Humble beginnings do not get much humbler. It was 1982 and Dan Brentlinger had just started his hydroponic greenhouse manufacturing business, CropKing. He was standing in the yard of his home with one of his sons, Paul. It was a summer day and beads of sweat were forming on his brow. Dan was looking for an economic way to mold greenhouse parts to specification.
Cash-strapped and needing some way to measure his progress, Dan drew a sketch of a curved aluminum pipe on the side of his house. He measured it and checked the numbers. The angle in the drawing was correct. Then, employing Paul’s help, the Brentlinger boys began bending an aluminum pipe around the neck of an old oak tree in the yard, one sturdy enough to survive the punishment. After each push they would measure their efforts against Dan’s drawing. They did this over and over until they had met the customer’s expectations. They were DIY-ing a greenhouse infrastructure to sell to a grower.
Prior to starting CropKing, Dan had worked in sales for a hydroponics company. When that operation went under, he decided to start his own business and help pioneer the expanding hydroponic grower industry. He sought out industry experts and toured hydroponic farms. He named his company CropKing, and much of the company’s early work was conducted, in part, at Dan’s house.
Fast-forward 30 years and CropKing is a growing hydroponic and greenhouse manufacturer and supplier in Lodi, Ohio, (with machines that accurately bend pipe, sans house sketches). Paul is now the company president (Dan passed away in 2005). Paul’s mother Marilyn also helps run the business. The company has grown from a residential home into a 28,000-square-foot facility with 26 full-time employees.
The company has sold greenhouse packages to every state and 20 countries around the world. They prefer to ship fertilizer, and some other supplies, regionally, to states as far south as the Carolinas and regions as far north as New England.
“A lot of it comes down to the relationship we have with that customer and what products they’re looking for. We like to maintain good relationships and good communication,” Paul says.
When customers or visitors make it out to Lodi, Paul happily regales them with the anecdotal beginning of CropKing, a company built around an oak tree. He then says that over the past 30 years the company has really grown.
“Now we have 25 oak trees,” he says, laughing.
Looking forward, looking back
The history of hydroponics is older than CropKing. In fact, Paul jokes that hydroponics likely dates back to the Hanging Gardens at Babylon, if not further. However, the past few decades, in particular, have seen massive leaps forward for hydroponics as an industry. Precision control of nutrient delivery and environment are now imminently available, and customer demand for locally grown produce is pushing the demand for hydroponic fruits and vegetables.
“It’s taken 30 years for CropKing to get to where we are today, and we’re still very much in the infancy stage of companies,” Paul says. “I think because of a limit on water and other natural resources, hydroponics as an industry will continue to expand.”
One of the other obvious changes has been the development of new, disease-resistant varieties. The advent of genetic technology combined with old-fashioned cross-breeding has led to varieties that can stave off some of hydroponic growing’s most archaic foes.
“Thirty years ago, beds were filled with vermiculite and peat moss,” Marilyn says. “We were constantly trying to flush the beds and control salt levels. If we got 20 pounds of plant per year, we thought we were doing good. Now, we can go as high as 50 pounds per plant. The developments in breeding have really helped our industry.”
The Brentlingers would also battle botrytis and root rot. The old growing systems would utilize flat plastic tubing as an NFT (Nutrient Film Technique) system for tomatoes. But without the precision control offered by today’s systems, if one plant got infected with botrytis, the entire greenhouse would soon be afflicted. Similarly, there were times that nutrients were flowing so quickly through the system that the crop would be unable to absorb what it needed.
In 1986 and1987 the company began using Perlite slabs. In 1988 and 1989 they moved to bato buckets with perlite growing media. When the company began using buckets initially, CropKing utilized black colored buckets. They soon switched to a beige color, realizing that beige transmits less heat on roots.
Control over equipment has also improved. In the early 1970s, to help ventilation, Marilyn says growers would fill milk jugs with water and attach them to vent doors. The weight would pull the door and when the fans came on, the doors would be propelled open.
In the 1970s, consumer acceptance of modified plants was extremely low. Marilyn says that potential customers were wary of products like the seedless cucumber but customer demands are changing as the decades pass by.
“Even now, I’m shocked at how plants are growing and how clean the systems are,” Marilyn says. “So many people have come to accept hydroponics.”
That acceptance is in part because hydroponics today is a bit more of an exact science.
While most greenhouses are still constructed the same way, using bent steel and polyethylene film, technology has provided a more sophisticated control system to growers, along with more savvy equipment. Advanced systems can now read temperatures and, employing the use of automated motors, open ventilation doors or kick on fans depending on what is needed. Filling milk jugs with water and tying them to doors is now, shockingly, an antiquated process.
“Precision has improved in monitoring and control,” Paul says. “We are now re-circulating 100 percent of nutrients after we capture, test, treat and then re-use it. We can now monitor elemental dosing.”
Systems from the likes of Argus and Link4 have made environmental control easier to monitor and adjust. Being able to quickly change the temperature in your greenhouse, in some cases without leaving your office, is a huge boost from the technology that was available a few, short years ago.
“The environment is so important and now we can control it so much more precisely,” he says. “All of the systems are better than they were even 10 years ago.”
Certain systems can also read pH levels during the production of lettuce. That information is now logged into a computer and adjusted automatically, relieving the grower of a duty that used to be a manual task. In fact, a number of fertilizer-related tasks have become automated.
The next stage of development for the Brentlingers will be a mobile gulley NFT system. Most current NFT systems in the United States are stationary. They allow growers to raise crops on fixed benches. In Europe, the mobile gulley NFT system is more widely-accepted.
The mobile gully system offers a few advantages. As plants grow, the space between each gully gradually widens, accommodating plant growth at various stages and allowing the plants to expand. The space between each gully also allows easier access to individual plants. Mobile gulley systems can also work with any substrate.
“It’s not a prevalent system for U.S. growers yet. But when you have California closing down thousands of acres for a lack of water, it’s going to alter what growing systems are used,” Paul says.
CropKing is also looking to offer new size specifications for greenhouse structures. The company currently offers a 22-foot wide bay or a 30-foot free standing greenhouses. The plan is to begin offering a 28-foot wide gutter connect.
Growing local
The local food movement is altering the fresh produce market. Consumers are increasingly interested in where their food is coming from and how it is grown. Many savvy restaurants are offering “local-only” menus, catering to a suddenly health-conscious constituency.
According to the National Restaurant Association’s “What’s Hot” Chef Survey 2014, the top two menu trends for the year were: locally sourced meats and seafood and locally grown produce. The National Grocery Association 2014 Panel said that 87.2 percent of consumers rated the availability of locally grown produce as “very/somewhat important.”
“Now is a good time to get into hydroponic growing,” Paul says. “Local has become a buzzword. Consumers are more concerned about being local and being aware of your growing process.”
According to the USDA report “Why Local Food Matters” from March 2, 2014, local food demand still represents a small portion of the overall produce market. But recent growth in the field has been exponential. From 1992 to 2007, direct-to-consumer sales increased by a staggering 105 percent, compared to 45 percent for overall agriculture sales. In financial terms, direct-to-consumer sales (not including sales to groceries or restaurants) increased from $404 million annually to $1.2 billion in 2007. In 2008 local food sales, including intermediate sales to restaurants and groceries, represented $4.8 billion.
An increase in local demand has also meant an increase in local outlets offering fresh grown produce. The number of farmers markets increased 3.6 percent from 2012 to 2013, settling at 8,144 markets. Consumers believe that locally grown produce provides better flavor, freshness and health benefits. But consumers also want to support regional growers and businesses and develop relationships with nearby providers and buying local produce gives them that opportunity.
“There’s always going to be farmers markets that want local growers, there will always be regular agriculture producers that want to supplement what they’re doing with small greenhouses, and there will always be these 2-5 acre projects that support larger, local areas,” Paul says.
Hydroponics: The Next Generation
Paul notes that he has seen an increase in retrofits for ornamental growers who want to make the jump to edibles. He also says that in recent years the company has started seeing more greenhouses going up in urban environments.
Deciding to put a roof atop your building has to be a measured process. There are benefits and drawbacks. Paul notes that you can receive a lot of publicity for the greenhouse and in most cases that will make the investment worth it. However, rooftop greenhouses can make a number of otherwise simple aspects challenging.
“Everything is situational. Everything depends on [where] a grower’s location is and what their needs are,” he says. “It will probably never make sense to put a greenhouse on a roof in Nebraska but in New York City? In New York, that’s how you have to utilize that space. In Alaska, or Northern Minnesota, you might be doing stuff in totally enclosed spaces because of low-light levels.”
He says that the future of hydroponics will branch through all avenues of growth: urban, rural and supplemental. CropKing, like other hydroponic companies, will continue to seek out improvements in nutrient delivery and growing media. As droughts limit water use, space becomes more limited and consumers are increasingly involved in the growing process—hydroponics will continue to grow. That expansion will not just take place in the United States but across the globe.
“It’s such an important growing method,” Marilyn says. “Hydroponics can be used where the soil is poor. You can install an NFT system virtually anywhere.”
Photography by Jennifer M Photography