Re: [APD] commercial cultivation of aquatic plants

[Bill Wichers <billw at waveform_net>]

> As you may have noticed, I've been doing my part to boost
> list participation ...  ;-)

Every little bit helps ;-)

> I've never been to one of those places that cultivate
> aquarium plants for hobbyists. Has anyone ever visited such
> a place, and can you describe how it works -- lights,
> ferts, harvesting & propagation, etc.. And that do they
> put in their water?!

I haven't ever been to an aquatic-plant-specific greenhouse, but I have 
been to several large commercial greenhouses. The one thing I can say for 
sure about them is that they try *very very* hard to make use of natural 
lighting as much as possible. Lighting thousands of square feet of growing 
area with any kind of artificial lighting would make the costs of growing 
the plants far to high to be worthwhile. The lights I've seen are always 
set up either for special purposes (seedlings and other "sensitive" areas 
where more control is needed over light levels), or for a few plants that 
need more light than the natural lighting can provide at a certain time of 
year.

The pics I've seen of the Asian aquatic plan farms all look to be mainly a 
series of outdoor ponds with walkways over them. Must be nice to not have 
freezes :-)

        -Bill


*****************************
Waveform Technology
UNIX Systems Administrator

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