Raz's Photos: Greenhouses, EPCOT, Disney World, Florida, USA

Today was spent at EPCOT. First stop, the greenhouses. This is quite a setup, everything here is grown without soil, either hydroponically (in water) or airoponically (in air). The produce is consumed primarily by restaurants at EPCOT, although it represents a small fraction of their daily consumption.

Squashes, grown airoponically.

Various herbs and spices.

I forget. Probably capsicums (peppers).

Lettuce. Airoponic in one case, full imersion hydroponic in the other. This is interesting, full immersion would normally cause root rot: apparently the water is sufficiently aerated to prevent this.

Cucumber, grown hydroponically in compressed coconut fibre!

The 9 pound lemon! (That's about 4Kg.) Not much use for anything though, they're about 50% rind by volume, and have very little flavour.

Grapes! I forget which variety.

Sunflower

Neem tree. Apparently the mere presence of this tree discourages all sorts of insects.

Canola

Eels and alligators in the 'water cell'. It was believed at the time of construction that redder light would discourage algae whilst not impeding animal growth, so this was built with a red roof. It has since been concluded that the impact is negligible, but the roof was already red.

Largest (and oldest) tree at EPCOT. I forget its type. It has nasty spikes on it however, no-one will go near it to trim it. Removal of the roof is inconvenient at best, so the tree remains.

Banana trees. I learnt something: a banana tree only ever creates one bunch of bananas. In commercial growing, once the bunch is picked, the tree is cut down and another grows in its place.

Coffee anybody?

Cacao tree in a sweet potato plot.