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We have gathered fascinating and informative Hydroponic news stories from all over the globe!

Tomatoes at the underground city farm are grown with the help of hydroponic systems.

TOKYO, Japan (CNN) -- A farm in the middle of a busy financial district might seem like a strange concept, but that is exactly what you will find under one skyscraper in downtown Tokyo.

The 1,000 square meter farm is based in a former bank vault in the basement of a 27-storey building in Otemachi, Tokyo's central business district.

Using hydroponics, more than 100 different crops are grown in the subterranean farm.

Students growing up with a love for gardening
Laurie Rathbun

The Temecula Valley Garden Club wants kids to grow up with a love for gardening. So, for the past four years, its members have been donating money and volunteer time to help Temecula schools run gardening programs. “We realized that if we wanted to influence youth gardening, we had to help the school gardens,” said Kathy Katz, who is the community outreach person for the club. “Every school in Temecula is being built now with a garden and they need funds and volunteers to help.”

Photo: Harry Colmer

The CBHS Agriculture Club started with a few grow-boxes in 1999, and has steadily expanded each year since then, with practical and financial assistance from the Department of Agriculture and the local community.

In 2000, the club started growing crops using a hydroponics system supplied by DoA. Hydroponics is a method of growing plants without soil, in which the roots of the plants are fed with a nutrient rich solution.

This proved very successful for the young farmers at the school, as demonstrated by a string of ribbons and awards from that year’s Agriculture Show on Grand Cayman.

Canada 's primary advantage over competitors in the United States is in its use of technology, argues Statistics Canada in a review of the sector published earlier this year.

Canada 's technological advantage in the greenhouse sector was underscored in the results of trade disputes over tomatoes between the two countries. The problem started in 2001 when six American greenhouse tomato companies filed an anti-dumping petition against Canada.

DECATUR - The tomatoes are a bit pale and the Wandering Jew is still small, but the lettuce is the real problem. It's barely poking its tiny head up through the grow rocks.

"They told me there'd be a learning curve," remarked Randy Bollhorst, a teacher at Milligan Academy.

Bollhorst took his class to visit Archer Daniels Midland Co.'s hydroponics lab and decided to have the students try a smaller version at Milligan, funded by a grant from World to Work. Part of the reason is to open their eyes to career possibilities they might not have considered in the agriculture industry.

Junior Dustin Harrison has taken an interest in the hydroponics program.
"I got told to do it, so I did," he said, passing off his commitment. "This is just an easy science credit."

He will admit that he thinks the process is pretty cool.

"It's neat to see how much faster stuff grows this way than in dirt," he said. "I like growing things and this is better than regular science. It's more hands-on."

For farmers who have battled the elements most of their lives, Brad and Gyene Spivey's hydroponic tomato farm is a little like heaven. But the idea may have never become a reality without the Spivey's daughter and her family expressing their desire to farm in Gruver and raise their family there.

"When our daughter Lexy and her husband Tim Glass wanted to return to Gruver to farm, we wanted to find something we could do together as a family," Brad said.

"Since I have always been interested in hydroponic farming, I thought we could use our faming experience and expand it into hydroponic tomato farming."

"There have been a lot of changes in the industry," said Alan Mitchell, co-owner of the Watsonville rose nursery California Pajarosa. "About 15 years ago, we were opening vents by chains, we were watering by hand. Now it’s all computerized."

One of the biggest changes is evident immediately upon passing through the heavy wooden nursery doors. Inside, not a single rose is growing in the dirt.

"We were the first one in this area to do hydroponics," Mitchell said. He shows off row after row of long benches filled with rose plants, their roots swaddled in a layer of opaque white plastic.

Growing food crops during Iowa winters is expensive and challenging, say people involved with greenhouse vegetable production.

"There is not enough sunlight," said Richard Gladon, associate professor of horticulture at Iowa State University. "The day length is short, and on top of that, the angle of the sun coming in is such that we don't get very much light during that time period." Gary Tedore of La Porte City, who grows tomatoes and cucumbers in a 1,200-square-foot greenhouse, said he avoids the cold months.

It is nightfall on Mars, and to celebrate mankind's maiden trip to the Red Planet, the international team of space farers settle down to a feast to remember.

The entree: a choice of gazpacho or chanterelle soup, made with mushrooms or tomatoes freshly picked from the colony's hydroponics unit. For the main course, a selection of chicken, steak or fish -- tissue that was alive in a lab dish that same morning! -- and a tasty side salad.

Hydro hits high schools

TOLEDO, Ohio (AP) -- Inside a greenhouse, high school students studying hydroponics are growing lettuce and basil without soil. In Philadelphia, teenagers tend to a herd of cows. And in Minneapolis, high school senior Jay Harrison is researching how grass grows in different kinds of soil.

An increasing number of students in cities and suburbs are taking agriculture classes and considering careers in the industry even at a time when the number of farms is declining.

TOKYO’S investment bankers shortly will be striking their billion-dollar deals above a vegetable farm. The Otemachi financial district, where office property is among the most expensive in the world, is to host an experimental project aimed at converting former executives to employment in agriculture.

In what used to be the vaults of one of Japan’s biggest banks, a 1,000 sq metre “vegetable factory” will grow rice, tomatoes, strawberries and other produce.

Inside a greenhouse in Toledo, Ohio, high school students studying hydroponics are growing lettuce and basil without soil. . In Philadelphia, urban teenagers tend to a herd of cows. And in Minneapolis, students are researching how grass grows in different kinds of soil.

An increasing number of students in U.S. cities and suburbs are taking agriculture classes and considering careers in the industry even at a time when the number of farms in the United States is declining.

Israel puts the lettuce on top

Lots of people are eating lettuce these days. In fact, the leafy stuff is a $20 billion business in the U.S. and an $18 billion business in Europe.

The problem, however, is growing lettuce that can remain fresh without traces of chemicals, soil or bugs, and then keeping the supply fresh during shipping. One Israeli company has figured out a way, growing lettuce hydroponically - that is - cultivating produce without soil.

"Lettuce has become like bread," says Lior Hessel, CEO and a co-founder of OrganiTech, which is based in the northern town of Yokneam. "It has to be on the supermarket shelves 12 months a year."