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Basil's Hydroponic Secrets · Hydroponics Daily

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  Hello and welcome back to Hydroponics Daily, your go-to podcast for everything soilless cultivation.
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  I'm your host Dr Russell Sharp and today we're talking about the cultivation
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  of a potentially highly profitable crop and that is basil.
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  But a number of pitfalls await any hydroponic grower fresh to the cultivation
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  of basil so we'll go through them. They are not what you might expect.
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  Now basil is a leafy crop, you're
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  cultivating the leaves or the young stems and it's
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  used as a herb or as you say in america
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  i don't know why it's got an h at the front but there
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  you go it's a high profitable crop and it's got
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  a potentially large market because it's used
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  in lots of different dishes not just italian food
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  as we're trying to think of it but so there's loads of
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  uses of basil and you've really the first pitfall
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  you you many hydroponic growers come across is they think basil is basil and
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  it's very much not there are different types of basil and there are more importantly
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  there are different end uses of that basil so fresh garnish or as a food ingredient
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  is the main one but there is also pesto production and there is also,
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  potted plant pesto that you might buy in a supermarket or in a local shop and
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  it might be grown in a plastic pot with a small amount of cocoa and these are
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  grown hydroponically on.
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  Tables in greenhouses and they fertilize with hydroponic fertilizers so they're
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  classed as hydroponic plants.
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  So a lot of hydroponic basil goes into pesto manufacturing and they want bulk biomass.
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  They don't require pristine leaves so curled
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  or slightly marked leaves is not a problem for this but
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  they do want highly aromatic flavoursome
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  basil so this is something you need to consider a lot of
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  hydroponic basil crops can become can grow
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  almost too fast and they become curved and
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  sort of bubbly the leaves and that's no good
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  if you want to produce fresh herb so there you
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  need uniform flat leaves with still a good
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  aroma curling deformities and inconsistencies are
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  unacceptable and then for potted
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  basil the plant must look full symmetrical and
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  last on the shelf but ironically these are
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  often grown too fast and weak to survive more than a few
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  days in the kitchen and a lot of people try and
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  grow their basil plants that they get from the supermarket for a
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  number of weeks after they bought them and it's just they're not
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  just designed for that because there's not enough nutrients left
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  in that growing media to do that so don't
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  try and do that always start with fresh basil so where does the flavor lie in
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  basil plants well the distinctive smell and flavor comes from oil glands or
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  trichomes on the surface of the leaf not deep inside the tissue and this means
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  that the leaf area and condition directly affects the flavor so if you damage the surface.
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  By handling them badly or if their pests have been in there then that literally
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  damages the flavour and then of course proper lighting,
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  humidity and nutrients also maximise that oil gland formation and protecting
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  them so that's something to consider and then when it comes to production of
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  your basil the end use you've got to choose the right variety now the sweet basil,
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  the genovese that's the classic pesto type and then you've got things like purple basils,
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  dark opal or rubin they project provide
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  studding cover color sorry and that's great in garnish
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  especially when mixed with green basil so but they're very
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  rarely used in pesto production they can't maintain that
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  dark purple color thai basil
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  has a strong anise flavor popular in southeast
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  asian cuisines and i think
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  that one is less prone to the leaf curling and
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  then you've got lemon basil cinnamon basil and therefore
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  more specialist markets and you will
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  find that lots of the vertical farms have that
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  are established have already tried basil production so you might want to start
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  with a more specialist niche product anyway if you're trying to get into the
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  basil market so we've talked about why basil you buy from the supermarket dies
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  quickly obviously the seed the seeding rate is very important there if you're growing basil for.
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  Production of leaves you want to spread them out much less
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  dense than you do if you're producing pot plants for the
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  supermarkets there they planted into nutrient poor
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  growing media in very high densities so 30
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  seeds for one plant and really and
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  grown under very high light conditions much high light conditions that
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  are in your kitchen and and then the other
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  reason why basil that's taken home
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  from supermarket is doesn't last very long is it often in
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  the autumn in the winter they just go to flowering really
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  really quickly and so their basil is a
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  short day plant that means when you give them long night
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  times they are induced to flower and
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  then when you when they flowered obviously that's yield that should have gone
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  to leaves but also more importantly it makes the the leaves taste insipid and
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  not as nice as non-flowering basil so that's another reason why supermarket
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  basil doesn't last very long basil likes if you're growing it hydroponically
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  it likes the standard pH of 5.5 to 6.5.
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  It requires moderate nitrogen, an emphasis on calcium and magnesium just because
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  you want healthier leaves,
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  balanced micronutrients to prevent tip burns and leaf yellowing and then an
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  EC range of 1.2 to 2.0 millisiemens per centimetre.
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  So fairly standard there. Avoid overfeeding.
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  Too high NAC can reduce the oil content and encourage curling as we just discussed
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  and especially differences in humidity can also do that another thing obviously being a leaf crop.
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  Any pests or disease is massively going to impact your yield and your quality.
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  Aphids are probably the biggest issue. Soft, sap-sucking insects and green fly,
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  white fly, if you're not familiar with aphids.
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  Very common on all types of leafy crops, but especially basil.
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  Fungus gnats in the growing media.
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  Downy mildew, very common, increasingly common in basil.
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  So look for yellow patches under the leaves for downy mildew.
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  And once it's in your grown environment, it's going to be very difficult to get it out. and
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  then botrytis if you get really high humidities
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  so keep that humidity below 70% avoid overhead watering to prevent those foliar
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  diseases and prune to allow airflow and when you're harvesting perhaps rather
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  than harvesting all at once you could perhaps look at intermittent harvesting
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  if you're doing it by hand to allow airflow that could be an area where.
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  Hand harvesting has an advantage over automatic harvesting of
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  basil so having said that
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  basil is short day plants have then done some more research and
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  found that it actually depends very much on the variety
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  you choose and there can also be long day varieties and
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  day neutral varieties so ignore what i said earlier certainly the older the
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  plants get they the more prone they are to flowering and so continuous harvesting
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  of the plants is advisable they are cut and come again plants most types of
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  so that means that like lettuce varieties that are cut and come again you can cut them and more,
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  leafy tissue will be produced which is good which means that you get more from the one sowing.
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  You can also stagger sowing if you're a small scale grower or just growing for
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  yourself that's always a good option so that you don't get inundated with a
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  vast amount of basil that you're probably only going to be able to make pesto with.
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  So whether you're chasing flavour, yield or shelf life hydroponic basil is a
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  craft crop and with the right variety nutrient light and purpose,
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  it can be reliable and a rewarding choice.
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  I've certainly helped a few hydroponic commercial basil growers over the years,
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  some in South Korea, I think, where basil isn't growing so much,
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  and they really struggled with the.
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  The leaf shape and just the ec values
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  and the humidity so they really have to
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  get those dialed in so and not only
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  that if you don't get your humidity and your ventilation right you could
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  get serious foliar diseases basil is
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  a great one for not vertical farming in
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  the sense of numerous trays stacked up
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  but vertical systems where the plants are
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  positioned vertically so that they it
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  can be easily harvested and trimmed and things like this so there's
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  lots of ventilation so there's sort of vertical I don't
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  know what the word is for them but yeah where the plants are flowing vertically
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  and you and you you harvest it just standing up rather than reaching into a
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  bed so that that's one that's very commonly grown in that sort of system and
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  it also provides the purple varieties when they're mixed in with a green provide
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  a lot of color that can make your,
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  hydroponic grow room look really cool as well and that's
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  one of the reasons we grow hydroponically is to make them look really
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  cool so that's been hydroponics daily for today if
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  you're new to the podcast remember that this podcast has been going
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  every day since the first of january 2025 so if you are on things like apple
• 9:09
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• 9:13
  to hydroponic episodes are found in like the january february episodes so head
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  to podbean hydroponics daily podbean hydroponics daily to find the early episodes.
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  Thank you very much for listening, and I will see you again tomorrow.