Salute to Idaho Agriculture: GreenWave Hydroponics grows all year

FRUITLAND, Idaho (KMVT/KSVT) — The growing season is commencing; however, there is another unique way to farm, hydroponics and they have the benefit of being able to grow food all year long.

“I always had a dream of doing it, and it’s going great,” said Amos Wengerd, owner of GreenWave Hydroponics.

Hydroponics is a unique way of farming that utilizes mostly water to provide nutrients to the plants. Some plants are put into a soil pot, but others are not, like lettuce.

Wengerd moved from Pennsylvania to Fruitland with his wife and started this business not that long ago.

“We started four years ago in 2021, spring of 2021 we got going. I built the greenhouse myself. We got going, we started selling by June.”

GreenWave Hydroponics grows all sorts of greens like lettuce, basil, and rosemary.

It’s a strange way of farming, that takes a while to get started. However, it does come with some great benefits.

“The benefits of hydroponic farming are endless. Some of the biggest ones are no disease pressure, no pest problems, very little. We actually completely quit spraying 100%. We don’t do any, not even organic pesticides. If we have any problem with any pests, we just bring in some ladybugs”

Wengerd also said that it is more water-efficient than standard farming practices and if you would like to do a small-scale version, there are ways to do it.

“So, to get started at home, you can buy a lot of kits online. You can make your own kits; you can get into it fairly inexpensively. The most important things are your light and your nutrients. If you make sure your plants, get enough lights per day, they like 12-16 hours of light per day. And make sure your nutrients are where they supposed to be.”

He recommends sending your water to a lab to get tested, as each water source is unique. Some of the nutrients needed to grow food with hydroponics are potassium, calcium, and magnesium.

And Wengerd says that he does see hydroponics becoming more popular.

“I think this is one of the most important things as land becomes increasingly more expensive and harder to get, this is more important as you can get a huge amount of food in a small area.”

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