Vegetable farming in a hydroponic greenhouse relies on the method of regularly supplying nutritive solution containing fertilizers through shallow water flow or to substrates like vermiculite.
It is an ongoing trend worldwide to automate the supply of nutritive solution.
“To establish an automatic nutritive solution supply system arises as the most important matter in putting greenhouse farming on a scientific basis, along with seedling growing and environment management,” said Ryo Hyo Jong, director of the electronics institute of the State Academy of Sciences.
According to him, the institute has developed an automatic nutritive solution supply system that can adjust the concentration of fertilizer and pH value and supply the solution through an irrigation model.
Since the growth of plants is affected by their external environment as well as the supply of nutritive solution, they require different concentrations of nutritive solution in different external environments. Therefore, the mixing ratio should be set in consideration of the effect of environmental factors. As the mixed nutritive solution is to be irrigated, the automatic nutritive solution supplier should also function as an irrigation controller.
The new automatic nutritive solution supply system makes and supplies nutritive solutions in keeping with the proportions of different fertilizer components and pH values that vary according to vegetable species, growing periods and environmental conditions in a large hydroponic vegetable greenhouse.
The system has proved its effectiveness at the Jungphyong Vegetable Greenhouse Farm.