Progressive Plant Growing Has Business Blooming

The high-performance crop-production technology recently reached to the other side of the world to help potato production in East Asia. With assistance from the U.S. Department of Commerce, the World Trade Center in Denver, and the Export-Import Bank of the United States, AgriHouse installed an aeroponic system at the Hanoi Agricultural University’s Institute for Agrobiology, in Hanoi, Vietnam.

According to AgriHouse, potato production in East Asia lags behind North America due to poor performance of seed potato crops. Utilizing the closed-loop features developed under the NASA grants, the company designed and installed a state-of-the-art aeroponic potato laboratory at the Institute for Agrobiology, for potato tuber seed production.

“AgriHouse’s advanced technology gives the Institute of Agrobiology the opportunity for a direct replacement of labor-intensive, in vitro tissue culture potato production,” said Dr. Nguyen Quang Thach, the institute’s director. “Furthermore, the economic impact in the region from the seed potato-production features of this NASA technology will give our underdeveloped country a tremendous boost.”

AgriHouse’s Beyond is yet another environmentally conscious, crop-boosting commercial product stemming from the Mir research and the first SBIR contract. Based on the ODC formula tested and proven in space, Beyond is considered “nature’s natural health booster for all plants” by the company. The all-natural product is derived from natural aquatic materials, and therefore contains no enzymes, hormones, petrochemicals, acids, or manure, and does not affect the natural mineral uptake of plants. As a multipurpose cure-all for any garden—no matter what growing method is used—Beyond eliminates the need for pesticides; promotes faster seed germination; increases the survival rate of seeds; revives sick or infected plants; increases growth and yields; adds natural nitrogen to soil-based flora; is 100-percent biodegradable; and has an indefinite shelf life.

Beyond is also super-concentrated, so it does not take a large application of the liquid to realize positive results. At 16 ounces, each bottle makes over 160 gallons of plant-treating solution when mixed with water. This balances out to be enough treatment for over 1 acre of field crops. In stand-alone applications of a smaller nature, such as plant revival, pre-planting, or plant-potting, users can simply pour about an ounce of the solution directly on plants, seeds, and sprouts, once or twice a week.

Beyond customers are expressing their satisfaction with the product left and right, whether it be a potato farmer who experienced a 45-percent growth rate in potato stock, or one of the thousands of shoppers who saw it for sale on the HSN shopping channel (formerly recognized as the Home Shopping Network channel) and purchased it for domestic purposes.

AgriHouse’s most recent NASA spinoff is its Flex aeroponic system, which incorporates the lightweight material from the low-mass inflatable system that was developed for NASA during a succeeding SBIR contract. Like the Genesis system, the Flex system is a closed-loop aeroponic system. The Flex system, however, possesses a chamber that contains 1,000 plant holders, offering a tenfold increase in fresh crop production per square meter over the Genesis system. It is capable of delivering 12 growing cycles per year and eliminates the need for a greenhouse.

With an eye to the future, AgriHouse is now exploring advanced bio-pharming techniques in which natural compounds derived from botanicals may be used in place of chemicals to product pharmaceuticals. Specifically, Stoner and his company are focusing on creating controlled environments to produce bountiful crops to be used in bio-pharming.