If you are trying to make a mobile hydroponic farm then wood is a major concern for you. A lot of companies want to use wood-based products for a variety of reasons. Whatever the case may be it is not a good idea for your product. The reason why is that wood can attract a lot of pests. The pass can come in the form of insects or they can come in the form of fungi and bacteria. Any of those three will be a problem for your mobile hydroponic farm because those are the types of things that people do not want in their product. Therefore, it makes a lot of sense to avoid them as much as possible.
The other problem with using what it is that wood absorbs water. It is even true of wood that is pressure-treated. An article by the University of Massachusetts 1 says that these treatments are good at resisting pests that are attracted to wet wood. What it does not protect against is the absorption of wood as it relates to water. Wood expands and contracts as it gains and loses water over time. It is the reason that pressure-treated decks do not last the number of years that some of the products claim they will. There have been many projects, like porch decks, where treated wood was used, that do not last more than a couple of years. It is because of what the University of Massachusetts said in their article. It means that you, as a hydroponic farmer, will have problems using wood as your structural component for your main growing apparatus. It will weaken over time and cost you more money then a metal-based structure would over time.
Of course, metal does not absorb water as wood does. In fact, if you get galvanized metal then it is mixed with zinc which is known to react faster than the metal with water. Therefore, the zinc oxidizes before the metal which leaves the metal structurally strong. We also have to mention that metal tends to be stronger than wood. Therefore, a pallet rack or decking made of metal lasts longer and is stronger than wood-based products.
We do have to talk about the fact that you want a mobile hydroponic growing apparatus based on what you are looking for right now. You may be thinking that the non-industrial versions of growing racks feature the wheels that make products mobile. However, you can add wheels to a pallet rack or growing rack to make it just as mobile as their consumer counterparts. In fact, you can get the full 360° of movement that the smaller consumer-level products have with their wheels. You still get the full 2500 pounds of uniform distributed weight possible from a larger industrial growing solution like a pallet rack. What you do need to keep in mind is that you should not grow any higher than two or three levels for stability’s sake. You do not want a load of product coming down on you or your employees.
Finally, you may want to consider where you are taking your mobile rack. If you have to cross some rugged round to get to where you are going then you may not like how unstable the more consumer versions of mobile rack are going to feel. The truth is that you can look on Amazon for these chrome looking mobile racks to see that most people feel that they are very unsteady. However, if you take a look at a pallet rack used as a growing rack then you can see that they look and feel very stable. They also are stable when they are mobile depending on what kind of bump you encounter. Obviously, if the bumps are big enough anything will feel unstable because the ground is unstable. You will have to use your common sense but you also have to remember that the industrial versions of growing racks can hold more and be just as mobile as the more consumer versions of the products.
If you are looking for a mobile growing rack or a vertical growing rack then you can click those links otherwise you can call us and we will help you figure out what you need. Call us by dialing 503-536-7218.
Sources:
Contributors, H. S. W. (2000, April 1). How does pressure-treated lumber work? Retrieved from https://home.howstuffworks.com/home-
improvement/remodeling/question278.htm
Wood Myths: Facts and Fictions About Wood: Building and Construction Technology: UMass Amherst. (n.d.). Retrieved from
https:// bct.eco.umass.edu/publications/articles/wood-myths-facts-and-fictions-about-wood/
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