To the right you can see a Photo from an area within Epcot called The Land. I took the photo during a recent holiday to Florida.
The photo shows the large scale aeroponic system they are using within the large greenhouses they have there, The plants are fastened from above to a track system which moves the plants continously through the aeroponic system. You can see on the photo one of the plants start to emerge from the aeroponic spraying system. Note the huge roots dangling from te system.
The size of the roots is the first thing you notice from a system like this, Even in the aeroponic propagator which I am trying I’m amazed at the size of the roots which the system allows to grow and the speed at which they grow.
If you are visiting Epcot anytime soon, I would definitely advise a visit to The Land area. You can take a boat ride around the growing areas or even better have a guided tour around the areas. They do charge for the guided tour but the cost is minimal and they even give you a few seeds for free for you to try yourself. (The pumpkin seeds I received are just starting to grow into healthy plants.)
To the left is another photo from a recent visit to Epcot, This time it’s of their huge Water Culture system. Massive compared with my own system but it works on the same principle.
The lettuce is placed on floating boards so the roots dangle into the nutrients below.
The nutrients are then aerated by bubbler systems to oxygenate the nutrients and keep the plants healthy.
This final picture from Epcot shows a system which I found intriguing, The system is made to optimize the growing area available.
It looks great and would be an ideal system to have on a deck or patio area, I may even try the system myself one day.
The plants are placed into standard styrofoam type containers which work like hanging baskets, The nutrients are pumped to the top basked where it flows down through the other containers into the drain at the bottom, It’s then pumped back up to the top and the cycle starts again.
Presumably the baskets are filled with a neutral growing medium such as perlite but I didn’t see inside any of the containers so I can’t confirm this.
