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posted by takyon on Saturday July 30 2016, @07:12AM   Printer-friendly
from the frozen-wasteland dept.

Submitted via IRC for Runaway1956

Canada Banana Farms, located 200 kilometres west of Toronto in Blyth, Ont., is cultivating fruit such as papayas, pineapples, lemons, guavas, and – of course – bananas. You'd think that you'd need an advanced degree in horticulture or botany to grow fruits like these in frigid Canada, but Terry Brake's method is easy – and cheap.

[...] "We grow them in hoop houses," Brake told CTV News Channel on Friday. "And we heat it with wood all winter long." The hoop houses – essentially long sheets of polyethylene stretched over a frame – have effectively created the jungle-like conditions these fruits need to flourish. "It just feels like you're in the tropics," Brake says of his DIY greenhouses. "It's very humid in there: about 85 to 90 per cent humidity in the winter."

Source: http://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/meet-the-farmer-who-s-growing-bananas-in-ontario-1.3007500


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  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Gravis on Saturday July 30 2016, @09:05AM

    by Gravis (4596) on Saturday July 30 2016, @09:05AM (#381914)

    burning wood is quite environmentally unfriendly. a much better solution would be a solar concentrator because the only thing they do is make heat. it wouldn't need to be super large or get absurdly hot (and set birds alight) like industrial scale ones, you just need it to heat recirculating water. sure it would take some engineering effort but it seems like something that would be completely doable for a farm.

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  • (Score: 2) by t-3 on Saturday July 30 2016, @09:57AM

    by t-3 (4907) on Saturday July 30 2016, @09:57AM (#381921)

    Burning wood isn't that environmentally unfriendly if you look at it right. Wood is a renewable resource (and one which an orchard will always have an abundance of) and can be burned very cleanly with the right stove.

    • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Saturday July 30 2016, @02:03PM

      by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Saturday July 30 2016, @02:03PM (#381953) Journal

      You are aware that forest fires are natural, right? There have been forest fires for as long as there have been forests. Which, kinda predates man and his primitive fires. And, before that, there were pairie fires, grass fires, bush and shrub fires. In fact, at least one tree has evolved so that it's seeds are unable to germinate unless and until they have been exposed to a fire.

      https://smokeybear.com/en/about-wildland-fire/benefits-of-fire/fire-in-nature [smokeybear.com]

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 30 2016, @04:36PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 30 2016, @04:36PM (#381985)

        So you're saying that Smokey the Bear is an anti-environmentalist?

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 30 2016, @07:11PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 30 2016, @07:11PM (#382023)

        I'm pretty sure they're talking about agricultural/industrial use, which has some different considerations from the forest fires you're talking about. Wood burns in forest fires, and forest fires are good. That doesn't mean that burning wood is always good (or optimal). Try not to jerk that anti-SJW knee so quickly.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 30 2016, @10:28AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 30 2016, @10:28AM (#381926)
    If he has enough vegetation waste he could burn that instead. Or maybe he just needs to arrange the polyethylene sheets like double glazing for better insulation (but blocks more sunlight).
    • (Score: 3, Interesting) by HiThere on Saturday July 30 2016, @06:39PM

      by HiThere (866) Subscriber Badge on Saturday July 30 2016, @06:39PM (#382009) Journal

      This is in Canada, so he is probably already doubly insulating them. My question would be more about "How do you filter out smoke?" and "What kind of wood do you use?" Some wood grows really rapidly, think greasewood, though that's not Canadian. And the ashes can be decent fertilizer (soil texturizer + minerals), but you need to add something acidic to adjust the pH.

      FWIW, keeping a greenhouse warm is not going to be cheap, but it makes getting contaminated with the fungus that's killing off bananas unlikely, and readily isolatable, so he can probably save a fortune on fungicides.

      --
      Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 30 2016, @09:32PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 30 2016, @09:32PM (#382062)

        Perhaps the smoke is sent up a chimney.

  • (Score: 2) by driverless on Saturday July 30 2016, @12:11PM

    by driverless (4770) on Saturday July 30 2016, @12:11PM (#381932)

    burning wood is quite environmentally unfriendly. a much better solution would be a solar concentrator because the only thing they do is make heat.

    A better way to take advantage of solar power is to grow them in, say, Guatemala rather than a country that's covered in snow half the year.

    (Admittedly you then need to use power to move them to wherever they're going, but it can't be more than heating a pile of greenhouses year round).

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 30 2016, @03:48PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 30 2016, @03:48PM (#381971)

      It would b neat to see some math but those details aren't available :(

  • (Score: 1) by Francis on Saturday July 30 2016, @02:10PM

    by Francis (5544) on Saturday July 30 2016, @02:10PM (#381956)

    Burning wood can be quite environmentally friendly depending upon the specifics. The make or break point on it has less to do with the wood and more to do with the trucking it around. But, if it's harvested locally and burned in a high efficiency stove, there's little negative impact on the environment. The carbon that you emit is carbon that was recently in the environment leading to something that's mostly carbon neutral.

    Some types of stoves are remarkably efficient at turning the wood into heat without a whole lot of byproducts.

    • (Score: 2) by Scruffy Beard 2 on Saturday July 30 2016, @03:14PM

      by Scruffy Beard 2 (6030) on Saturday July 30 2016, @03:14PM (#381964)

      That only applies if the trees get re-planted though.

      • (Score: 2) by Wierd0n3 on Saturday July 30 2016, @05:53PM

        by Wierd0n3 (1033) on Saturday July 30 2016, @05:53PM (#381999)

        depending on the locale, it may be law. i know around here, the local tree harvesters are required to plant 1.25 trees per harvested stock. this helps account for undersized trees that basically get pushed down or otherwise wasted

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 30 2016, @11:41PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 30 2016, @11:41PM (#382106)

        Some variation on clearcut/replant cycle is well-suited to lumber production, but it's not the only silviculture practice available. If you want an ongoing supply of wood for fuel, rather than lumber, coppicing is probably a better choice.

    • (Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 30 2016, @04:02PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 30 2016, @04:02PM (#381974)

      We should try burning muslims then. There are so many around to use as fuel. :-)