March 2021 - 24

PRODUCTION
Water You
MISSING?
Three overlooked ways to enhance plant health with irrigation
BY JIM REARDEN
F
orty, even 30, years ago, we watered our plants, dropped in a little
fertilizer, and hoped for the best. Perhaps it wasn't quite that simple,
but our main focus with irrigation was primarily making sure plants
didn't dry out.
Today, greenhouse production is much more sophisticated, but what
if you could get even more from your water? Research shows us that
managing a few factors can help your plants get the most from irrigation.
Here are the three we suggest starting with.
BIOFILMS
While sanitation is a critical part of every successful greenhouse
protocol, we've learned that biofilms can sabotage quality plants
faster than you think - and they are found in even the most pristine
greenhouses.
Biofilms are the thin films inside pipes and tanks. They are a significant
player in distribution of pathogens, particularly for simple pests like
Pythium, Phytophthora and algae. While the typical assumption has been
that sanitizing source water, whether well, rain or municipal, would result
in the cleanest water possible for greenhouse plants, what we didn't
realize was that biofilms are a serious threat to the plant world - even in
greenhouses built just six months ago.
These biofilms provide a safe harbor for pathogenic microbes, and every
time you turn on the water, some of those pathogens are distributed with
the irrigation. " Most of the time, it's not a high enough concentration to
affect the plant - like you and I can fight off a cold most of the time, " says
Al Zylstra, manager of DRAMMwater. " But once or twice a year, if you don't
have your biofilms under control, you end up with an outbreak. " And if
you don't completely remove the biofilms, those outbreaks become much
more frequent.
24 MARCH 2021 GPNMAG.COM
O2
molecules
flow through
pores in
fiber wall
Fiber wall
Water flow
O2 molecule
Hollow fiber
Water flow
Oxygen flow
under pressure
How mass fiber transfer works: Water passes over the hollow oxygenfilled
fibers, where it undergoes the oxygen infusion process.

http://www.GPNMAG.COM

March 2021

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of March 2021

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