Photos: At Epcot, hydroponics and Mickey Mouse pumpkins

As part of Road Trip 2008 through the South, CNET News.com reporter Daniel Terdiman stopped at Epcot Center in Orlando, Fla.

One of the lesser-known secrets of the theme park is its "Behind the Seeds" tour, an hour-long walking tour of the site's sustainable greenhouses and fish farming operations. The purpose behind the project--which was the very first attraction at Epcot--is partly to provide fresh produce and fish to Epcot's many restaurants. But as Tiffany Sterrett, the biotech intern who led the tour explained, "It's also for demonstrating things that could be done (in agriculture), and what could be used in cities and warehouses."

Essentially, she continued, the idea is to showcase how to grow great food in places where there is poor soil or no soil. The vegetables and fruit growing in the greenhouses, in fact, aren't planted in soil at all, but use entirely hydroponic methods. Here, a tomato plant hangs down from a rotating rack, its roots having just emerged from a system in which the roots are sprayed with a nutrient mix as the plant glides along the track.

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