For true sustainability, it is most prudent to replicate what easily exists in nature already……if not absolutely necessary!

Genetron assumes that nature already has the most successful, efficient (cost effective) and reliable solution possible.

Our attempt to honor and replicate these principles exists as follows:

A) The only vertical thriving living ecosystems exist in the ‘rainforest’, in the canopy and on the bows of trees. Some sparse ‘strained’ ecosystems exist on vertical rock faces. They exist more comfortably as the slopes become less vertical.
We do not wish to go to these ‘strained’ pockets of ‘barely alive’ life, for our modeling. Or, we suspect we might be considerably unsuccessful!
So, instead, we choose these ‘lush’ rainforest canopy Biomes, teaming with life, as truly sustainable ecosystems. We then, model from these:

1) The only plants that live in the canopy Biomes ‘reliably’ are mosses and epiphytes (orchids, bromeliads, air plants, epiphytic ferns and cacti, etc.) These plants naturally survive on extremely low nutrient…basically rain water and what it picks up in the air as it falls.
Our walls only use these ‘epiphytic’ plants. The competition can’t keep these alive and so only uses terrestrial plants that can’t survive for long in the low nutrient canopy, or wall environment, where nutrient is constantly leached to the bottom. To keep their plants alive, they must add sufficient fertilizer to the water recycling in their system (this also creates bacterial and fungal problems……disease, from the pollution of the unused fertilizer).

2) Rainforest has ‘rain’, lots of it.
Genetron replicates, ‘lots of rain’, by utilizing large ‘RO’ (reverse osmosis) systems to produce lots of ‘RO’ water, the equivalent of rain water.
The system then ‘rains’ from 50 to 80 gallons per day (depending on the size of system), through misters, onto the system.
The competition does not. It simply uses tap water for its make up water. It doesn’t mist. It only soaks their walls.

3) The problem with a vertical wall, as with the canopy Biome, is that it is exposed to winds and to “massive” evaporation (this is so even indoors where the air is kept extremely dry (normally). As long as it rains a lot, this is OK.
Genetron ‘rains’ sufficiently.
The competition does not rain at all and using tap water (heavily mineralized water), the walls end up with massive salt build up, efflorescence (evaporation leaving the salts behind). Within 3 months, there is so much salt build up, that it becomes virtually impossible to keep plants alive, except for the hardiest and most salt resistant plants (one of them being Mangrove trees).
Escalating this problem, because the competition uses terrestrial plants, a low fertilizer / nutrient solution must be added to the water to feed these ‘more hungry’ plants.
This massively adds to the salt build up on these walls and is why they can not perform sustainably and why massive plant replacement has to constantly be done.
In these systems, plant replacement can easily be 100% plant replacement every 6 months….less ‘if you are lucky’.
‘Lucky’ occurs when a dense enough planting holds on, to create an envelope of higher humidity at the surface of the wall, to stop efflorescence, to some degree. However, this only happens sporadically and not consistently, and never stays that way.

4) Genetron creates a system of ‘baffles’ on the wall (every 8” apart laterally along the wall.
If the pump was to break down or there was a power failure, the moisture would stay up on the wall for more than 2 weeks.
The competition does not have this system of baffles and as a result, if the pump shuts off, in less than 1 hour (due to capillary action of the water and gravity through the wall substrate, creating a powerful siphoning effect), the top of this wall can be ‘bone dry’, killing all the plants in this zone in the shortest time.

5) Genetron uses system water and soaks the wall for 1 hour every 6 hours. This then, toughens the the wall to dryer conditions, including the moss.The competition continuously soaks the wall. This makes the wall a swamp / bog (another reason why most plants can’t survive here……they are not bog plants).
Although, some plants, with difficulty, do adapt to these ‘swamp’ conditions, they alter and become extremely vulnerable to drought.
So now, if there was a longer power failure, or the pump broke and wasn’t replaced “immediately”, everything could easily die, in one quick “Mass Extinction”.

6) Genetron allows for gentle nutrient addition only by way of, the feeding of the fish in the system, once per week.
The competition does not have a water Biome or fish. So, it must use chemical fertilizers to bring enough nutrients to the plants that they are using.

7) Genetron combines many Biomes in combination with each other: Aquatic, Bog Areas, Waterfall Biomes, Terrestrial Biomes, Shoreline biomes and Wall Canopy Biomes.
These all serve to tremendously strengthen each other (just like they do in nature) and as well, “massively” add to the biodiversity.
This, among hundred’s of other features (for now, Genetron trade secrets), that the competition does not utilize, is why our systems are truly sustainable and those of the competition can not be.

What does this mean?

1) Our systems are virtually self-sufficient.
Yes, equipment must be serviced and the aesthetic of the system need to be seen to.

2) As well, we provide a diagnostic program. This is important because our system is getting better through time. This will allow us to monitor its health and guide it to peak performance.
What is spent on diagnostic / maintenance, goes towards an exponentially stronger, more beautiful and sustainable system in the future. As such, they are systems that are designed to last forever.
The competition’s maintenance is only about keeping up / plant replacement……there is no going forward!
In the end, Genetron diagnostic / maintenance costs are a fraction of the maintenance costs of the competition. So much so, that the maintenance costs of the competition could easily pay for a ‘whole’ new installation by Genetron within 6 years.

3) Genetron in comparison might have 1 or 2 plants to replace, out of thousands of plants, in 1 year.