What are “Beneficials” REALLY + Hydroponics for Small Farms?

Hey nerds, Farmer Jesse here. Welcome to Growers Daily, your daily dose of ecological farming insight. It is Tuesday, January 28th, 2025, and today we're talking about the conference within a conference. We're talking about hydroponics, and we're defining beneficials for real. So let's do it. All right, so I feel like I will be recovering from the last five or six days for the next five or six days because of just the sheer amount of socializing I've done, and not just for the conference, but I also spent the last two evenings helping with signups for our local soccer league, which again, this is pretty much your final reminder, farmers, to sign your kids up for spring sports in most areas if you plan to do so, because the league's gotta order jerseys and such, so don't say I didn't warn you. I know why you would, but you can't put that on me. So I've done a lot of chatting over these last few days. I talked a bit yesterday about how much I enjoy seeing a certain group of farmers who I have known for like a decade or a decade and a half in many cases, but I also just love the nature of the hallway conversations that occur. This is sort of an offshoot of yesterday's first segment and also one from last week, but one of the conversations we kept having at this particular conference was about conversations themselves, and that one thing these organizations, like the farmers' organizations, could do to further help farmers is just to facilitate more farmer get-togethers without a really specific agenda like a conference has and expectations to stop your hallway conversations for seminars. To be clear, that seminar part is still awesome, 100%. I love the conferences, and there should be one of those every year, but we also want an excuse to come together and just hang out and information share conversationally, casually throughout the year, but don't always have the time or capacity to organize such things. Something kid-friendly, something social, a new place every month or quarter, just to have conversations. For instance, my friend Paul from Good Times Farm, he and I discussed some specific tools and techniques we like, but we also talked about just general health and vacations and parenting and business and a million other things. In other words, we discussed not just farming, but everything else that surrounds the farm. It was information sharing on many aspects of life casually navigated by the nature of the conversation. I had a chat with my buddy Bryce from Lazy Eight Stock Farm here in Kentucky, but literally talked nothing about farming. We talked the entire time about youth soccer, and it was great because it's something we both are passionate about and have to fit into our farm lifestyles. I talked to a researcher and entomologist from the University of Kentucky about insect netting trials they are doing and about how Brighton, my team, and Man City, his team, are doing in the Premier League this season. I talked to my friend Maggie from Salad Days about some of the trials she's doing on her farm and some of the challenges with that and what she's learned about running trials. I discussed solar power programs in Kentucky and also the comic book character Daredevil with my buddy Joel from Earth Tools. And you may be like, Jesse, what you're describing here, buddy, is just a phone call, but it's not. Phone calls are great too, for sure, but these conversations are different from a phone call because other people can just meander in and out and add new things. Kids can play, hugs abound. It's different. I know that for me, and perhaps this show represents this idea to some extent, I like information in free-flowing little bits and pieces, information that just kind of comes through casual conversation with like-minded professionals and it gives you time to digest different information and offer different insight. The thing is, it can be complicated for reasons I mentioned yesterday, for farmers to coordinate get-togethers like these. But if your local ag organizations can help facilitate simple farmer potlucks and hangouts, and maybe they do. Maybe your local ag organization already does things like this. But if your local ag organization can help facilitate farmer potlucks and hangouts, then take advantage of that. I love me a good seminar, don't get me wrong, and I want those to continue always, but those hallway conversations are just as important to me and just as educational oftentimes, and I don't think they can be readily replicated in seminar form. It kind of has to be, for lack of a better word, organic. Unlike a seminar, or maybe even in this show, conversations have this sort of built-in reciprocity and flow that acts like a choose-your-own-adventure. Like maybe you talk about what you plan to talk about or wanted to talk about with that person or need to talk about, or maybe you talk about brands of clogs you like and how you just bought a brand new car and you're excited about it and got a good deal on it. Not sure that's the type of thing that would necessarily come up in a seminar, but it's basically every five minutes in the hallway. And I love that. Hopefully this show does provide that a little bit for you all, or maybe you have thoughts on hallway conversations or conversations in general, or events that local ag organizations put on. Because up next, we're gonna jump from hallway conversations to hydroponics, just like that. All right, BRB. ♪ We got something now to talk about now ♪ Today's episode of Growers Daily is brought to you by Harnois Greenhouses. Harnois Greenhouses has pioneered controlled environment agriculture since 1965, partnering with market gardeners and farmers across North America to deliver turnkey greenhouse solutions. Their unwavering mission is to support growers' success through innovation and expertise in design, manufacturing, and installation. Harnois Greenhouses are engineered to withstand high wind and snow loads, providing optimal brightness, increased yields, rapid ROI, and long-lasting durability. With over 20,000 projects completed, they are more than a manufacturer. They are a trusted partner. Their structures foster sustainable, energy-efficient ecosystems that drive profitable, resilient agriculture. In 2025, Harnois is introducing a new, low-tech, high-tunnel model, starting at just $2 per square foot, offering open-field growers an accessible entry into controlled environment agriculture. Harnois Greenhouses, leading the way in turnkey solutions for local growers. Learn more at harnois.com, that's H-A-R-N-O-I-S.com. All right, back to the show. If you, the listener, are enjoying this content, getting even a small amount of value from it, consider supporting our work over at patreon.com slash no-till growers. Is this bringing you two or $5 worth of value every month? Entertainment? Confusion? You can throw in over there, and I will try to get to questions from everywhere the questions come in, but I will always get to your Patreon questions like little mini consultations. Now, today's Patreon question comes from Patreon member Blair Akin, who writes, quote, Hi Jesse, I really appreciate hearing you talk about new trajectories in the small farming scene, and I'm curious about your thoughts on hydroponics. Do you foresee many small scale growers moving to hydroponics? How do you think hydro will affect the market for soil growers? Do you think it has a place, and if so, can you elaborate? Thanks for all you do, end quote. Awesome, okay, thanks Blair. So for starters, and those of you who may not know, hydroponics encompasses a lot of different techniques, but is largely a soilless production system for growing food. Examples are like deep water culture, which is where trays of plants are set out inside of highly oxygenated water with nutrients. There is the nutrient film technique, which generally resembles plastic channels filled with plants, the roots of which are dangling down into nutrients and water passing through the channels. Also aquaponics, which cycles water through fish tanks to help fertilize the water, while the plants help clean the water for the fish. There is a very simple wicking system that is much more passive, and basically just takes fresh water up through a wick into growing medium of some sort to water the plants. Some of these have been, are relatively new, and some of them have been around forever, and there are many other variations, but essentially these are greenhouse systems that grow a considerable amount of food in a tiny space with water and typically added nutrients, not soil. These systems have to be clean, exact, and chemically balanced. I often say hydroponics is much more about chemistry than it is about biology, and certainly less about ecology, as they are done almost exclusively indoors in relatively sterile environments. However, the reason I am not anti-hydroponics necessarily is that, as the studies show, these systems can be more efficient with water than soil-grown food, and can produce a lot of food in a small area. As freshwater access decreases, which with multiple oil and chemical lobbyists being chosen to run the EPA is not likely to change anytime soon here in the US. Anyway, as water quality and access decreases, systems that better utilize the water become more necessary. So I don't wanna badmouth hydroponics because it may become, sadly, an increasing necessity. At the same time, on a personal level, I find the hydroponic food I have tasted to be somewhat lacking in flavor. I've not tasted food from every hydroponic system, to be sure, but I mean, for the hydroponic food I've tasted, it doesn't really taste like much. Or there was the one time I was given some collards from an aquaculture setup that tasted like, I mean, just honestly tasted like dust, and it was honestly pretty inedible. Now, I would take that over the chemically-tasting conventional food I sometimes run into, but I love good flavor, and I do not find that much flavor at all in hydroponic food, at least the hydroponic food I've tasted. I don't wanna overgeneralize there. Now, to be fair, I'm also pretty spoiled. I've spent 15 years eating fresh organic produce, and before that, I was a cook for many years in high-end kitchens, which I should say is where I learned making thousands and thousands of salads of hydroponic lettuce, albeit consistent and generally lovely to look at, and tender, was not the most interesting thing to eat. Chefs use it for consistency sometimes, but I believe most of them will probably admit that the flavor is just, it's okay. That said, advances in these systems are happening all the time, and I'm cool with being wrong, so chefs and others can feel free to let me know if the flavor of hydroponics has really come around. Do I think more of these systems will challenge small-scale growers? I mean, maybe, but these systems are pretty expensive to set up and run for most scales, plus they involve a different skillset altogether. There was an ambitious project here in Kentucky that recently went bankrupt because of the operational costs, low cash flow, and other things, or at least that's my understanding. Also, the majority of hydroponic produce is not being sold in a CSA or a farmer's market. Hydroponic produce is usually large-scale wholesale, so although there may be some efficiencies, such as space and water, the cost-prohibitive nature of these systems limits the small-scale adaptation, especially when left to have to produce enough to make wholesale make sense. This is compounded if you want a system that is not only highly efficient, but automated and easy to clean and manage diseases. It's not a cheap system. People get excited or conversely nervous about automated technologies and such, but they often forget that, oh, right, this stuff is wildly pricey. It's getting cheaper and more accessible, so maybe ask me again in like five years how I feel about it. Also, I'm not a hydroponic expert, and I know there are small-scale growers out there who have set up successful systems. I just don't ever really see it being the norm or being a large competitor to what smaller-scale soil-based growers do, anytime soon necessarily, but I'm often wrong. I know for me, I don't have the brain for the chemistry or the desire to grow food whose flavor doesn't inspire me a ton. Plus, I like bugs, bird songs, and ecology, and the smell of soil. The drone of fans and bubblers can be a lot for me to deal with for long periods of time, but there is room for these systems because increasingly there is less room for soil-based farms and less access to potable water. So I hope that at least somewhat answers your question, Blair. I hope the comments section can add to that. Anyway, thanks, and we'll take a quick break. When we come back, let's discuss what is actually meant by that term, beneficials. Be right back. Today's episode of Growers Daily is brought to you by Harnois Greenhouses. Harnois Greenhouses has pioneered controlled environment agriculture since 1965, partnering with market gardeners and farmers across North America to deliver turnkey greenhouse solutions. Their unwavering mission is to support growers' success through innovation and expertise in design, manufacturing, and installation. Harnois Greenhouses are engineered to withstand high wind and snow loads, providing optimal brightness, increased yields, rapid ROI, and long-lasting durability. With over 20,000 projects completed, they are more than a manufacturer. They are a trusted partner. Their structures foster sustainable, energy-efficient ecosystems that drive profitable, resilient agriculture. In 2025, Harnois is introducing a new low-tech, high-tunnel model starting at just $2 per square foot, offering open-field growers an accessible entry into controlled environment agriculture. Harnois Greenhouses, leading the way in turnkey solutions for local growers. Learn more at harnois.com, that's H-A-R-N-O-I-S.com. All right, back to the show. All right, so that term, beneficials, gets thrown around quite a bit. Bring in beneficials, attract beneficials, you plant flowers for beneficials, but what are we actually talking about here when we talk about encouraging beneficial insects or planting for beneficials? And hopefully this will redeem me a little bit for all the times I say the show is to add a little ecological insight and then I talk about soccer. So there are two main types of beneficials, predators and pollinators. Although you could add a third category of soil healthers that burrow and bury poop and like dung beetles, you would of course have to invent the word soil healthers, but I think we could manage that. Anyway, we'll stick to the two main beneficials and start with predators. For starters, there are no insects, good or bad, that have zero predators, or at least that we're aware of. But I think we'd be aware of them pretty fast if there was an insect that could just do its thing unimpeded. Sometimes cicadas get thrown in there as predatorless, but that's not accurate. Things eat cicadas, things eat lantern flies, whatever else the internet is telling you that things don't eat, things eat. This is therefore true of every garden pest. They all have predators, both big and small. We discussed slugs yesterday, but there are various beetles who would be pumped to find some slug eggs. So one goal of planting beneficial attracting plants is to attract insects that feed on things like aphids, such as lacewings, or to attract insects like the brachynoid wasp that will parasitize tomato hornworms. And yes, there are specific plants that are ideal for attracting specific insects for specific pests, but being too exact may miss the goal. The primary thing is having a diversity of pollinatious plants, which I'm pretty sure is also not a word, but you get it, English is fun like that. Gardens need plants that are high in pollen and bloom at different times throughout the year to ensure a continuous supply of food for the insects. Then that same rule applies for pollinators, the second category, I guess. They need pollen sources before and after you need pollinators. Making habitats for these insects is good, but food sources are essential and the pollinators are likely to make the housing situation work for them if the food situation is plentiful. For emphasis, it's not super helpful to put up things like bug hotels and no bug food. And there are several sources online to discover regionally sensible flowers for you to plant that can give you a full season of blooms starting in the early spring and lasting until the late fall. And I mean, not one flower, like multiple flowers that just give you a huge bloom window. Some flowers are more efficient at attracting and feeding these beneficials than others. Some are perennials and some are annuals. Early blooming trees and shrubs can play a role, especially at the beginning of spring when nothing else is quite there. There's a lot of room to play here. But if your concern is pests, then having one area or one bed dedicated strictly to bringing in and feeding beneficials can make a huge difference. Of course, the more the merrier, as studies show that beneficials only travel so far, that is a distance from a flower to a plant or a pest on your plant. This weekend, Daniel Mays of Frith Farm said at the Oak Conference that he has a goal of having a flowering perennial plant within 50 feet of every crop he grows on his farm. And I think that's a great goal. So more flowering perennials, some grass is thrown in the mix, lots of native perennials if you can, and just some pollinatious powerhouses, which is also incidentally the name of my jug band. We mostly cover Strokes songs. If I remember correctly, Ian Zeglin said this weekend that they researched pollinators around their farm up there at Green Acres Foundation, and the researchers found that things like mountain mints and umbels brought in the widest array of insects. So anyway, maybe that helps to get the wheels turning for you all a little bit this spring. I'm gonna wrap it up there, though. I will share more about my plans for increasing our perennial and flowering plant density on our own farm. Huge shouts to Willy Breeding for the theme music and the team, and No-Till Growers also shouts to Epidemic Sound for the background music you hear now. Don't forget, if you or someone you know is in Kentucky and could use some extra work, we are seeking an editor slash producer for this show. Follow the link in the show notes for this QR code here to fill that out. Pick up a copy of The Living Soil Handbook or The Seed Farmer at notillgrowers.com to support our work. Big, big thank you to everyone over at patreon.com slash notillgrowers where, at a certain level, or if you just bump up from one level to another, or you sign up in the month of January, you get a shout-out on the show. So big shout-outs today to Lucky Fraley. Lucky's an awesome name. Chard Chard, like charring Swiss chard, awesome. Sarah, Robert Frederick, and Martha Caldwell Young. Ooh, this is a good, this feels very literary. So, I mean, I would say that this is the classic story of a group of literary agents who are at a literary agent conference, a book show, and they're having conversations about the future of literature with AI involved, but plot twist, it turns out that this conference in particular was put on by an AI chatbot because it had become fond of human literature and wanted to see how it could be helpful. So, yeah, some complicated emotions at this conference, but some good conversations. All right, thanks for listening and or watching. We will see you tomorrow. Bye.