As I understand it, the reason Madagascar is by far the leading producer of vanilla is because it's the only place where labor is cheap enough to do hand pollination economically. Good luck doing that anyplace else, particularly Australia.
> "I've patented the design, the greenhouse and the trellises, but what I'd like to be able to do is reduce the production costs, make it very much available to a lot of people to actually buy these greenhouses and grow them for themselves."<p>Hmmm..
Cool concept, trellis system seems interesting, but getting one tonne out of 200 vines sounds quite optimistic, also as far as I know each flower had to be hand pollinated and window to do that is very short.<p>I am a farmer and there is one saying to never count the beans until you have them in the barn.
> <i>The vines in the pilot farm are yet to flower, which is when pollination occurs.</i><p>I think it's premature to declare success before this important milestone... as I recall from reading about many historical attempts to cultivate vanilla crop, once we figured out to pollinate them by hand, getting the plants to flower in a greenhouse is the truly elusive step isn't it?
How are the geodesic domes supposed to help in comparison to regular greenhouses?<p>Commercial orchids and greenhouses already grow vanilla and plenty of other stuff in automated hydroponic and aeroponic systems<p>I fail to see what is so special about this.
>"Mr Soo discovered that vanilla was in hot demand.<p><i>It sells for about $600 a kilogram and is the second-most lucrative spice crop in the world behind saffron.</i><p>"A lot of the big food processors or manufacturers, such as Nestle, are now moving or mandating that they only want naturally grown vanilla, they don't want synthetic vanilla," he said.<p>"I thought, 'Well there's an inelastic demand curve there'."<p>Discovering a voracious market was one thing; the challenge was developing a commercially viable way to grow the sometimes tricky and labour-intensive crop."
So bizarre. Super Mario World has an area called Vanilla Dome. Who would have thought a classic 90s video game would predict a revolution in agriculture?
A whole article and thread about Geodesic domes and not even a nod to buckminster fuller<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buckminster_Fuller#Geodesic_domes" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buckminster_Fuller#Geodesic_do...</a>
The dome doesn't appear to be particularly special, but the trellis is interesting - a soil filled, rotating column that sorta simulates a tree.<p>It'll be interesting to see if he can get the plants to reliably flower and pollinate. Best of luck on that front!
Synthetic biology can make vanillin at scale cheaply. I believe it's one of the molecules Amyris is developing.<p>Going to be difficult to compete with that in the long run.