Duets: Hydroponic growing systems for small growers

Added on 19 March 2022

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Duets: Hydroponic growing systems for small growers

Today's guest is Paul Brentlinger, second-generation owner of CropKing Inc. in Lodi, Ohio. Paul has over 20 years of experience working with controlled environment agriculture (CEA) growers and has studied best-of-breed controlled environment and hydroponic practices across the globe to integrate the most efficient and cost-effective practices into optimal systems for CropKing. Paul leads the CropKing team in consulting, sales and management.

Peter: Thanks for joining me today, Paul. Let's begin by discussing CEA from your perspective with a focus on small- to medium-sized operations. Please share your philosophy about how these systems support the progress of our locally grown food movement.

Paul: CEA by definition is a very broad segment any aspect of control around the plant environment falls into this category. Frost nets or row covers are actually a simple form of CEA. However, as it relates to CropKing, we consider our "goal" to be total control over the environment. To the extent that it makes sense financially, we want as much control as we can get regarding heating, cooling, lighting, CO?, air flow, etc.

That statement about making sense financially is of the utmost importance. For example, growth chambers have extremely high levels of control and very tight parameters around these environmental variables but are much too expensive to consider for commercial-scale agricultural production.

Peter: That's an excellent point, Paul, about row covers qualifying as CEA. High tunnels are on the list, too. Perspective is key here as a traditional greenhouse grower might feel that an unheated high tunnel is a step backward while a traditional field farmer will feel like it's a step forward.

Paul: One of the main differences that will be obvious to many growers who are utilizing some form of cover (cold frames, row covers, or even greenhouses for bedding plants) is the desire and need for more control. Most of the time with hydroponics we are looking to be growing yearround in that space, so we do tend to invest heavily in environmental control systems. Heating, cooling, humidity control, CO? supplementation, lighting, air flow and computer systems that assist in the optimization of these systems are the main objectives.

When we start focusing on control over these variables, we want to have as much as is financially justifiable. Assuming the grower has the capacity and is willing to learn how to utilize these systems, they will make him or her a better, more efficient grower.