Navigating Plant Growth: The Essentials of Vegetative Crop Steering
Discover the Game-Changer in Hydroponics: How Strategic Steering Shapes Plant Growth and Yield
Crop steering refers to the systematic management of light, irrigation and climate.
Instead of letting plants grow on their agenda, hydroponic crop management techniques, such as crop steering, force them to grow in a way that allows you to reach your target goals.
Despite limited published research on crop steering it has gained momentum and become widely practised among experienced controlled environment agriculture horticultural and medicinal crop producers.
Balancing Vegetative and Generative Growth in Hydroponics
The primary goal of vegetative crop steering is to unlock the full potential of the crop, through tactical balancing between vegetative and generative hormonal signalling.
The aforementioned hormonal signalling could be utilized to strategically adjust plants’ growth and development in hydroponic systems to achieve target output.
Hydroponic System Management: A Guide to Maximizing Plant Health
Crop steering techniques during the vegetative phase rely on lower Electrical Conductivity (EC), lower Vapour Pressure Deficit (VPD), and lower light intensity. Importantly, room temperature, fertigation frequency, fertigation duration, and substrate saturation are increased, while reduced CO2, EC, and VPD are maintained. Maintenance of vegetative signalling facilitates to building of greater root mass, leaf area, and lateral branching in controlled plant growth environments.
Mastering Osmotic Potential for Hydroponic Success
To enable vegetative signalling, higher osmotic potential should be maintained. A concentrated nutrient solution (higher EC) could be an indicator of low osmotic potential, whereas a diluted nutrient solution indicates a high osmotic potential (lower EC). Therefore, an increase in osmotic potential enables the roots to absorb more water from the hydroponic nutrient solutions. In stark contrast, the decline in osmotic potential decreases water absorption (May, 1959; McElrone et al., 2013). To delve deeper into the intricacies of water quality in agriculture and its impact, read our article on "Irrigation Water Quality Matters".
Understanding the Critical Role of EC in Hydroponic Plant Health
It is also important to note that highly hypertonic (high EC) nutrient solutions could lead to plasmolysis - cellular water loss. Plasmolysis occurs when nutrient solution EC exceeds the EC inside of the plant. Fortunately, when indicated early, the cure for plasmolysis is deplasmolysis. To reach deplasmolysis, dilution of the nutrient solution to a hypotonic state (lower EC) is required. However, once “plasmolized”, even timely rehydrated plants, may no longer reach their top performance due to irreversible cell damage. For more insights into effectively balancing EC and pH, refer to our article "Optimizing EC and pH in Substrate: Essential Strategies".
Understanding Soil vs Hydroponic Crop Steering Differences
When growing in soil or substrate along with osmotic potential, cultivators should take into consideration matric potential - the binding of water to substrate/soil surfaces. Matric potential could be defined as a force by which water is held by the soil matrix (Marshall, 1959). Hence, matric potential (water binding) may vary greatly depending on the substrate composition and texture in soil vs hydroponic crop steering.
Maximizing Crop Yield in Hydroponics: Techniques and Strategies
The key to successful vegetative crop steering is growing plants in a near-stress-free environment. You can learn more about crop health and pH relationship in our detailed articles on "Optimal pH for Hydroponics".
Building more vegetative biomass, including but not limited to greater stem diameter, leaf area, and root biomass, is detrimental to optimizing plant growth and getting more yield during the flowering phase. Stay tuned for our next article on maximizing crop yield in hydroponics without compromising quality by using generative crop steering.
Further Reading:
Marshall, T. J. (1959). Relations between water and soil. Commonwealth Agricultural Bureaux, Farnham Royal.
May, M.P. (1959) On the theory of osmotic water movement
McElrone, A. J., Choat, B., Gambetta, G. A. & Brodersen, C. R. (2013) Water Uptake and Transport in Vascular Plants. Nature Education Knowledge 4(5):6