[420 Girl]

Michigan — Dan Lauber’s first foray into the future of farming happened when he was living in Orlando, Fla., and dating “Cinderella,” or rather a woman who played her at Disney World.

The two were on an EPCOT Center tour of soil-free hydroponics farming when, noticing his curiosity, she offered to take Lauber behind the scenes to hang out with botanists and researchers.

Today, he’s the sole proprietor of Michigan Hydroponics, a new business focused on the growing movement to raise plants indoors without soil. It opened in November on Miller Road in the Ross Plaza.

“I’m trying to show people that this has a real-world application. It’s not just growing pot in your closet,” says Lauber, 32, a Flint Township native.

The practice is actually thousands of years old; early examples of hydroponics include the Hanging Gardens of Babylon and The Floating Gardens of China, he says. In the new world, NASA uses hydroponics growing in its space program.

Today, the medical marijuana movement has helped elevate the profile of hydroponics. Lauber estimates 60 percent of the business comes from this use. But that still leaves 40 percent who simply want to grow fresh veggies, flowers and plants to eat and enjoy.

To reach a wider audience, Lauber is networking and cross-marketing with other local groups, including Habitat for Humanity, the Michigan Food Bank, the Flint Farmers Market, and other related growers and food vendors.

The son of a Flint Farmers Market merchant and Genesee County radiologist, Lauber started working on Michigan tree farms during high school.

After attending Carman-Ainsworth, the 1996 graduate studied digital media in Florida and completed his design degree at the Kendall College of Art and Design in Grand Rapids.

Lauber then knocked around, living in a variety of cities nationwide before returning to Flint to become “an entrepreneur type of guy.” Living in Denver, where he worked for a cable TV company, he noticed “grow shops” on almost every other corner, he said. “Every city I’ve been in has had an indoor gardening shop.”

The benefits of soil-free growing include 30 percent faster growth over soil-based plants, better use of space and lower energy needs. The use of fewer chemicals and pesticides makes fruits and vegetables taste better, too. In cold-weather states, many people like to start plants indoors and then transfer them outside when the weather warms.

Lauber’s efficiency-sized storefront and workroom are filled with units and supplies that make that happen. In the Flint area, he is the only authorized retailer of Hydrofarm products, one of the largest U.S. dealers in the trade. He sells the company’s florescent lights and lines of water-soluble plant nutrients. He also designs, builds and sells growing and cloning units.

The store is filled with plastic five-gallon buckets — rigged up with water irrigation systems — and larger growing units made of PVC piping that drip or spray water on small containers of sprouting plants.

The principle is this: By continuously and lightly spritzing plants with nutrient-spiked water, the system focuses the plant’s energy into sprouting its fruits and leaves, not creating deep roots that shoot through the ground.

At least two Genesee County growers have successfully used hydroponic systems for growing strawberries and other plants outdoors, said horticulture educator Terry McLean of the Michigan State University Extension Service in Genesee County.

“There’s always been a certain amount of interest in hydroponics. But I concur there seems to be a growing interest in it,” McLean said. “Hydroponics allows for a pretty unique use of space.”

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