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The Terms Mariculture and Agriculture are two exclusive
terms although they both define a manner of raising food. As Agriculture means
the farming of plants and animals as a resource through husbandry. Mariculture
is the marine equivalent covering the farming of marine plant and animal
resources through husbandry.
Oceanic Agriculture, a
model of sustained micro ecologies:
Situated within one degree
of the Equator in the middle of the Pacific Ocean Oceanic City will be in the
right place to grow every kind of land placed crop imaginable.
Ecuador, existing on the equator
has demonstrated by their wealth of agriculture that the temperatures of the
tropics are well suited to the food crops of man’s diet and other crops that
mankind uses, such as cotton and wood.
Other than freezes and frost
and precipitation, the main temperature factors that determine if a crop can be
grown is not in the air but in the soil.
One can, through using
shading methods of the soil such as aluminum or reflective plastics increase
the growing season of cool season crops. On agricultural platforms the soil
temperature and also a source of irrigation will come in the form of
condensation and cooling from pipes that have deep sea water pumped up.
Ocean water is not at one
temperature from surface to seabed, the deeper one goes the cooler the water
becomes.
There is a boundary between
surface waters of the ocean and deeper layers that are not mixed. The boundary
usually begins around 100-400 meters and extends several hundred of meters
downward from there. This boundary region, where there is a rapid decrease of
temperature, is called the thermocline. 90 % of the total volume of ocean is
found below the thermocline in the deep ocean. Here, temperatures approach 0
degrees Celsius. So even though surface waters can be a comfortable 20 degrees
Celsius (good for swimming in!), the majority of our ocean water has a
temperature between 0-3 degrees Celsius (32-37.5 degrees Fahrenheit).
Even at 500 meters (1640.42 feet) the temperature of sea water is around 12 degrees C
(53.6 F) As a glass of ice water demonstrates on a humid warm day, water out of
the air will condensate, collect and drip down the side of the glass. This same
principle is utilized, instead of a glass piping on or half buried on the
surface of soil with a flow of colder seawater would result in a constant
condensation of water from the warm tropical air.
This process
has been used in Hawaii and has demonstrated that it is an efficient and viable
option when it comes to irrigation and even to cooling soil temperatures to
allow greater production of crops.
Since Oceanic Platforms will be constructed/designed environments, the control of temperature, water and placement of soils will make it possible to optimize the growth of various crops.
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