Growing a healthy crop in a greenhouse is all about monitoring variables. This usually brings to mind temperature, humidity, pH, nutrients and light. One variable that gets overlooked is dissolved oxygen (DO),
“We started paying attention to dissolved oxygen,” says Kurt Becker, Director of Commercial Product Sales and Marketing at Dramm. “We saw incidences where customers were having growth problems and they had nothing to attribute it to, they just had issues. It turned out in many incidences they had really low dissolved oxygen in their water, but nobody was even paying attention to it.”
In three seperate case studies an ardent strawberry grower, a hydroponic produce grower and an undergraduate at a major university in the U.S. experimented with adding dissolved oxygen to irrigation water via a process called electrolysis. They used relatively inexpensive technology from a company called O2Grow to add dissolved oxygen to their irrigation systems. With the O2Grow system tiny hydrogen molecules and oxygen enter the water through tubes and quickly dissolve, raising the DO in the water.
Dennis Clark, president of the Oxygen Research Group says you can have 2 ppm of dissolved oxygen coming out of a well and with a bubbler you can at least get up to 8 ppm.
“But what if you got 12 ppm,” he continues. “That’s when you start to notice the difference.” This can be achieved with the nanobubbler technology available from O2Grow.
Increased strawberry yields
Erik Gundacker, a former computer engineer and now owner of Scenic Valley Farms based in Rosemount, Minnesota, grows organic strawberries in stackable pots in high tunnel structures. He is providing local markets with fresh strawberries 8 months out of the year, something that heretofore was unheard of in this part of the world.
Last year he added it to his irrigation tank and ran it through the drip lines, growing 5 different varieties of strawberries, 6 stacks, with 50 plants per stack, all grown in soil. He found an increase in yields in all but one of the varieties. He says this year he’ll be growing 4X’s as many berries using the system, which he thinks will give him a more representative sampling. Gundacker is confident that the system will deliver.
“We’re encouraged with the dissolved oxygen,” says Gundacker. “We’re using it on the stacked strawberries, we might look at using the DO on some of our other plants.”
Better roots, healthier plants
In a university study undergrad Taylor North, under the direction of Sonja Maki, PH.D and Assistant Professor in the Department of Plant and Earth Sciences at the University of Wisconsin-River Falls, achieved significantly better root development using the O2Grow system to add DO in a study growing crown peas.
“We had been noticing poor root development in two of our hydroponic settings,” says Maki. She said the DO measured pretty low at 5mg/L. “We tried adding air stones and it didn’t help much.”
North conducted an experiment using the crown pea because, as she explains, it’s a determinate plant that grows wide at the top and produces a lot of flowers. She conducted experiments using a control and the patented O2Grow technology and noticed a marked difference in the experimental plants.
“Overall it was wonderful, the electrolysis works phenomenal” says North, whose body of research on the crown pea and electrolysis was accepted and will be presented at a conference at Kennesaw State University in Georgia.
Prolific Produce
While initially doing research on using DO to help control biofilm, Dion Graber, owner of Microfarms, LLC in Indiana noticed a marked difference in yields out of his produce. He’s gone all in, using O2Grow’s largest oxygenator, the 2120 to add DO to his irrigation tank for all of his plants. The market farmer, who provides fresh produce to local markets, says he’s seen an increase of 40% in tomato production, 50% in cucumbers and 60% in peppers. He says they’re also experiencing earlier harvests of lettuce (5-6 days earlier) out of their hydroponic system.
“Everything seems to look a lot healthier, the plants take up nutrients better,” says Graber. “This is a great find, it’s been incredible.”
Contact:
Cindy Scanlon
Oxygen Research Group
19285 Highway 7
Excelsior, Minnesota 55331
Phone: 952-474-5820