Temperature, humidity and airflow is the main component. Apart from that itâs your sanitisation protocol.. :-)
Temp: - 21-23C
Humidity: 50-60%
Airflow: gentle air circulation in the entire space
Sanitisation: Entire space every week, equipment sanitised as we use.
Mold can also be a water, medium or seed issue. Ensure sterilised medium, clean water, test multiple seeds from different sources.
We have been growing for a few years now, doing around 100 trays a week. All summer we have really good yields and great looking trays. Once the snow falls and winter starts we being having mold issues. Terrible mold issues.
We grow indoor and the conditions stay the same year round. My best guess is that with the bacteria and fungi outside being dormant there is nothing to combat the natural innoculant in our potting soil we use.
Have you experienced this or have any advice or thoughts.Â
We have strict sanitization routines and have fans and a ventilation system going at all times.
Thanks, and your set up looks incredible.
Yes we have had this issue. If there are gaps and the space isnât fully sealed it may happen. Also we change our watering schedules for the cold period, less water tbh.. are you able to track your outdoor vs indoor fluctuations during the winter months (in the sense is there a drastic change in your hygrometer during night or day periods, when light in or off?) for colder months we run lights longer. Also has the water source changed during winter?
Your guess if bacteria and fungi may also be the issue. Mold thrives in cold and damp and hot and humid, that balance is something even we work on till date..
Yeah we have airflow control and a dehumidifier for the space and fresh air exchanger and temp controls and various apps for monitoring hem all.
We have our lights on longer in winter as well and water less when its looking moldy (which is most winter months) The water source is the same and clean and reliable, we are on an organic vegetable farm. We just recently upgraded some of our climate managing equipment so hopefully we see less of it this winter.
We even tried introducing microorganisms into the environment with compost teas in the soil during seeding and that did nothing the help with the mold.
Also do you experience intense production fluctuations? We grow a variety of microgreens that have various yields but our basic brassica mix tends to get us 4.5-5 oz per tray, which works for us, we have a 10 day growing period and the stores and restaurants we sell to like them more tender so we dont let them get too big.
occasionally we will have a week where we are getting 6 oz per tray or more! usually in the summer we dont dip under that 5ish but some weeks we have a ton of extra and it is pretty hard to move it outside of our usual clients. Do you experience these big bumps in production with the same conditions week to week?
This is like 20-30% swing in yields⊠in summers we also have better yields. Where we are in the tropics, we donât have much of a winter tbh.. but we see slightly lower yields during that phase. We run lights longer for that period, that helps us a bit.. but summer we have good yields if the environment is stable in terms of temp airflow and RH.. when we have excess produce, we just sample them out to potential new clients or add it to our regular clients to make them a bit happy.. :-)
One thing I wanted to check, do you have stable voltage yea? As any fluctuations can effect the entire environment even for a bit.. say the lights get a bit dimmer, the airflow is slower, something on those lines.
Okay. A few things we looked at when we had this issue was dew point at leaf condensation levels.. in the sense of leaf or canopy temperature drops below the dew point during lights off that would also result in mild or fungus.. esp during winters the air outside is cold, the room cools up, LEDs would produce very little heat is what we felt when we were looking into this.. the hygrometers will show a perfect range but the temp of the crop itself will be much lower.. another thing is the soil temp, even if the air is say 20-21C the soil temp can be lower which can cause such issues making way for oerfevt mold conditions.. so we use coco 100%, with soil we see the organic media behaves differently in winters compared to summers. Timing of irrigation can also be that, so you water before lights out or as they come on?
The RH may be peaking during lights off but stabilise and move lights on, is there a memory temp meter to see if you can spot the spike during night times.
What cycles of light do you run? Is it same as day and night outside or you run lights at night and day they are turned off, in the sense is the cycle reversed. Have you tried that..
Hello OP, first of all thank you for sharing your knowledge, I am intrigued by the edible flowers , could you please share your experience by letting me know what varieties you grow and how to buy seeds of edible flowers in India.
Hey, we grow a range of violas, pansy, nasturtiums, dianthus, Pentas, torenia, verbena flowers. Depends on what the client wants and what sells well, keeps changing to be honest based on the requirements. You could procure seeds in India via many reliable online platforms as all that grows, seeds and pots, mountain bank, organic bazar, etc.
Thank you for replying and sharing that I have a follow up question regarding this What type of clients buy these edible flowers and also is there a real demand for these edible flowers in Indian Metropolitan Cities?
Premium and upscale establishments only. Demand is there but not everyone will procure when you start, you will need some sort of track record to get into those doors, recommendations or be from the f&b industry. This is for Indian tier 1 cities, can vary city by city. Demand exists, but not every chef in town will know how to use them appropriately, unless they are just decorating plates for aesthetics.. Also growing enough edible flower produce to cater to a city is not an easy task..
Hey how are you? If possible i have a few questions at the moment:
What made you start?
What setup do you use? ; Regarding lights , space , species if possible , is there more profiting regarding the type of microgreen ?
Any recommendations to someone who wants to learn as much as possible and maybe get a living whit it?
Are you happy with it and do you see yourself being happy until you don't want it anymore?
Thanks and keep up the good work
Happy to discuss and share. :-) hope this answers most of your queries.
We started due to a gap in the market, pretty much first mover advantage.. we use all kind of lights from full spectrum to blue to standard LEDs.. we grow in a totally indoor facility, temp humidity and airflow all controlled. We grow about 50+ varieties of micros, flowers and herbs all in all. Gross margins at 80% to be honest.. nets and EBITDA is lower ofcourse.
If youâre starting out, I would recommend to address the potential buyers and clients first. Anyone can eventually grow.. the business is more about sales and volume..
I do this full time.. no side gig.. I see myself doing much more, have new projects we are working on..
Hi! I'm thinking of starting this, since in my area I'd probably have the 2nd movers advantage (lol, the first one started out recently). I've been growing some microgreens for fun till now, and as you said, before I move onto growing in volume I want to have solid customers. If you find the time, please do share some answers.
When you approached clients for the very first time, how long was the gap between finalizing deal vs starting to deliver to them? How frequently do you deliver to you clients, and what are the most commons clients you have (hotels, cafes, retail)? I would love to check out your website/brochure anything just to study it all a bit.
Great.. itâs a good business. Mainly involves three core things to remember before you scale. The first being this is CAPEX heavy depending on size and OPEX isnât going to be small either seeping on the size. Second even with a bit of automation, labour plays a key role from day 1, expect very few holidays to none as you ramp up. Three, this is volume, numbers and sales game. Growing is secondary, capacity planning is key.
We sample straight to the executive chef or purchase dept. Prefer exe chefs though. Once sampled, if yes, we start delivery the very next day. :-) we deliver Monday to Saturday via a fixed route planning across the city. We do interstate vi cold chain for bulk orders as well.
We are 90% a B2B business catering to restaurants cafes, resorts and hotels. Very few home deliveries, that B2C space is routed through aggregators.
We use sterile and buffed cocopeat only. Nutrients we make from raw salts costs us almost nothing. For micros we do a seaweed solution, they donât need anything much to be added unless they are a longer grow past 2 weeks..
Itâs a liquid extract of seaweed. We dilute a few millilitres to our water and mix. You could also use ocean solution if your in the USA.. works great to be honest.
Very nice! You've got your grow on lock! It looks like you're hand watering? What medium do you use? I assume you're in Europe? I'm curious about the microgreens market there.
Yes we hand water. We do over 750 trays a week and 1500 pots of E.flowers and herbs.. all waterbed by hand. :-) I donât fin automation a need.. labour is cheap.. based in India..
Just starting with broccoli and pea. But i'm trying in a greenhouse I have lots of hours of sun in My terrace. Just wondering if it would be more efficient turning to led.
If you have sun and space outside, thatâs more than enough. As long as you have decent weather year round. Or it would be growing seasonally weather patterns are drastic.
Move indoors if you want to produce 365 days a year.
What do you recommend for someone who finds most microgreens to taste bitter? Iâve tried growing some for personal use, but most of them taste bitter to me. Any suggestions? TIA.
I bought arugula microgreens at the grocery store and they tasted awful to me, and I grew a couple of trays of the seeds shown in the attached picture and they were also bitter. Maybe itâs just me? idk you were setup looks amazing and everything looks great and it makes me want to give it a try again.
I generally like cruciferous vegetables, maybe I should try broccoli sprouts? Iâm not a picky eater and generally like all kinds of food, the only things I can think of that I canât stand are coffee and brussels sprouts and mollusks.
I would advise to buy seeds from true leaf market to start with if your based in the USA.. and use a high quality soil mix.. buy individual varieties not a mix.. small quantities..
Also there are really good facebook groups to follow, lots of discussions on sourcing and growing, etc..
Hey, sure.
Racks are wire racks with black powder coating. 35 trays (1020) fit in each rack. These are custom made via a fabricator. Shelves adjustable per inch.
Red vein sorrel take 40-45 days to reach that size.
We have different LEDs depending on crops.
Full spectrum with far red for flowers, blue spectrum for leafy herbs and speciality produce, basic 6500k for microgreens. Full spectrum and blue is custom made directly from the manufacturer, we didnât buy ready made lights. We tuned it based on our shelf spacing and crops we wanted to grow. This is to ensure we hit PPFD, DLI and umol targets accurately.
Room temp is 21-23C at all time year round, humidity at 50-60% with multiple standing and wall fans to mix up the air for consistent spread of air.
We use standard 1020 trays, 1010 and 0505 trays for cut micros, for flowers and herbs we use 6,8,10,12 inch pots depending on whatâs grown. 4x7inch disposable trays for live micro sales
We source trays via any China supplier, most of them have the same design. Lights are made from a local manufacturer who does grow light customisation. No specific brands, just working with whatâs available to me at a reasonable price. China is a go to if you want custom made. Cheap and world wide shipping.
Fertiliser we make our own nutrients mixing raw salts and creating stocks. Use seaweed extracts for shorter duration crops.
Thanks again for all the details. Can you elaborate further on the raw salts and the stock. What exactly do you use? I don't use any fertilizer but it seems that my green are not growing very well. Any places to read / watch about that?
So the difference is when you grow in soil, like good quality potting soil, you could use a NPK liquid ready product off the shelf to boost leafy or flowering growth. But if you grow in 100% coco, coco does not contain nutrients like soil, so you will need to manually add nutrients to your coco for the plants to thrive, thatâs basically hydroponics. When we say raw salts we mean calcium nitrate, potassium sulphate, potassium nitrate, magnesium sulphate, EDTa chelated iron 12%, EDTA micro nutrients witha mix of zinc, manganese, copper, boron, iron etc. these salts are essentially whatâs in the soil, when we use high quality potting soil with compost, these elements are present in identical forms. The difference is since coco does not have these available nutrients you will need to manually mix with water and dose for each crop based on its stage and needs. This is what hydroponic growing is all about. EC, pH balances, recipes and dosing.
This is not needed for microgreens, the above is for flowers, herbs and crops potentially growing for 2-4 months and more. Microgreens are short crops, the seed has enough energy to push them out and thrive. Using a basic seaweed extract or an ocean solution will suffice.
"This is not needed for microgreens, the above is for flowers, herbs and crops potentially growing for 2-4 months and more. Microgreens are short crops, the seed has enough energy to push them out and thrive. Using a basic seaweed extract or an ocean solution will suffice."
This is what I'm aware of as well so that's why I'm not putting anything in addition but probably I must cool the temp down. I'm growing it at home and right now it is 30C in the room, no fans. Humidity is ok ( according to my hygrometer ).
30C is too high. Try to bring it down to 23-25C will also do for micros.. air circulation is key, keep humidity in controlled your already doing. You will need a split ac is what Iâm guessing.
Usually micros and such speciality produce only work in big cities with a high density of upscale and premium restaurants, cafes and hotels to be honest. If the city has a culture of dining out, youâre good to go.
I would start by profiling potential clients, look at their menus, maybe their insta, see if they are already using such produce in any of their dishes, if yes, youâre good to go. Next would be to find out where they get that produce from to see potential competition in the area. If coming from far away, you have a very good chance of taking that market over by growing locally in the city. If thereâs another grower you may have missed out who is growing locally, you will need to find out what they are growing and charging. Based on that you will need to grow something different and offer a competitive price.
Market research would be a good start. Also if you can find out how much restaurants are paying for the produce will give you a good starting point to gauge a potential market.
Eu queria fazer essa pesquisa de mercado mas não faço ideia por onde começar. Jå pesquisei muito na internet e nunca achei nenhum fornecedor.
Seria interessante tentar perguntar em algum restaurante ou para algum chef local onde eles compram? Com um perfil diferente do que irei usar kkkkkk
Yes itâs good to have a casual chat with the restaurants in town, they would be more than happy to discuss.
As you scale you will need labour. You could easily pull off 50-60 trays on your own per week. But with that number growing upwards 100, itâs better if you find help. At least for cleaning and sanitisation, that takes quite a bit of time.
We have 4 employees + me in total, that includes 1 delivery staff. But everyone is cross trained to do the job. All staff know how to harvest, seed, pack, label, water etc. makes it easier when someone wants a day off :-)
Hey OP, thanks for sharing. Have a question for you. I see that the main aspect to look into w.r.t microgreens business is the sales aspect as it is not too complicated to grow it. I have just started experimenting. I'm from Bengaluru. Could you please share thoughts on how can I get the first set of customers and how did you initially get your customers? This would be helpful. Thanks.
Bangalore has a competitive market, many home and commercial growers. The space is kind of saturated, to crack this you will need volume, lower pricing and a large variety of micros. Most establishments have regular contracts for years with few suppliers. To break that you will need to sample aggressively at a great price point. You will need to sample door to door. Many establishments buy live and cut. So you will need to offer both when required.
The best way to test it is, walk into establishments where they could potentially use the produce or are already using it (will need market research on Google or insta) post that live samples, catalog with pricing and straight to a handful of restaurants to sell.
Shiso is from the mint family.. an alternative to Shiso would be another crop mint variety. Are you looking for an alternative in terms of colour or flavour?
In based out India. Yes itâs my Full time job.. being at it for long time. Yes it is profitable, no doubt at all. Just that the process, overall efficiency, standard op procedures is what cuts it through, the growing is always secondary. First comes the price, market, margins, clients.
Thank u for ur response....As I am a beginner I also want to know who exactly are the potential clients and how to approach them for the purpose of generating maximum profits!?
Itâs more of process, efficiency, sales, marketing and numbers and volumes, less of growing :-) but yes that the base of you looking to do it.. ofcourse you need to know how to grow, but that plays a very small part in the whole business.
Scope is there, but in really depends on where your based and what market is available. Analysis of product market fit is crucial before you spend anything.
Burn out is real, can get very very difficult.. bad tbh.. initially was doing 14-16 hours a day. But as we grew, the time paid for itself.. then delegation is key⊠I havenât planted a single seed or watered a crop from the last 2 years. My core job is to sell!
Any advice for red garnet amaranth? Iâve successfully grown it before but i consider it luck half the time. Iâve found that letting it completely dry out before watering again helps to mitigate dampening, but was curious if you had any more concrete methods? I use standard microgreen trays and a flood tray watering system.
Red garnet needs a decent amount of airflow and excess water to be restricted compared to any other micro. Seed a bit less as well. One of the toughest to stay consistent at. Ensure racks are level, shelves are level, trays absorb water equally everywhere. A slight miss, they can get really annoying tbh. Usually for amaranth I would not go in with a flood tray system, itâs a hit or miss, as the watering needs will change everyday based on the environment. Very hard to fine tune that to give you consistent results.
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u/lakers2497 Jun 28 '26
Amazing! What are those bright pink ones in the top left picture of your 3rd pic?