The May 3 nature news featured a photo claiming the best scientific picture of the month selected by the Nature photography team, taken by photographer Giacomo d'Orlando, and won third place in the Environmental Category Photography Award at this year's International Sony World Photography Competition (below).
This photograph is of the sea 6 meters below the surface near the village of Noli on the Italian Guria Coast, where an undersea farm was built, known as the "Garden of Nemo".
The bizarre Nemo Garden Project
It's an exploratory project created on the whim of Sergio Gamberini, founder and owner of ocean reef group, which was originally just a company that runs a diving project, and Sergio patted his head and began developing a project on how to grow plants on the seabed in 2012.
Their original intention was to use Italy's marine resources, explore how to achieve cultivation in seemingly unconditional environments, and achieve scale and cost reduction, providing planting solutions for some arid areas near the sea in the future.
In 2013, Sergio father and son personally operated the knife, put on the diving suit and began construction. Their approach is to fix several plastic balls at a depth of 8 meters above the sea surface about 100 meters on the coast, form a small biosphere within the balls, and plant plants, including vegetables, flowers and other plants.
This seemingly scientifically explored undertaking did not start well, first and foremost a legal obstacle. The Italian government, for the sake of environmental protection, does not allow any corporate organization to build permanent facilities underwater. After much mediation, Sergio was finally allowed to build an undersea farm, but the farm facility could only be maintained underwater for 3 months a year.
This does not seem to be a permanent facility, solving legal problems but bringing greater difficulties to the design. Because these undersea farm facilities have to withstand the pressure of the sea and the impact of the current, and they must be dismantled at any time. The result of repeated trials was to design the undersea farm as an "eco-ball", and they built 6 "eco-balls" out of steel frames and plexiglass, and fixed them to the seabed at a depth of 8 meters with steel frames.
Since the beginning of the project, it has been questioned by the society, and many people believe that this kind of project is completely idle, that there is no point in planting so many plants in the sea, and that it destroys the natural beauty of the sea. Some even maliciously attack, believing that it is sensationalism or even some conspiracy.
But Sergio was unmoved and stuck to his original intentions, which he believes has great implications for the future expansion and sustainability of agriculture, especially for areas close to the sea, poor land and difficult to grow.
Problems and advantages of seabed cultivation that need to be solved
So, how does growing plants in seawater solve the lighting and irrigation system, and what are the advantages?
In fact, the sea area selected by Nemo Garden, the sun itself is very sufficient, there is enough light under 6 to 8 meters underwater to ensure the photosynthesis needs of plants, in the case of insufficient light in winter or cloudy days, researchers have installed LED lighting in the ecological ball, through artificial light to supplement the lack of natural light.
The fresh water required for irrigation is automatically provided by the evaporation of seawater inside the biosphere. These spheres, which are fixed to the seabed, are filled with air inside, and the seawater inside the sphere evaporates due to the temperature difference inside the sphere and condenses on the surface of the sphere, and the fresh plants planted inside rely on the condensed water on the inner wall of the sphere to meet the required moisture.
My understanding is that there is no closure under these spheres, the upper part of the sphere is occupied by air, and the bottom is filled with seawater, so that under the temperature difference in the sphere, the seawater continues to evaporate and condense on the sphere, forming a small ecological circle that is constantly circulating.
The sphere is equipped with sensors inside, so that the managers can immediately grasp the humidity, pH, temperature, carbon dioxide concentration, etc. inside the biosphere, and the high concentration of carbon dioxide inside is the favorite of plants, and they smoke enough carbon dioxide like steroids, which grows abnormally rapidly.
There are at least two major advantages in carrying out planting under seawater: one is constant temperature, the temperature difference between day and night in seawater is very small, on the continental shelf on the northern coastal coast of the Mediterranean, the water temperature in late June is about 25 ° C, and the temperature in the sphere can reach 29 ° C, which is the most suitable temperature for the growth of vegetables and other plants; the second is that there is no insect pest, allowing plants to thrive in an environment that is not affected by insects and parasites.
This second point, of course, is to treat the seeds and soil before planting, and it is necessary to eliminate the parasites and eggs in them, which cannot be done on land. Because there are insects and various parasites invading the land at any time, there is no such concern at the bottom of the water isolated by the sea. This vegetable is the real organic pollution-free health food.
However, due to the current legal constraints, Nemo Garden can only be tested from May to September every year, and the only plants that have been successfully planted in the greenhouse are basil, lettuce, strawberries, beans, etc.
Development prospects and trends
The success of Nemo Garden has aroused widespread concern and heated discussion in the international community, and some capital teams have asked to join, but Sergio is very cautious. In July 2021, Nemo Garden reached a cooperation with Siemens AG in Germany, which greatly strengthened the business. The partnership began with an international team of scientists, engineers and divers tasked with improving existing technologies and progressively industrializing and cost-optimizing them to form the world's first base for sustainable food alternatives.
Now, Nemo Garden began to plan to increase the number of greenhouses, trying to increase the variety of crops grown, such as tomatoes, beans, and fungi suitable for growing in humid environments, etc., to find more development possibilities; at the same time, Sergio also began to manufacture and produce some small biospheres based on the accumulated technology, and sold to the aquarium; and also explored some underwater sightseeing and tourism projects combined with Nemo Garden.
In this way, the future Nemo Garden has the potential to achieve economic benefits and become a business model that the world can imitate. It is foreseeable that this flower of science and technology has experienced many years of hardships, has broken through the ground, and may have entered a stage of growth. Will the future be a booming trend? See.
I think that in the longer term, the Earth's climate change is showing a worsening trend, and the greenhouse effect is becoming more and more obvious, which will bring great uncertainty to land agriculture. And the earth's ocean area occupies 70%, and the underwater can filter out radiation and many other difficult to solve problems on land, if you can really use this vast space to carry out large-scale cultivation, it will be a great blessing for the human beings on the earth.
So, I'm very supportive of this exploration. However, it is also necessary to strictly control and standardize development, if you let a swarm of people come and go, it may outweigh the losses and cause irreparable damage to the marine ecology. What do you think? Welcome to the discussion, thanks for reading.
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