When you create a system, such as our hydroponics greenhouse, you want to plan it out with a model first. For our model, we will just be looking at how much food the hydroponics system should theoretically be able to produce in a year. First, we need to find the value of all our variables for the model, which are simply the number of lettuce and growth period.
We will be producing butterhead lettuce of which the growth period is about 50-60 days, so let’s just call it 55 days. Now, we can find the number of lettuce by dividing the length of our pipe by the growth space of one head and then multiplying by the amount of pipes. If our pipe is 52 inches long and a head of butterhead lettuce requires 8 inches diameter to grow, then we can grow about 6 heads per pipe, which multiplied by 3 pipes is 18 heads of lettuce.
With the number of lettuce the system can grow at once and the growth period, we know that it can grow 18 heads every 55 days. Since there are 365 days in a year, we reach the conclusion that we can grow an average of 120 heads of lettuce per year.
Grow with the flow!
Climate Roots 