AGRIPONICS

MainStreet’s contribution and participation within the Sustainability Industry goes far beyond the development of sophisticated e-commerce and m-commerce technology desigend to raise funding for green projects, the company has acquired and developed an advanced agricultural product called Agriponics™, the answer to providing growing human world-wide, with high quality food and green bio-fuel products in environments where water is in short supply and soil quality is becoming a problem.

Agriponic™, is a commercially viable highly profitable business whether supplying the technology or utilising the technology to produce high quality crops. Crops produced are of export quality and as such can meet both domestic or export demand.

The crops are grown in environmentally controlled facilities resulting in extremely high productivity, up to six (6) crops rotations per year.

Agriponic™, is essentially an intelligent, soil-less extension of the science of hydroponics. All of the basic rules appertaining to hydroponics also apply to Agriponic™, with one important exception – the micro qualities of water required.

Agriponic™, is a scientifically managed agricultural process in which all the elements of plant growth and nutrition are controlled by chemical-free methods, year round and with minimal use of water resources – the opposite of hydroponics in which plants virtually float in water.

In MainStreet’s Agriponic™, the provision of nutrients and enrichment of the medium in which the crops are grown is achieved through the supply of organically prepared liquefied compost including by-products of marine and land animal processing directly to the roots of the plants in micro amounts.

Growth is controlled to a specific program irrespective of the season. In other words, flowers and vegetables are scientifically grown all year round.

Agriponic™, technology has been developed by leading scientists over the past 25 years, the technology has been proven in a pilot plant constructed and operated at Phillip Island in Victoria, Australia. The pilot plant was operated along side of a hydroponics operation so that an accurate comparison of the two technologies could be made.

The pilot plant proved the following, in producing a crop of 15 types of herbs plus crops of lettuce and rice (grown in mid winter):

1. From the time of seeding to harvest averaged 6 weeks;
2. Minimum of 5 harvests per year;
3. Less than 1 % water used by comparable hydroponics project which was located adjacent to the pilot Agriponic™ project;
4. Manpower requirement – less than 10 minutes per 24 hours = <0.69% Effective Full Time (EFT);
5. Zero micro-bacterial algae produced whereas the adjacent hydroponic control was heavily infested;
6. Zero pest attack;
7. Zero damage by the elements; and
8. Greenhouse gas neutral

The above eight points indicate that the Agriponic™ technology, that of soilless agriculture with a minimum application of water, allows a very competitive form of agriculture to be practiced with a nil effect of weather, season, elements or pest/micro-bacterial invasion. The six great plus benefits being:

1. A minute amount of water is required as compared to hydroponics;
2. Operational manpower is minimal allowing a much larger project to be operated by a small staff;
3. A minimum of 5 harvests per year can be planned;
4. An organically grown, disease free crop is guaranteed;
5. All crops can be grown with the quality and consistency required by ISO9000, particularly important where quarantine standards for domestic or export supply are stringent;
6. The ability to grow 250,000 plants per hectare per year, depending on type of crop grown.

The next stage of this MainStreet Agriponic™ project is to establish an operating Showcase Property and to open a factory in China that will run as a commercial operation, act as a research centre to test new products and to be the sales centre for the sale of Agriponic™ systems world-wide.

The Agriponic™ systems that will be sold will require ongoing remote environmental monitoring and the supply of management systems. This will create an ongoing revenue stream for the business.

Back  | Home