Nobody builds a greenhouse hoping insects will move in. But here’s the thing: a greenhouse is basically a bug resort. Warm, humid, loaded with food, zero predators inside. You’ve given thrips, whiteflies, and aphids everything they need to explode. I’ve…
Most farmers keep irrigation records the way they’ve done it for decades: glance at a pressure gauge in the morning, make a mental note about which zone ran yesterday, and maybe scribble something in a notebook that hasn’t been opened…
Herbs are the cash crop that drip irrigation was made for. They’re high-value, shallow-rooted, and unforgiving when it comes to wet foliage. A basil leaf with overhead water sitting on it for six hours might as well have a “welcome”…
If your irrigation pump ever sucked air because the storage ran dry in the middle of a cycle, you already know the problem. Most farms rely on a well, a stream, or municipal supply that can’t always keep up with…
Most irrigation pumps run the same way they did in 1980: on or off. The motor spins at full speed, a pressure switch clicks it off when the tank fills, and the cycle repeats a hundred times a day. It…
Supplemental lighting is one of those greenhouse investments where the decision tree looks simple on paper but gets tangled fast once you dig in. HPS is cheaper to buy. LED saves on electricity. Pick one. Except then you find out…
Cut flowers are a high-value crop. A single healthy stem of a specialty sunflower sells for $1.50 to $3.00 at farmers markets. A bucket of 50 lisianthus stems can bring $40 from a florist. When you’re selling stems by the…
Farming above 3,000 meters is not like farming anywhere else. The air is thin, the sun is brutal, the slopes are steep, and water is either a glacial trickle or a seasonal flood. I have talked to farmers in Peru’s…
Most greenhouse growers I talk to think about irrigation in terms of water delivery: is the crop getting enough, is the EC in range, are the drippers clogged? That’s half the picture. The other half is what your watering schedule…
If you’ve got a farm pond with a geomembrane liner, at some point you’re going to walk out there and notice the water level is lower than it should be. You’ve got a leak. I’ve talked to growers who spent…
