Cul­ti­va­tion System
This is a hydro­pon­ic cul­ti­va­tion sys­tem. The cho­sen design is called Nutri­ent-Film-Tech­nique (NFT). In this sys­tem, the nutri­ent solu­tion is pumped in cycles into the grow­ing chan­nels and flows back into the water tank via the drain­pipe. The roots grow in the chan­nels, which do not con­tain any sub­strate. The required nutri­ents are added to the water in the form of min­er­al fer­tilis­er. The con­troller mon­i­tors the water val­ues and adds the two-com­po­nent fer­tilis­er (A/B, ratio 1:1), phos­phor­ic acid to low­er the pH val­ue or potas­si­um hydrox­ide to increase it to the nutri­ent solu­tion as required. The light­ing and irri­ga­tion are con­trolled via the con­troller using WIFI adapters.

Light­ing
Man­u­fac­tur­er: San­Light, Mod­el: EVO 3-100 (then changed to Flex Pro)
The plants are illu­mi­nat­ed with two plant lamps from San­Light mod­el EVO3-100. The light is gen­er­at­ed by LEDs (light emit­ting diode). This tech­nol­o­gy is cur­rent­ly the most effi­cient form of light­ing for plants. Each of the two lamps has a pow­er con­sump­tion of 190 W and a pow­er fac­tor of 0.95. The pho­to­syn­thet­ic pho­ton flux (PPF) is 520 µmol/s and the emis­sion wave­length is 400-780 nm.

Water Tank
The water tank holds approx. 74 L of nutri­ent solu­tion. It is essen­tial to ensure that the water lev­el does not fall below the min­i­mum mark.

Air Pump
The air pump enrich­es the nutri­ent solu­tion with oxy­gen 24/7.

Irri­ga­tion Pump
The irri­ga­tion pump is locat­ed in the tank, has an input of 55 W and a pump­ing capac­i­ty of up to 3000 l/h.

Tubes
A 16 mm PE tube is con­nect­ed to the irri­ga­tion pump, which is divid­ed via a Y-piece to sup­ply both halves of the arch with nutri­ent solu­tion. The inflow to the chan­nels is via 6 mm hoses, which are con­nect­ed to the PE tube via quick con­nec­tors. On the out­let side, sil­i­cone hoses are con­nect­ed to the chan­nels, which are con­nect­ed via T-pieces to the 16 mm PE tubes that lead back into the tank. Drainage then got a redesign and print­ed as PLA-tubes.

Fer­til­i­sa­tion Controller
The con­troller (Nido­Pro) mea­sures the pH val­ue of the nutri­ent solu­tion and reg­u­lates it if it is out­side the set range. If it is too high, phos­phor­ic acid is added to the nutri­ent solu­tion. If it is too low, potas­si­um hydrox­ide is added to the nutri­ent solu­tion. The con­duc­tance (EC) of the nutri­ent solu­tion indi­cates how many salts are dis­solved in the water (fer­tilis­er con­cen­tra­tion). If the con­duc­tance of the nutri­ent solu­tion decreas­es because the plants absorb nutri­ents or tap water is refilled, the con­troller adds the two-com­po­nent fer­tilis­er (A/B, ratio 1:1) to the nutri­ent solution.

The light­ing and irri­ga­tion are switched by the con­troller via WIFI adapters. The var­i­ous para­me­ters can be set and con­trolled via the asso­ci­at­ed app.

A cam­era is con­nect­ed to the con­troller, which makes it pos­si­ble to see the plants. It is not a video record­ing, the images are not saved and are only active­ly retrieved in the app. We should put it on our web­site, I know. Com­ing soon…