Hobbyist, Professional, and Commercial Hydroponic Systems

You may be wonder if your a hobbyist, professional, or commecial hydroponic system user. In this blog, I will explain the differences between the 3 and hopefully this will help you in your endevours.

A hobbyist gardener is one who wants to grow only for himself. Hobbyist hydroponic systems usually hold about 10 plants or less. If you are looking to grow organic vegetables for yourself and family, the hobbyist is just about right for you. The 9 plant economy grow box, for example, is perfect as far as pricing, size, and production for the hobbyist grower. You can grow up to 9 plants, which is enough to feed yourself and a few family members for the month.

A professional grower is one looking to profit off of the hydroponic system. A professional hydroponic system usually holds about 15 - 32 plants. With a Co2 system, harvesting an average of 24 plants, would provide one huge yields at the end of the month. In fact, it would be enough to support a home business such as providing fresh herbs to a restaurant.

A commercial hydroponic system is for extremely huge yields. Commercial boxes usually range from 32 - 80 plants. Commercial growers are usually looking for gigantic profits from gigantic yields. In fact, many commercial growers buy a few commercial size boxes for massive yields. For example, one may buy 4 jumbo stealth hydroponics, each holding up to 40 plants, in order to boost their income.

Wether you are a hobbyist, professional, or commercial grower, the great news is that the system always ends up paying for itself. But it is important figure out what where you stand, and what you are looking to accomplish before ordering a grow box system.

Hydroponic Yields Per Acre

Many may wonder how much yield hydroponics produce. Most hydroponic system owners have already discovered that grow boxes produce larger and faster yields compared to indoor gardening. I have set up some samples of yields a hydroponic system can produce vs traditional agrigulture gardening.

These figures are set at a per acre sample.

Wheat
With hydroponics: 8000 lb
Traditional gardening: 5600 lb.

Rice
With hydroponics: 12,000 lb.
Traditional gardening: 750-900 lb.

Corn
With hydroponics: 8,000 lb.
Traditional gardening: 1,500 lb.

Oats
With hydroponics: 3,000 lb.
Traditional gardening: 1,850 lb.

Peas
With hydroponics: 140,000 lb.
Traditional gardening: 25,000 lb.

Tomatoes
With hydroponics: 180 tons
Traditional gardening: 5-10 tons

Cucumber
With hydroponics: 28,000 lb.
Traditional gardening: 7,000 lb.

As you can see, the technology of hydroponics makes a pretty big difference compared to traditional growing. If only we can figure out low cost methods of creating an entire acre (or acres) of hydroponic equipment to grow healthy yields and maybe use all the excess food for good causes. For now, it seems the biggest hydroponic system out there is the Super Jumbo Stealth. Until we can figure out more cost effective ways to mass produce hydroponic systems, the most one can grow with one single system appears to be 80 plants. On a final thought, it is important to note that the 80 plants in the Super Jumbo Stealth would produce much higher yields at faster rates than traditional growing.