A microgreen is a new form of superfood and is highly trending in the whole world. Microgreens are basically small greens formed of vegetables and herbs that are fully grown just in a week. These vegetables and herbs are full of essential minerals and vitamins. They are seedling herbs and vegetables that first form leaves, then stems and roots, and sometimes they develop young leaves as well. While using these microgreen plants, you can eat their leaves and stems.
You may have seen these microgreens vegetables and herbs in most of the fancy restaurants all over the world. They are globally liked by all chefs just because of their taste, aesthetics, and high level of vitamins. These tiny edible microgreen plants are harvested at the peak of tenderness. The hydroponic microgreen production is quite small, but it is highly capable of delivering an intense burst of nutritional content and a good flavor. In recent years, these microgreens have become more popular due to their increasing demand and supply. You can use these microgreen plants as a complement to your cooking as they have become a viable scheme for hydroponic farmers.
Most of the microgreens can be easily germinated in five to ten days from seedling to harvest, and they can be grown in as little as a few square inches making them ideal for home gardeners. If you want to grow these microgreen plants without dealing with messy soil, you can do it by growing them hydroponically as it is one of the best solutions. For this purpose, you just need to have certain supplies such as a growing medium, lighting, trays, seeds, and nutrient solution.
If you want to grow microgreens hydroponically on a commercial level, then you have to maximize its vertical space by using racks, and you can automate this process by using a water pump and a reservoir. Hydroponic is basically a method used for growing microgreen plants without soil. These hydroponically generated microgreens used to spend their lives in an aquatic-based environment. They can only receive their food and nutrients from water instead of absorbing them from the soil. In order to create a nutrient-rich microgreen plant, you need to add certain fertilizers into the water so that the roots of microgreens can absorb them easily.
You can find a range of growing mediums for hydroponic microgreen production in order to provide support to their roots in a hydroponic system. Some of the most common growing mediums are hemp mats, coconut coir, clay, pebbles, vermiculite, and rock wool. There are some hydroponic microgreens that do not require any medium for their production. Here is a list of reasons why people prefer to grow microgreens hydroponically?
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They can grow anywhere
The hydroponic setup is suitable for any place like you can take it to your garage, basement, or even inside a shipping container and you can grow these plants all year around wherever you want.
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Less Water
You can reuse the water present in the hydroponic system, which shows that it requires almost 20 times less water than growing microgreens in soil.
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No composting, no mess
You have nothing to worry about the tracking of soil through your home or accidentally spilling a tray of dirt on the carpet. And you do not need any place to dispose of the used soil. These hydroponics are a great option for growing these plants in apartments.
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More Control
Growing these microgreens hydroponically at your home will let you control the number of nutrients your plants are getting. You can easily regulate the number of fertilizers that are being added to them in order to make a balance for each microgreen crop that you are growing.
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Most of the Microgreens grow better hydroponically
Some of the microgreens like kale, kohlrabi, and wheatgrass prefer to grow hydroponically, and they tend to produce better than the plants growing in the soil.
If you are planning to grow these microgreens on a DIY home scale, you need to have the following items beforehand.
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Microgreen Seeds
It would be best if you have bought organic seeds that are bred in a certain way for growing microgreens hydroponically. It would be best if you avoided all those seeds that are previously treated with fungicides.
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Growing Trays
You need to buy 10” x 20” plastic trays which are of standard size that most of the microgreens manufacturers use. You should consider those trays with drainage holes, or if it does not have any hole, you need to poke some holes in the tray yourself.
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Lights
T5 fluorescent lamps are often used by most microgreens manufacturers, but the regular T8 light works as well and is normally cheaper than other lights.
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Growing Medium
You can prefer various growing mediums for the hydroponic production of microgreens such as hemp mats, coconut coir, etc. These mediums will provide the utmost support to the roots of your microgreen plants in order to help them stand upright.
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Spray Bottle
You should buy a brand new or pure bottle that has never contained any sort of chemicals or been used for any other purpose.
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Nutrients
You need to purchase only those products that are completely organic and are exclusively designed for growing microgreens hydroponically. And if you are unable to find such products, you can also use any general hydroponic nutrients. They will also work well for these microgreen plants.
These microgreen plants used to get the majority of their nutrients from the seed; therefore, you do not have to add any additional nutrients to the water. Because these microgreens are growing hydroponically without adding nutrients. There are a lot of advantages of growing microgreens hydroponically which are listed below.
- They can be grown anywhere
- You can reuse the water in your hydroponic systems as they require almost 20 times less water than growing in soil
- You can regulate the balance in the number of fertilizers for each microgreen crop that you desire to grow
- Hydroponically grown plants will produce yield better than those growing in the soil