SHERIDAN, Wyo. (AP) — Joe Wesnitzer’s goal of year-round growing has taken his farming off a horizontal plane to new heights.
Behind his house, Wesnitzer constructed a greenhouse filled with more than 1,000 plants, most of which don’t root themselves in soil, but out of a vertical system instead.
University of Wyoming extension horticulture specialist Karen Panter, Ph.D., said vertical systems have been available for about 20 to 30 years but recently gained popularity. She said while some older systems use peat moss, the latest technology is a hydroponic system, which forgoes soil and grows vegetables in a nutrient solution.
Though homemade, Wesnitzer’s system is no exception. He said he erected the greenhouse last year. He finished it in August and started planting in January, after the cold spell of December passed.
Wesnitzer said he used about two pallets of 4-inch sewer pipe for the towers, which he then cut strips out of and sanded for planting. Each tower is connected to pipe at the top and the bottom.
The pipes are then connected to a nutrient tank that contains a mixture of water and lettuce formula fertilizer for hydroponic farming. The water is pumped to the top pipe, fed down through the tubes of plants by gravity, and then through the bottom pipe and back into the tank to be reused.
Inside the tubes, Wesnitzer uses long strips of pond filter material to sandwich plants and a wicking fabric between before sliding it all into the tube, plants protruding from his cut strips. He said the fabric ensures that roots get nutrients and moisture.
Wesnitzer will reuse the pond material with more plantings. He said after about three to four plantings the pond material will be saturated with root mass which will do the job of the wicking fabric.
Wesnitzer said he grows mostly greens — kale, arugula, chard and basil — but is also trying to grow cilantro in the vertical system.
But Wesnitzer’s quick success is not the norm. Panter said she’s seen many people get too deep too quickly.
“What I worry about is that people don’t really understand what they’re getting into,” Panter said. She later added, “There’s this mystique about hydroponics and growing vertically and all this other stuff which is fine.but it’s also an easy way to lose your shirt virtually overnight. There’s a lot of room for error in a hydroponic system like these.”
She said in hydroponics the grower has to supply everything the plant needs because it’s not in soil. This includes proper nutrient type and amount along with lighting, which she said isn’t usually a problem in a greenhouse but growing popularity of farming in old warehouses and other enclosed structures cause plants to rely on artificial lighting.
“It’s harder to grow hydroponically,” Panter said, “and when you add the vertical system to it.the learning curve is pretty steep. So for someone that is a novice, it’s the hardest way to grow plants.”
She said the other thing people fail to consider is technical glitches. The system needs electricity to pump water through, and even more if it’s using artificial light. So when weather causes power outages, while plants may be sheltered, unless there’s a backup generator they’re still in trouble.
She said the best plants for vertical systems are smaller plants with a quick turnaround, like lettuce, spinach and other salad greens along with some herbs. She said anything that has a three-dimensional growth pattern, like tomatoes and cucumbers, don’t work well in a vertical system.
There is, however, disagreement as to whether hydroponically grown vegetables are as healthy as soil-based vegetables. It’s a dispute that has triggered numerous studies, but resulted in only broad conclusions.
For example, a 2015 study done by Chenin Treftz and Stanley T. Omayne for the University of Nevada, Reno, examined the nutritional difference between hydroponically grown strawberries and raspberries with those grown in soil.
The experiment concluded that soilless strawberries yielded a higher amount of Vitamin C, Vitamin E and polyphenol compounds by 74 percent, 53 percent and 22 percent, respectively.
The study found the opposite for the raspberries, yielding higher Vitamin C and polyphenolic compounds in the soil-based plants by 83 percent and 67 percent respectively.
Panter said she doesn’t think there’s a difference in the final product.
“From a scientific viewpoint as long as the fertilization and everything for the plant is optimum, there’s no difference,” Panter said.
Despite the hurdles of vertical systems and the debates of hydroponic growing, for those who master the method, the vertical system does have its benefits.
The most obvious benefit is that vertical systems allow the grower to make maximum use of space. Panter said, as an example, a horizontal plane may have one lettuce plant per square foot. A vertical system would also have one plant per square foot in the tower leading to eight to 10 plants per square foot of floor space.
Again, there are conflicting studies on which method uses more energy and is more environmentally efficient.
A 2015 study from the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, which compared land, water and energy requirements of hydroponically grown lettuce to soil grown lettuce, found hydroponics to require less water but more energy and therefore not be a sustainable alternative to conventional lettuce farming.
But the study also said the technique and technology are promising. It said hydroponic growing uses land and water more efficiently than conventional farming and as time reveals how scarce these resources may become, the system could become more appealing to city planners.
Panter said the technology regarding water usage as well as fertilization has drastically advanced in the past decade or so. While she said the Dutch are leaders in the technology, Wyoming is home to one vertical farming equipment company that she knows of, Bright Agrotech.
She said though she doesn’t know for sure what the impetus is behind the vertical movement, as she’s received numerous calls about it, she thinks it’s the local foods movement. And while she admits there are many benefits, she wants people to know what they’re getting into.
Wesnitzer is part of the local foods movement and sell his greens at Landon’s Greenhouse and Nursery’s farmers markets, but said the reasons he decided to grow vertically were bigger than that. He said he wanted to maximize space, conserve water and extend the growing season. He said he uses about 50 gallons of water a day for about 1,000 plants and thinks he can grow year round.
“If people really understood greenhouse crop production they would realize this is one of the toughest ways to grow plants there is,” Panter said. “Just growing in a greenhouse in a normal situation is very rewarding and it’s a lot of fun but.there’s a lot to it, a lot more than meets the eye.”
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