Hydroponic Roses? Check on the seventh floor!

It seems the future of hydroponics is certainly looking up! High-rise buildings can be transformed into vertical greenhouses to produce fruits, vegetables, and flowers in an urban setting, close to millions of hungry consumers. And yes, you can be hungry for food, but you can also be hungry for beauty! And what can be more beautiful than hydroponically grown fragrant roses?

clipped from features.csmonitor.com Cities may sprout vertical farms Proposed high-rise greenhouses could help solve a looming food crisis, professor says. The world is going to need vertical farms because conventional agriculture can’t handle what’s to come, Despommier says. By mid­­century, the world is expected to add another 3 billion people, pushing its population close to 10 billion. Feeding all those extra mouths will require finding an area of agricultural land larger than Brazil – without cutting rain forests needed to stabilize the world’s climate. And indoor agriculture is more efficient. One indoor acre of strawberries can produce as much as 30 outdoor acres can. In general, indoor acreage is four to six times more productive, in part because of the year-round growing season. “Outdoors, you might get one crop [per year]; indoors, you might get four or five crops per year,” Despommier says.