4 Essential Greenhouse Growing Tips

Controlled environment agriculture (CEA) is becoming the future of profitability and sustainability for farmers across the globe. CEA has many vital benefits, including decreased water usage and the ability to grow various crops year-round. CEA is also impervious to many destructive impacts of climate change, like flooding, drought, and wildfires. Greenhouse structures can take your CEA operation to the next level and provide the ideal environmental structure for more efficient gardening and extended cultivation options. Whether you’re a beginner in the greenhouse or a seasoned veteran, we’ve got the ultimate tips to optimize your operations and prevent you from making these common mistakes.

These essential greenhouse growing tips include:

• Start With Quality Tools & Equipment

• Mastering Greenhouse Sunlight

• Crop Diversification

• Greenhouse Maintenance Strategy

#1. Start With Quality Tools & Equipment

A successful greenhouse is best maintained with quality gardening tools and equipment. Much of the gardening industry relies heavily on deadlines, and any down equipment or kinks in tools could mean your crops miss the mark – resulting in large amounts of waste and revenue loss. From greenhouse coverings to hydroponic systems, investing early in highly rated tools will offer big dividends in the future. Investing in additions to your greenhouse structure, like luminescent film, can take advantage of natural sunlight’s best and most freely available resource.

UbiGro can tailor the spectrum of light that your crops are receiving without supplemental lighting. This gives off-grid growers a spectrum-control option and alternatively allows on-grid growers to rid themselves of expensive and unsustainable artificial lighting options. Greenhouse films can also work alongside existing truss infrastructure or other current lighting methods.

#2. Master Sunlight In Your Greenhouse

The amount of sunlight can vastly differ depending on where your greenhouse is located and the time of year. This relative photosynthetic efficiency is dependent on the wavelength of light, with wavelengths between 600-650nm being the most efficient for photosynthesis. A more uniform distribution of sunlight throughout the greenhouse canopy will increase overall photosynthesis and production. Diffuse scattering of sunlight is an effective way to achieve a more uniform distribution.

However, modern greenhouses have given growers control over the light spectrum as opposed to industrial field-based agriculture. Luminescent greenhouse coverings like the film from UbiGro can change UV and blue to orange and red light, which shifts the sun’s spectrum towards the maximum photosynthetic potential in plants, improving crop yields.

#3. Diversify Your Crops

Diversifying your crops is different from diversifying your stocks (get it?) Greenhouses can produce 20-50 times more yield per acre than conventional field agriculture and enable year-round crop production even during off-season months. As the industry continues to expand, farmers are expanding their repertoire to keep up with the ever-growing demand for organic and sustainable crops. From growing lettuce and cucumbers to strawberries and flowers, greenhouses offer the possibility of producing various crops year-round. This is due to the fact that environmental factors like light, humidity, temperature and more can be easily manipulated and steered toward a specific outcome.

Cultivating a variety of crops not only can result in financial gain but can also spark inspiration and innovation in potential new gardening interests. Find out how much more you could be growing under luminescent greenhouse film: