“This is a technology that can be delivered at scale to unlock spinach"
Source: VFD.com
"When we see growers using hydroponic techniques to grow spinach in a greenhouse, after a while there will be a crash where some combination of factors essentially kills the crop and really reduces productivity. "If you get a spike in temperature or a spike in exudates for whatever reason, you're on the road to the kind of yield crashing that we're seeing and is being reported by growers in hydroponic systems." The trials The company has been running trials which are designed to disentangle those three factors: exudates, oxygen deprivation and Pythium.
This is a technology that can be delivered at scale to unlock spinach." LettUs Grow has modeled the economics against a 0.7-hectare spinach greenhouse in North America. The aeroponic system increases initial investment by 3 to 7% over a comparable hydroponic setup, but because salable yield is consistently higher across the growing season, the model shows ROI increasing by 70%, IRR by 11%, and break-even brought forward by 4.5 years over a 20-year project horizon.
"Should there be an issue with power on site and the atomizers aren't able to turn on, the plants have got access to that reservoir." Oscar points to a specific example from the company's Bristol greenhouse: "We've had a basil crop that had no irrigation from an aeroponic perspective for 48 to 72 hours. That crop survived, and we still had salable yield, because the plant had access to that nutrient-dense solution in the bottom of the well." © Wesley Francis | VerticalFarmDaily.com LettUs Grow's Aeroponic Rolling Bench exposes the root zone to a nutrient-dense mist Where the focus is going LettUs Grow delivers rolling bench systems through a global network of delivery partners operating at more than 200 hectares a year, which frees Oscar's team to stay focused on advancing the aeroponic science and agronomy rather than managing project delivery.
Why this matters: For operators, this is a water-management story. The useful signal is that direct substrate measurements can help cut drain loss materially without giving up yield or fruit quality, which is exactly the kind of controllable efficiency gain a facility can build on.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why does substrate sensing matter in free-drain strawberry systems?
Because drain percentage tells a grower what already happened, while substrate moisture and EC data show root-zone conditions directly. That makes it easier to cut water loss without guessing.
What is the operator takeaway from this trial?
If the thresholds are understood well enough, growers can reduce drain water materially while protecting yield and fruit quality, which makes sensing an operational tool instead of a reporting tool.
