Updates from the intersection of agriculture and obsessive data collection.
At 3:47 AM, sensor node #12 detected a 4-degree temperature drop in Tank A. The automated alert fired, the backup heater kicked in, and 47 tilapia lived to see another sunrise. Without the monitoring system, we'd have lost the whole tank by morning. The ROI on a $12 ESP32 sensor node: one entire fish population.
Read the full story →A European company sells a weed-killing laser for $500,000. It needs noble gas rods that get replaced constantly, a service contract, and a PhD to operate. We built a weed killer from a spark plug, a motorcycle battery, a truck rotor, and a BIG RED BUTTON. Total cost: $75 and a trip to a junkyard. The physics is the same — apply point heat to the weed root. The business model is not.
See the fight card →Dyson built a precision cogwheel mechanism to harvest strawberries because it is GREEN and INNOVATIVE. It costs $150,000 and damages 15-20% of the fruit. Our wooden gravity-fed grow horses grow strawberries at picking height using aquaponic nutrient water flowing downhill through PVC channels. Cost: $200 in lumber. Damage rate: 0%. The extractors engineer complexity to justify the price tag. We use gravity.
See the fight card →Pulled our first lettuce, kale, and herb harvest of the season. 23 heads of butter lettuce, 8 bunches of Tuscan kale, and enough basil to make the entire neighborhood suspicious. All grown aquaponically, all tracked from seed to bag. The QR provenance codes are working perfectly — one customer scanned theirs and spent 20 minutes reading sensor data.
Read the full story →Upgraded all 24 ESP32 nodes to UPIP IoT firmware v2.4.1. New features: OTA updates (finally), improved MQTT reconnection logic, and a new dissolved oxygen calibration routine. Network uptime went from 98.9% to 99.7%. The fish didn't notice. The data pipeline absolutely did.
Read the full story →It sounds absurd. It is a little absurd. But behavioral pattern analysis in tilapia populations correlates strongly with water quality changes 12-24 hours before chemical sensors detect them. Feeding patterns, swimming depth, group clustering — the fish know before the instruments do. We just learned to listen.
Read the full story →Opening CSA subscriptions for Spring 2026. Three tiers: The Seedling ($25/week), The Harvest ($45/week), and The Bounty ($75/week, includes fresh tilapia). Based on last year's yield data, we can support 15 Seedling, 10 Harvest, and 5 Bounty subscriptions without overcommitting. The sensors don't lie.
Read the full story →January brought 14 inches of snow. The solar array produced 60% less power. The battery backup held for 18 hours before we had to switch to grid. Lessons learned: panel angle matters more in winter, heated panels exist, and tilapia don't care about your renewable energy philosophy when their water drops below 70°F.
Read the full story →Started a pilot program with a local elementary school. 24 students visited the farm, learned about aquaponics, and each got to plant a seed in the vertical rack with their name on it. They can track their plant's growth via the sensor dashboard. One kid asked if the fish have names. They do now.
Read the full story →365 days of continuous aquaponic operation. 1,247 lbs of produce grown. 892 lbs of tilapia harvested. 31.5 million sensor readings collected. Zero pesticides. Zero soil. Zero waste. The skeptics said aquaponics was a hobby. The data says it's a business.
Read the full story →