Seedling and sowing is a large labour intensity, time-consuming, technical strong work. Traditional breeding methods are usually open-air operations, including artificial preparation, soil loosening, opening, planting, sowing, soil covering, fertilization, etc. However, this kind of seedling-raising method is often affected by human factors or natural disasters, which makes the seedling raising have a long time, poor quality and many mistakes, which is difficult to meet the requirements of commercialization and continuous promotion. It is an inevitable choice to reform the traditional way of seedling raising and improve the yield of vegetables and cash crops.

With the continuous improvement of agricultural management scale, production specialization, mechanization and automation degree, modern agriculture has been rapid development, the emergence of a mature agricultural advanced technology-industrial seedling. It is a way of production that adopts scientific, mechanized, automatic and other technical measures and means to mass-produce high-quality seedlings.

Factory seedlings compared with a traditional seedlings, not only greatly reduce the influence of natural disasters, and they have high seedling efficiency, strong risk resistance, low cost, and quality assurance, to overcome the disadvantages of scattered management farmers, for seedling farmers’ lack of experience and lack of labour, solve the problem of their seedling, to reduce costs, improve benefits.
Factory seedling raising adopts the hydroponic method and substrate seedling, among which seedling tray is a rapid seedling method gradually popularized in recent years. It has the significant advantages of saving manpower and land, high survival rate and having excellent seedling quality. In order to completely give full play to the advantages of factory seedling raising, in addition to the scientific control of the planting environment, it is also crucial to the choice of planting substrate.

So what conditions should be considered when choosing a seedling substrate?

Physical Property

Uniform shape, stable structure

Factory seedling needs a substrate to have a certain mechanical strength and adapt to factory mechanized production. UPuper® rockwool substrate with uniform shape, and stable structure,convenient for the identification of automatic mechanical equipment, can get rid of a lot of artificial dependence, realize intelligent operation, reduce labour costs, and improve work efficiency.

Porosity

The higher rate of growing medium's air porosity, the larger amount of filling with water and air. Otherwise, the water and air holding capacity is low. A substrate with a good air porosity is generally ultra-light in weight, thus it is conducive to the growth of plants roots and it benefit the breeding of healthy seedling. UPuper® rockwool hydroponics substrate has a unique porous fiber structure, porosity of more than 95%, uniform distribution, stable structure, can promote the uniform distribution of water and nutrients in the substrate, high seed germination rate, neat seedling emergence, reduce the risk of seedling production.

Root insulation

Overwintering stubble is the solar greenhouse cultivation of vegetables and fruits, the most difficult, the most efficient fork. Winter weather is cold, and the temperature difference between day and night is large, so the substrate needs to have certain thermal insulation. The unique fiber structure of UPuper® planting rockwool can make the temperature of the plant base small day and night, and used in winter and spring, which can be realized at night, shortening the seedling stage, making the root system more developed, and improve the cold protection ability of the plant in the later stage.

Water absorption, fertilizer preservation

Good water absorption and fertilizer preservation performance to reduce the irrigation cost in seedling breeding. The super volume water absorption and fertilizer retention capacity of UPuper® rock wool substrate can reduce the frequency or quantity of irrigation, reduce the consumption of water and fertilizer, and reduce the irrigation cost.

Green harmless

In addition to early in addition to greenhouse disinfection, the substrate should also ensure not to carry pathogens, in order to reduce seedling diseases, and reduce the cost of seedlings. In the production process of UPuper® rockwool growing media, after 1500℃ of high-temperature disinfection, it does not carry any pathogens, eggs and other pests. While reducing the pests and diseases at the seedling stage, it also lays a good foundation for the production of green and pollution-free fruits in the later stage.

Chemical Properties

Inert substrate

The substrate does not react with the nutrient solution required by the plant, and it is better not to contain more nutrients in itself. UPuper® plant rockwool substrate belongs to the inorganic substrate, itself does not contain water and any nutrients, also do not consume water and nutrients, does not have a physical and chemical reaction with any plant needed nutrients. The nutrition of the plant is controllable, various nutritional elements to meet the needs of seedling raising, the cultivated seedlings have developed roots, strong resistance to bad environment, colonization does not slow the seedling, shorten the seedling period, and realize the market in advance.

UPuper® rockwool seed starter for automatic seedling is currently launched with three products, round rockwool plugs, rockwool starter cubes, and mini blocks, to meet the different requirements.

At present, in Europe and the United States, factory seedling cultivation has a perfect system and technical standards, in the seedling technology, facility environment, seedling procedures and storage and transportation have a perfect guarantee system, hydroponic cultivation of rock wool substrate is also widely used.