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Belgium's Hydroponic Leek Leap: 3,000 m² Farm in Ypres · Hydroponics Daily

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  Hello there and welcome back to
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  Hydroponics Daily, your go-to podcast for everything soilless cultivation.
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  I'm your host Dr. Russell Sharp and we've talked a lot in recent days about.
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  Greenhouse production in Holland and in England, the places like this, even in North Dakota.
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  But today we're talking about the country that produces most potatoes I think in Europe,
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  no it's not ireland and root vegetables
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  it is belgium and we'll talk
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  about them today because there is a new hydroponic
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  leak farm so in ypres
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  i think it's pronounced y-p-r-e-s a
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  very famous old town in flanders they have got
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  a 3 000 square meter production facility
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  that has just opened where they're growing hydroponic leaks
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  and they've been researching hydroponic leaks at this site since 2015
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  so they've not jumped in it's not a new thing but they
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  really started to scale it up a number of different companies have
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  come together and started growing commercially hydroponic leaks this is not
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  a trial this is not a demonstration they're actually commercially producing
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  it so the companies are in agro reo hydromasters i think they design the system and Endura,
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  supported by VLEA, and co-financed by the European Union.
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  There we go, so some governmental funding got in there as well.
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  So it's a really exciting, really interesting project, and they reckon that
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  this 3,000 square metre hydroponic system can produce as many leaks annually
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  as one and a half to two hectares.
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  So a hectare is 10,000 square metres,
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  so that is a very significant increase it's not
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  just about the increase in production it's also
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  about the fact that you can grow them without soil and this
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  opens up the market for exports to countries where
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  you can't have any soil on the vegetables that you're exporting so
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  canada and japan apparently that is a big one so belgium a big producer big
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  producer of of root vegetables every year they could potentially be opening
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  up new markets so this is on a farm that already grows leeks so then that they're
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  almost competing with themselves, really.
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  Everything has to scale up and be as economically viable or better than the
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  alternative, which is...
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  Farm soil grown leeks that are
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  manually harvested so they
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  know what they're doing and they can have an easy comparison to what
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  is industry standards so they're going to get a shorter
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  production cycle because they are grown hydroponically and
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  that's one of the advantages of hydroponics you're going to remove the
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  presence of soil borne diseases so
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  things like white rot is a big one in in leeks
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  there's loads of molds loads of
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  fungal diseases and it's open to the air
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  so it's not in a greenhouse or a grow room this one this wasn't open
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  to the air so you will still get is it onion fly things
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  like this you'll get the insect pests coming in on the
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  crop as well so that you can't exclude those but potentially easier
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  to treat even and even though they are in the
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  system and then the other big advantage is automated harvesting so they've got
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  cranes that lift the leaks out and potentially a they've got a robot for harvesting
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  them and probably trimming them and packing them so that would be you know if
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  you can integrate that then that's a big win.
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  Obviously it's a closed water system so that prevents the leaching
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  of fertilizers and reduces the use of plant protection products when
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  they are plant protection products are used they'll be more effective than in
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  a soil-based system so they the
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  effect will be higher because you haven't got this mass volume of
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  soil around the plants so there are
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  a lot of growers of leeks in west flanders about
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  4 000 hectares so that's a big area and
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  they are all invited to a demonstration day at this hydroponic leek cultivation
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  on the 26th of august at half one at the bowdry farm that's the farm where all
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  these hydroponic this hydroponic leek facility is so the farmers and other interested
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  parties can be given a tour of the cultivation system and its technology.
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  And i think also you'll be able to see the the automated harvesting system as
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  well so that would be a really good event i'll see if i can get a trip on the
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  eurostar over there for that event,
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  nope i've just checked on the google maps and
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  it looks like it's fairly close to calais it's about 90 kilometers from calais
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  so it might might be one to drive over to so yeah
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  really interesting project a couple of other companies have tried
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  growing leeks hydroponically a lot of the tower based
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  systems have tried growing leeks i wouldn't have thought that would be my first
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  choice because leeks are long and thin and with leeks you want nice straight
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  leeks for saleable crops and yeah i think this is a really good idea and one
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  of the few commercial outdoor hydroponic systems,
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  when we talk about hydroponics we're normally talking about glass houses
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  or grow rooms this one is a deep
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  water culture should i say that and start outdoor grow which is very unusual
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  especially in europe so if you know of any other outdoor deep water culture
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  cultivation hydroponic systems that are not leaks not algae based or anything
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  let me know and then be interested to of each of them as well.
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  That's been Hydroponics Daily for today.
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  Hydroponic leaks, an interesting one. See you tomorrow. Goodbye.