By Shari Simon
WINTON Brian Camacho loves plants. As a child, while spending time outside in the yard assisting his mother, he became fascinated with how plants grow, the unique shapes, textures and colours of different plants, and gardening activities needed to care and maintain them.

He often found ways to creatively mix, match and organise the varieties of plants they had, particularly flowers, and soon began to eagerly examine any space around him to see whether plants being grown were healthy and thriving.

As the years progressed, Camacho developed an immense interest in the technology field, particularly electrical engineering and powering homes.

This interest complemented his childhood love of plants and passion to develop an environmentally sustainable system for plant growth, especially after making a critical observation one day.

“I noticed that bushes in the trenches were greener than the bushes on the land,” said 22-year-old Camacho, who is from Linden, Region 10 (Upper Demerara-Berbice), and also works offshore as a Roust-About on the Stena Carron for Stena Drilling, a client of Strategic Recruitment Solutions (SRS) in Guyana’s burgeoning oil and gas industry.

Eventually, he researched the reason, which led him to build a hydroponics garden called Aqua Greens.

Hydroponics gardening is a soilless technique for growing and cultivating plants in nutrient-rich water. Camacho claimed that hydroponics is actually an early agricultural practice that was used by the Mayan peoples to grow food.

“Once maintained properly, a hydroponics system produces premium crops,” he shared before adding, “It is modernised now; it is a healthy, fast and clean way to grow certain crops. You don’t need pesticides. You don’t need to add fertilisers to the plant to boost it. All the nutrients are already in the water.”

The first crop Camacho planted in his hydroponics garden was pak-choi. He then planted lettuce, celery, cabbage, ‘thick-leaf’ callaloo and tomatoes.

“I am testing out broccoli and it is coming really good!” he remarked. He enjoys planting a variety of crops, and sharing his harvest with family, friends and neighbours.

Due to being a low maintenance system, he can leave his plants while working offshore and return to harvest within a two to three-week period, depending on the crop. At the moment, he does not market his produce but plans to do so soon.

According to Camacho, the set-up for a simple hydroponics garden requires a number of resources for the system to work effectively. This includes but is not limited to a hydroponic media box that can include rocks and pebbles, wood materials to build the structure, a container for the plants so water can flow through the reservoir, buckets or drums to use as the reservoirs, electricity, a submersible water pump as well as plant nutrients.

He opined that ideally the system should be designed to accommodate power outages as well, in order for it to retain water and keep the plants alive until power is restored.

“I am currently working on a solar powered hydroponics system,” shared Camacho. Also, having been built using his innovative and resourceful insight, the hydroponics garden proves cost-effective and less labour-intensive as well. There is also a timed technique implemented that is programmed to cut off, and conserve power and still achieve the intended harvest.

Much of Camacho’s success today however, is a result of trial and error. After failing repeatedly due to a flaw in the system’s design and other obstacles, he was determined to persevere and continue planting.
With a goal in mind, he went on to study Hydroponics and Aquaponics at the Aquatic Solution, a facility in Trinidad. From there, he began to apply the knowledge gained to tediously work toward restructuring his hydroponics system to adapt to Guyana’s climate. Presently, he is also completing a commercial course from the Aquaponics Facility in Australia.

By working offshore, there are numerous opportunities that have taught him how to effectively prioritise his responsibilities and work safely when transforming his hydroponics garden.

He noted that the range of expertise he is constantly gaining allows him to strategically purchase resources, and set up protective measures in order to ensure that he can test new crops and expand his garden. Currently, he is planting in his backyard and veranda, and has two gardens in Linden and Mahaica.

As the country’s agriculture sector continues to transform, Camacho wishes to encourage more Guyanese, especially young people and farmers to explore hydroponic gardening and he wants to see more support measures in place to facilitate hydroponics, “For me, I think finance is a big issue and access to sufficient land space. There can be grants for young people getting into hydroponics,” he highlighted.

Camacho aspires to become a certified Crane Operator and, in the future, to transition from his hydroponics system to a aquaponics system. He also envisions collaborating on more agriculture-based projects nationally, regionally and internationally on various levels and do large scale farming to give back to his community.

For now, Camacho is looking forward to attending the Ministry of Agriculture’s Agri-Investment Forum and Expo that will be held on May 19th to May 21st, 2022 at the Arthur Chung Convention Centre.

A plant lover at heart with an unrelenting spirit to research and explore all things plant related, he is excited to learn about ways to continue contributing toward boosting Guyana’s agriculture industry and promote hydroponic gardening.