Bamboo vertical farming inventor aims for sustainable growing

In the shadow of Mt. Timpanogos, Orem-based NaturePonics creator/founder Daniel Wagner reveals his plan to change the world: “We would like to have a similar effect on the food industry that Tesla Motors has had on the car industry,” he says, comparing his natural approach to vertical gardening to the electric alternative to using oil. His aim is to make self-reliance a reality for everyone, creating an easy approach to vertical gardening that both beginners and experienced green thumbs can use. They range from smaller bamboo “towers” that can be hung from windows for herbs for the less experienced, to larger, residential and commercial builds that can grow everything from tomatoes to kale and zucchini. These “Boo Gardens” reduce the amount of water, soil and space needed to grow most plants, and have the potential to feed a family or even a community.

For Wagner, the need for self-reliance through vertical gardening became a personal issue during the stock market crash of 2008. As someone who had been in real estate up until that point, Wagner decided to shift his focus to incorporating more sustainable practices in his own life. During the 2008 crash, “I thought, ‘I’ve got to reinvent myself, and the last thing I want to do is go back into the world of unsustainable,’” he says. Wagner’s inspiration for vertical growing came from the Tower Gardens at Epcot Center in Disney World, where a diverse mixture of plants grow indoors in a version of vertical farming that involves aeroponics, which uses little soil and recycles much of the water to simulate misting or raining, reducing the amount of water used in growing specific plants. “I love all vertical gardening,” says Wagner. “I didn’t invent any of this stuff.”

However, one of the major problems of most of the vertical farms in existence, for Wagner, was that most were created out of plastic, which is not sustainable. “Vertical towers were beautiful to me, but the white, PVC plastic … just didn’t cut it,” he says. Wagner’s solution was to use bamboo, which he calls “nature’s PVC.”

Read more at SLUG Magazine (Ali Shimkus)