Granpa Dome

Finding land, working a small plot or anything else countryside related
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Eric in Japan
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Granpa Dome

Post by Eric in Japan »

I was looking at this on youtube



That might be my exit strategy from English teaching someday...
"... so, the cucumbers said to the cabbage, `Lettuce Go.`"

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Re: Granpa Dome

Post by paradoxbox »

Interesting idea, I'm not sure of the necessity of the roundness or the rotation to be honest though.. You lose a lot of ground space if you set up more than one of those in the same location.

It would probably be a lot less expensive to just build a rectangle house.

I didn't catch how they're heating those, but the heating bills must be high for that location in winter. Those kinds of projects are the ones where I start digging out my geothermal conversion efficiency figures and see if just tapping into geotherm energy might be cheaper in the long run. Or if they could tap into a natural onsen, that would be good free heat for a smaller house.

One of these setups would make for an interested aquaponics setup if one so desired. You'd have to crawl under everything to get at the fish but you could breed a fish that doesn't need much sunlight. Double bonus crop.

I would like to take a look at the figures of that dome and see if the energy they're producing via food is more than the energy they're consuming via purchased electricity and fossil fuels. I have this unfortunate feeling that while the project looks awesome it's probably got a huge energy deficit.

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Zasso Nouka
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Re: Granpa Dome

Post by Zasso Nouka »

Nice place to work during the winter, certainly beats freezing your nadgers off in a wind swept field (although working outside on a crisp and clear winter's day can be quite nice) and the convenience of having the tables at waist height is a definite bonus. I imagine that on sunny days the dome doesn't require much heating, our vinyl houses easily get up to around 35C in the middle of winter so you'd only need to heat them at night and maybe not by much given how cold tolerant lettuce is but not sure about summer. Our houses reach 50C by 10 am (unshaded, shade netting cuts that down considerably), obviously fans help with the cooling but it must still get fairly warm.

Given that they are inflated domes I wonder how they cope with heavy snow, you can support a conventional vinyl house with bamboo poles along the central pipe but that wouldn't work in one of these. Maybe the heating would melt the snow before it could build up ? I wonder how they cope with aphids, they can be a real problem during winter when all their normal predators are hibernating. Again perhaps the heated environment allows predators to hunt right through the winter.

The revolving table is quite innovative and the way it slowly pushes the maturing plants to the edge for harvesting is really neat. Frilly lettuce is quite a good choice as it commands a premium price but there's always the danger that if too many people start copying this the price will plunge to the cost of a Sunny Lettuce which can drop well below 100円 retail (that's including tax and the Michi No Eki commission) at our Michi No Eki when a lot of folk are growing them and the wholesale price at auction market is considerably lower.

Most of the tomato growers near us use gas to heat their vinyl houses and they all say how expensive it is to heat their houses during the winter but one of the shiitake growers uses some kind of very large maki stove so that maybe a cheaper option. Something like this

Image

So that could be a cheaper option.

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Eric in Japan
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Re: Granpa Dome

Post by Eric in Japan »

The company's website went into a bit more detail-
http://www.granpa.co.jp/
They even have an English PDF pamphlet.
http://www.granpa.co.jp/images/common/g ... nglish.pdf

I took another look at it, a bit more critically this time.

I think that due to the way it is designed, it is more work efficient than a rectangular greenhouse. In a traditional setup, the plants are physically transplanted by workers as they become crowded- but here they spread out each day-you only have to touch them the first and last days. The rotation keeps them from chasing the light, and prevents the plants under the bridge from getting spindly-uniformity.

If you tried to plant 15,000 lettuce plants- at 36/sq meter... that would be.. 416 square meters with no paths. My 36/square meter is based on the spacing of lettuce plants at 17cm. You could probably bump that to 49 plants (14cm spacing) and 306 sq. meters.
From the dome schematics, you could probably build them on a 30x30 meter plot. You would have room in the corners of that for storage, outbuildings parking, etc.

Without a lot of aeration it would not be very good for aquaponics. And cleaning it would be an even more immense chore.
Also, aquaponic lettuce (from my direct experiments) takes longer than 30 days.

It does look like it consumes quite a bit of electric.

And it seems to be only available to people who join the whole Granpa farm to supermarket system. So I don't think you could just buy one and start selling at local michi-no-eki. It would probably be more like working for wages.

But it would satisfy two things I enjoy very much, growing things and technology. And it would sure save a lot of bending over and weeding!
"... so, the cucumbers said to the cabbage, `Lettuce Go.`"

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Re: Granpa Dome

Post by Zasso Nouka »

It's a well thought out system and I like the fact that they use natural predators and bacteria to control insect pests rather than pesticides. The system does seem to make working it nice and easy and space really has been maximised, I doubt you could pack that many plants into any other growing plan.

Why not study that system and use it to set up your own hydroponic farm ? One of the farmers we know has quite a nice business supplying restaurants and hotel kitchens with all manner of herbs grown hydroponically and that way you wouldn't be a wage slave to Granpa :lol:

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Re: Granpa Dome

Post by gonbechan »

I am just surprised that they aren't using solar for as much of the power as they can.
Otherwise it is an awesome system.

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