From Working at Al’s to Saving Birmingham’s Food Deserts: The Story of UAB’s First Hydroponics Proje

BIRMINGHAM, AL – Hydroponics, put simply by Brody and James, is an agricultural technique using no soil and different kinds of media (such as expanded clay) to move a nutrient through media to reach a plant. There are multiple benefits to a hydroponics system, namely having control over the environment the system is placed in such as greenhouses and roofs.

When I asked where the idea for hydroponics started, James chuckled and said Al’s. As STH 151 freshmen Brody and James originally formulated the project over some fast food off 10th Avenue South. The two each brought a unique skill-set to the table; James had previously worked with hydroponics and indoor agriculture, whereas Brody had a passion for coding and high school research experience. Their combined skills led them to pitch the idea to STH 151, assimilate a team, and search for funding.

As we are all can guess, Dr. Tucker was an extremely valuable mentor in the initial stages of project planning. Through Science and Technology Honors Program funding, specifically an innovation fund, the group was able to house the hydroponics system through a partnership at Southern Research. There, the two describe the tremendous help from Dr. Bill Grieco, a member of the STH Board of Trustees and Vice President of Energy and Environment at Southern Research. Interestingly, their connection with Dr. Bill Griecho started as a presentation he did in the honors space on biofuels. From February to May 2016, the team grew different types of kale with their system, and on UAB Earth Day they had an impressive demonstration on the UAB Green. STH 151 was just the springboard for what came next. After a summer of taking the hydroponics system apart and putting it back together, the group was able to initiate a partnership with the UAB Sustainability Coordinator, Dr. Julie Price, and moved the device to UAB. Shortly after, the hydroponics team came in contact with Blair Farley, a Science and Technology Honors Program alumni working at Southern Company (the parent company of Georgia Power, Alabama Power, etc.). Southern Company had interest in research on indoor agriculture systems, specifically providing potential for farmers who want to run indoor farms. By June 2017, the hydroponics team was able to get funding from Southern Company.

Their goal is to grow several hundred heads of leafy greens under specific lighting conditions (intensity, etc.) in their hydroponics model. They aim to have repeated experiments proving hydroponics is successful at increasing the dry weight of the plant harvested. The entire environment the plant grows in must be constructed carefully. James described the smallest variables have to be considered: air flow around plants, temperature, nutrient content, potential pests (disease, bacteria, fungi), salinity of the water and its absorption, and more. In a hydroponics model, however, there is much more environmental control over these elements; for example, James describes, beneficial bacteria can be used to prevent chemicals versus in traditional agriculture you have less pest control.

As goes the reality of most projects, a lot of time the past few months has been spent waiting for parts to come in and improving design. Brody confidently says that they will be able to grow about 540 plants by the deadline of June on a 30-day growth cycle, given the parts came in just the day before we sat down and were in his car.

Picture of the hydroponics team with Southern Company’s Freight Farm (Alabama Power Tech. Application Center) and Blair Farley.

(Left to Right): Blair Farley, Brandon Englert, Alan Philip George, Neil Goel, Nick Castro, Nick Sibley, James Sexton, Brody DeSilva

One of the most amazing parts of this project I found was its future potential; when I questioned where they envisioned the project going, Brody and James, who until this point had been smoothly answering questions and explaining, took a long pause deciding which ones to talk about. For one, there is always potential for additional studies and more collaboration with Southern Company. Another exciting development I found lies in using hydroponics in Birmingham. Plagued by food deserts, Birmingham is a place perfect for increasing access to fresh foods and improving overall health of its people. Through a collaboration with the Christian Service Mission, Brody and James are looking at setting up hydroponics in community centers to distribute food directly to those in food deserts. UAB additionally has a specific interest in tackling the food desert issue and initiative implementation research (in this case, collecting data on hydroponics implementation cost/scale for neighborhood benefit). There are “so many avenues” quote Brody and James excitedly, and in that moment I was blown away by the overwhelming possibilities.

Overall, the hydroponics project which started over some greasy food at Al’s may ironically end up solving the food desert issue in Birmingham. Either way, the work that has come out of this STH 151 project makes me wonder...where will the projects in the current class go? I can’t wait to see.

Brody DeSilva is a Biomedical Engineering major originally from Madison, Alabama. In high school, he worked on using algorithms in breast cancer, which sparked his coding research and decision to come to UAB. He has worked in Dr. Visscher’s computational neurobiology lab, bioinformatics through the Center for Clinical and Translational Science, and now in Dr. Liu’s lab doing his senior thesis on bioprocessing. He worked on the Presidential Summer Innovation Fellowship last summer and loves coding. James Sexton is from Marietta, Georgia. He came to UAB due to his passion for neuroscience and the research opportunities available at UAB. He currently works in Dr. Peter Hendrick’s lab on two projects investigating new clinical treatments for cocaine addiction and cigarette smoking. He also has a love for music (including occasional jam sessions with Dr. March).