How to Automate your Growbox

You may have heard a little bit about grow box automation. Just like different kinds of business automation in other industries and types of workplaces, grow box automation offers all of us the ability to do more with less, to work smarter not harder as we grow green plants.

So how do growers pursue grow box automation?

Light and Dark Cycles

One of the easiest and most common types of grow box automation involves timers that set light and dark cycles for plants. Setting light and dark cycles helps to work with the circadian rhythms of plants to help them understand differences between the active or daylight times of the day, and the nighttime or resting times.

Temperature

Some types of automation tools can also help micromanage plant temperature, which can be extremely important for every stage of development.

PH Value

Another type of grow box automation involves pH value.

In traditional systems, growers have to use specific materials to test the pH value of reservoir water on a regular basis. This is because many factors can throw off this value as water or materials get added to the reservoir. Growers have to maintain a certain acidity of water for plants. One of the handiest solutions in a traditional setup is a liquid solution, pH up and pH down, that growers can use to adjust pH value manually.

In some automation setups, the grow system can actually add these materials by itself. This can be a key way of making hydroponics less labor-intensive and allow gardeners to be less hands-on.

Automated Air and Water Handling

Another major part of grow box automation involves the air and water in a hydroponics setup.

It's important to prevent the stagnation of air. Automated resources may run air fans or vents, either to do cooling, or to circulate air inside of a space.

At the same time, water handlers can pump nutrient-rich water to plants at specific intervals. These automated systems can make it so that the grower hardly ever has to be on-site in order to nurture plantsfor harvests.

These are some of the big opportunities for automating a grow box. Check out what you can get from manufacturers and retailers to pursue your hydroponics dreams.