A Crop Sprouts Without Soil or Sunshine
By TODD WOODY On the rooftop garden at St. Philip’s Academy, a private school in Newark, students tend plots of everything from broccoli and beets to sweet corn and spaghetti squash.But since August, they have also been helping to farm arugula, chervil, fun jen and komatsuna in a machine installed in a fourth-floor science classroom that grows crops without soil or sunshine.Made by the Ithaca, N.Y., company AeroFarms, the aeroponic growing system is owned by EcoVeggies, a startup formed by three former Wall Street technology workers who aim to transform Newark’s abandoned and vacant buildings into so-called vertical farms.
“The produce will be sold and used in the areas immediately surrounding Newark to start with, and then we expect to be able to service the immediate tri-state area,” Richard Charles, one of EcoVeggies’ founders, wrote in an e-mail … ->Read more … Crops sprout without sunshine or soil – the EcoVeggies way.