Using Hydro-Stackers to Grow Strawberries and Tomatoes

14 years ago

I'm researching the possibility of growing strawberries and tomatoes at our U-Pick using the vertical hydro-stacker technology under a 30' x 66' high tunnel here in central Alabama. I've read the other gardenweb treads on growing hydroponic strawberries, but was curious if there are any readers here in the South that have specifically used the hydro-stackers outside and what have been their experiences. The main reason I'm considering growing them under a high tunnel is to protect them from springtime frosts and freezes, hail and thunderstorm damage and, with regards to the tomatoes besides all those reasons, keep the rain off their leaves as well as to get a jump on the local farmers market competition. My farming experience so far has been with berries and fruit trees, so any thoughts will be greatly appreciated.

Ken Barber

Millbrook AL

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Comments (4)

grizzman
14 years ago
Everything I've read about the vertical growers implies they're not up to snuff. seems like people pack'm too tight so not enough light gets to the bottoms and then the back sides don't get the same light as the fronts. I don't know. . . All of the research and pictures I've seen of commercial hydro strawberries was done running horizontal troughs. Not saying that's best. It's just observation.
I'm going to try my hand this year growing strawberries in EnF and NFT. my plan: 100 plants (50 charlie/50 camerosa) with half of each in each type. I think that'll roughly cover about 100 sq ft. I live in North Carolina and will hopefully line up the plants in early February to get planted sometime in mid to late march. I'll keep them in a temporary A frame until mid to late april and see what happens.
I've had great success with tomatoes and peppers but never started them particularly early (in Hydroponics) but don't see that it'd be a problem.
barberberryfarm
Original Author
14 years ago
Thanks for that. I just got back from visiting a hydroponic farm in northern Alabama that has over 1 1/2 acres of hydro-stackers growing a wide variety of vegetables along with 20,000+ strawberry plants. It was definitely a sight to see, besides all of the great knowledge he passed along. Intersting enough, he grows everbearing strawberries rather than the June bearing ones. He plants plugs in March and then offers them as a U-Pick commodity from May through October or until the first frost happens! The means to offer strawberries the whole growing season, rather than just in late April through early June has definitely got me interested in spending the extra bucks for the complete system. But you're right with regards to overloading the stackers if you're trying to grow certail vegetables. For example, he only plants 4 indetermenant tomato plants per stack in the top two levels and has those levels 6-7 feet in the air, unlike the normal stacks that are about 5 feet high, with their vines growing all the way to ground loaded with tomatoes! If you can't tell, I'm definitely getting excited about hydroponics! Yeah, no more weeds!!
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Old topic but wanted to share my input. I'm growing hydroponic tomatoes (various strains) at university in a lab setting (indoors under HID lights) and outdoors in a greenhouse. In one of my greenhouse NFT systems, i recently had a similar problem on 1 tomato plant (total 9 plants that share the same res and tubes). But im gonna try to diagnose your issue by mentioning what others missed out on. 1 major cause of leaf curl is compaction of root system (i.e. roots are compressed or dont have enough space to expand). This risk is exacerbated in hydroponic systems that use tubes. This was the problem i had and had to replace tubes with square tubings that have a liftable top. Once you have access to roots, you must seperate them strand by strand (i.e. so they arent sticking together). In your setup, this risk will further be exacerbated because you filled the entire pvc tube with hydroton (right?). Remove hydroton from tube and place the plant in a net cup with hydroton. Nitrogen burns usually cause browning/yellowing of leaves (similar to sun/heat burn) and not purpling. Test your solution for each chemical if possible, or use a commonly employed aggregated measuring device that shows total concentration in ppm (dont let it exceed 2500). In my system, only one plant was affected. Coincidentally, it was the largest of all plants with the most root mass. I let another normal one grow to its size to see whether it would undergo the same problem, and it did. Viral and bacterial infections that cause leaf roll usually cause it to roll up. Same with the physiological roll. If your leafs roll down AND if your stems bend, this is caused by a diminishing turgor pressure (read: not enough water reaching afflicted area). Mist several times when lights are off (no photosysnthesis) and observe increasing turgor pressure (unbending). Or, untangle roots and remove hydroton from from pipes. I tested various growing methods including fully and partially submerged roots. They all work but a submerged root cannot intake oxygen; it has to borrow oxygen from another part of the plant (i.e. a root part that isnt submerged or above ground stem). This requires energy for transportion and isnt the most efficient (optimal) way for growth and cellular processes. Lastly, an airstone in the reservoir is useless unless the reservoir is completely airtight all the way up to the plant holes. Better to keep small airstones in the pipes right under the plant roots. Those that say aerating the res prevents bacterial development.. is false. If you dont have air in res, you will get anaerobic bacteria (they grow/accumulate slowly but acidify the solution); if you have air in res, you get aerobic bacteria (not acidifying but grow extremely fast). Most bacteria prefer aerobic environments for optimum growth.
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Temp: 15 to 25 celcius as far as I can tell is 59 to 95 degrees F. That being the case you should be fine. You'll have to buy "pre-chilled" bare-root starts from somebody to get started as strawberries need several "chill hours" a year to bear fruit. In my mind, Taiwan conjures up "humidity" and strawberries don't like humidity. If they are grown in too-wet an environment, they are subject to crown rot and a host of other wet-nasty things. Day-neutral will give you a better stab at 'out-of-season' fruiting, but June-bearing are most likely the ones you've seen for sale in Tokyo. Also, these were most likely soil grown using methyl bromide, which affects the size of fruits. Also, check to see if the strawberries from Tokyo have white tops and/or a hard, light-colored core. If they do, they were 'ripened' using ethylene gas. Apples have cores, not strawberries! I grow Camarosa strawberries as they are the most plump. In my part of the world folks are used to buying strawberries the size of tennis balls (unnatural!) so I try to grow something larger than a Quinalt, but smaller than a tennis ball. There is a French variety (the name escapes me) that is touted to be the most dense and sweetest cultiver. As far as how many crops per year; that depends on how well you can control the growing environment. Runners can be pre-chilled in a refrigerator for a month or so and "fooled" into believing it's early Spring, even though it may not actually be. Of course, you'll have to use artificial lighting and perhaps even heat to fool Mother Nature. That will drive up your costs, if that's an issue. I don't have any artificial-lighting experience; I grow in sunshine. Probably someone else with that kind of experience will hop on this thread and help you out. As far as a "system", strawberries don't like wet feet (roots). To successfully grow them hydroponically, you'll have to figure out a way to do it other than floating them on a ramp or dangling them in NFT tubes and keep in mind that humidity in your area may be a big consideration. I use static culture and 100% perlite. I grow in 'grow bags' for the most part. I manufacture my own bags from a continuous roll of 4-mil plastic bag material, heat-sealing the ends. This allows me to keep the roots moist while allowing a lot of free oxygen to penetrate the system. I place the bags on a slight incline with a hole at the bottom center of each bag so that if rain gets in and fills things up, there's a drain at one end. Whatever drips or dribbles out the bottom of each bag, is collected in a small trough and recycled so as not to run to waste; that's a big issue in California, where I reside. Hope that helps. If you have more questions, ask them here. Throw your pictures up for us to see and then we'll be comparing apples to apples.
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barberberryfarm
Original Author
13 years ago
Just an update. I wound up buying a 50-stack hydrostacker system last January, planted 1000 strawberry plants and 130 tomato plants and couldn't be happier. However, I did learn a few lessons along the way.

The first one is that I needed to install a spray system to adequately spray all the plants with Neem oil or Dipel when insects were getting the upper hand. A manual spayer just didn't do the job. With the system in place it takes me 2 minutes to spray them all!

The second lesson was that day-neutral strawberries and the Alabama sun July-Sept don't get along too well. However once I built a grid system and put a 50% shade cloth over them which brought the temperature down at least 10 degrees, they were quite happy.

However, I also found with the strawberries, the bottom layer of the 5-planter stack didn't produce as many strawberries over the season as the ones on top of it. So this winter, I'm redesigning my configuration to have 4 planters per stack and using the now excess planters to build another row for growing a variety of vegetables.

But, overall, I couldn't be happier with my purchase and the support I've received all year from the hydrostacker folks.

Just thought I'd pass this along,

Ken Barber
Millbrook AL
ghanaei_gmail_com
12 years ago
hi. i am a hydroponic strawberry producer in Iran. I saw Hydro-Stacker system on the Net.Finally, I couldn't understand if this system has a serious light problem or not ! do u suggest this system ? you know that my country is in the middle east (light full !) do u suggest buy and install
this system in a wide area ? thank u

Using Hydro-Stackers to Grow Strawberries and Tomatoes

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grizzman

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Using Hydro-Stackers to Grow Strawberries and Tomatoes

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grizzman

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