) = 3140 acres equivalent. Lowball it at 1,000 acres production from 1 acre footprint.

There will likely be further methods discovered to increase growth rates, once the facility is built and we are are able to focus on the activity.

Benefits are:

Optimized Biomass Production System
No Direct Sunlight Required
Manufactured
Ship-able
Stack-able
Expandable
Traceable/Track-able
Automation Ready
Rapid Deployment
Weather-Proof Year Round Production
99% Less Water Compared to Traditional Agriculture
90% Less Power Compared to Greenhouse
Many Times Faster Growth Rates
Auto-Pollination

The Omega Garden™ rotary plant growing technology represents a simple yet profound system of production based on the optimization of elemental relationships. At the nucleus of the system is a cylinder housing rows of plants slowly rotating around a central light source (Patented).

This is the type of configuration an astronaut, or astrophysicist would want to have at home, in fact NASA was working with this type of system several decades ago with the idea to rotate the cylinder fast enough to create a gravitational force to help the plants grow in a zero gravity environment.

Plants grow mainly in the opposite direction of the pull of gravity, and one result of constant rotation is faster growth rates due to stresses similar to the effect of exercise for humans.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravitropism

It is anticipated that research will confirm and reveal further benefits to the rotational stress, as reports of improved flavor in culinary herbs, and higher expressions of medicinal properties in cannabis plants have been indicated.

(In these images the plants on the left were subjected to rotational stress, and all other growth parameters were equal to the plants on the right, including age.)

slider-lettuce2

A Question of Geometry

The inside surface growing area (ISGA) of the cylinder is just over three time the footprint of the same cylinder. If this ISGA was laid out flat, it would require many times the light sources to achieve the same light levels the plants receive inside the cylinder.

Distance Matters

The diameter of the cylinder dictates the size, and power/wattage required of the central light source to deliver sufficient level of light to the plants, and the math is known as the ‘inverse square law’. Research has brought us to the present two foot diameter cylinder which also happens to be the size of a 55 US gallon barrel that is reworked for our specific purpose.

Since the only popular crops we know of that are grown without any direct sunlight are cannabis, we will use this to illustrate the production efficiency of the Omega Garden™ rotary model vs the overhead lighting model. According to the Northwest Power and Conservation Council, which carries out energy planning for the Columbia River Basin states (Montana, Idaho, Washington and Oregon), growing marijuana indoors consumes up to 5,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity per kilogram of output.

In the news article that carried the above quote seen here, there is an image of Tweed Marijuana Inc in Smith’s Falls, Ontario where the lamps are over top of plants grown on a level static surface.

We estimate the equivalent production in the Omega Garden™ system at approximately 8% to 10% of the 5,000 kWh figure.

Cannabis is far from the only crop worth growing in this way. We have been focused mainly on the hardware more then the software, however we have successfully grown leafy greens like lettuces, and kale, herbs such as basil, and mint, fruiting plants such as beans, peas, medium size tomato, peppers, and small eggplant, and fruit such as strawberries.

Many more foods including grains are possible to grow this way in urban settings without the added costs of packaging, shipping, spoilage, advertising, employee commutes, etc. while improving food quality, food sovereignty, control, community development, and security, etc.

In an ideal low carbon, or carbon neutral future, we will be able to walk everywhere we need to go, and get to know all of our neighbors in the process. The Farmdominium™ is a binary design with the farming in the center dome, with a surrounding habitat ring. Ideally both structures are hardened concrete, with a protected green-space in between.

Spray able concrete over inflatable forms similar to the technology seen at monolithic.com. The dome size is 300′ diameter, half sphere, and the habitat ring has a cross section of 150′ by 75′ tall.

OLED Technology

The exterior of the habitat ring, although it is concrete, can have a covering of plants such as Ivy making it friendly to birds, and insects. The inside surface can be covered in OLED technology which can project the outside environment on it’s surface, or anything desired similar to a Planetarium.

By utilizing shipping containers and Omega Garden™ patented carousel systems, over 110,000 garden barrels can be housed in a 300′ diameter dome, and operated with automated storage, and retrieval technology (patented). The year round weather, storm, drought, disaster proof production is equal to more then 1,000 acres of high value, high production farm land.

Trace-ability allows for this technology to be deployed in a variety of business, community shared, profit, non-profit, government, or combination models, as every garden in the system can be allotted, and monitored.

The Farmdominium™ binary village design can exchange the oxygen generated in the farm dome with the co2 created in the habitat ring, creating an ideal atmosphere for plant growing, and human health, as well as befitting the surrounding environment.

The first Farmdominium™ project could easily be a hub of agrotourism / ecotourism / sustainable community education showcase etc. I would like to see the kind of zoning that Disneyland has which is special to tourism. I would like to close all of the loops as far as atmospheric water generation, our own power generation of course. Looking after our own sewage so there is zero impact on the local system. This is a ‘Village of the Future’ template, which would be a model that we can spread far, and wide.

The ultimate plan is a self sustaining village housing all basic requirements for human existence. Housing an educational institute such as McMaster University would be ideal. We will need all basic requirements for society like any other village, and some special ones with our particular agriculture technology development in mind.

Further research into geothermal power generation from oil wells, which in itself is a potential world wide demand, particularly to meet carbon reduction targets.
Controlled environment agriculture research including increased atmospheric pressure, OLED lighting research, rotational stress, etc.
Research into specific plant genus optimization for rotational growing.
The above line includes research into tens of thousands of potential plant genus candidates.
Genetic selection research.
Genetic optimization research.
Carbon reduction audit research.
Sustainable development research.
Extreme environment agriculture research.
Automation research specific to to controlled agriculture, and rotational system.
Various Tourism Industry training.
Space industry potential, space agriculture systems development.
Lunar station system development.
Magnesium oxide concrete construction technique development.

The Farmdominium™ will employ many across a wide variety of vocations, both new, and traditional, and will lead the world into a new carbon neutral system that provides security in food production, food sovereignty, community building, climate change preparation, and mitigation regardless of warming, or cooling changes, including extreme climate events ranging from floods, to volcanic winters.

We have the following patents on the Farmdominium™ system: