Grow gutter brackets are one of the most important components of the new planting system used in modern facility agriculture. Generally speaking, in soilless cultivation, crops are no longer grown in direct contact with the ground, but are raised to a certain height above the ground by means of grow gutter supports of various types. Due to the variety and novelty of soilless cultivation, there are many different types of planting gutter supports, and the design concepts and functions are becoming more and more diversified and specialized. In this paper, we will analyze the mainstream planting gutter supports in the market and explain the advantages and disadvantages of the relevant types of supports for the reference of planters when selecting the grow gutter bracket .

Core functions of the grow gutter bracket

Lifting fuction

The most basic function of a grow gutter support is to lift a cultivation gutter or planting facility to a certain height above the ground, and the lifting methods used are very diverse for different crops. We will mainly discuss the steel type of planting trough brackets formed by stamping. Due to the different types of gutters used and the different crops grown, the main forms of planting gutter brackets are single row, double-row, or multi-layer planting trough brackets. There are many different types of brackets, such as wrapped brackets or direct brackets.The height of the lift usually varies from 20cm to 60cm depending on the type of crop. These brackets are used to hold not only steel gutters, but also other types of plant gutters such as PVC material.

Drainage slope

Drainage angel is one of the important considerations when planting with grow gutter system, but many growers often ignore this element. Generally speaking, the use of simple planting gutter bracket can not be achieved the bracket itself height adjustment to form the drainage slope of the planting trough, only the bracket itself with a screw adjustment device or the new height adjustment function of the circular tube bracket can achieve its own adjustment.

Some growers may think that the adjustment of the slope of the grow gutter bracket can be achieved by the adjustment of the original ground drainage slope, but this approach is relatively complex in practice, because most of the planting ground is soft mud, in the process of planting substrate water absorption or planting crop growth, the weight of the substrate unit will usually change, this change will lead to the traditional bracket can not achieve re-adjustment, and eventually lead to planting gutters with poor drainage or partial waterlogging inside the planting gutter.

Grow gutter bracket material surface treatment and installation type

As grow gutter bracket are usually used for greenhouse planting or outdoor open-air planting, the material of planting gutter brackets is basically hot-dip galvanized material or hot-dipped galvanized surface treatment, and the screw used for bracket adjustment is usually hot-dip galvanized or Dacromet treatment.

For the cutting surface of hot-dip galvanized round tubes, we will spray zinc on the cutting surface to increase the anti-corrosion performance of the material on the cutting surface. For square or round tubes, we will also add rubber pipe plugs on the end to prevent rainwater or drip irrigation nutrient solution from entering the rectangular tube and causing corrosion.

The grow gutter bracket is mainly made of flat stamping to form the bracket base plate, pipe cutting or square pipe welding or flat stamping to form the bracket column, and finally rectangular pipe or square pipe or flat iron. The combination of these materials is orderly, according to the growth characteristics of different crops or different crop habits of scientific design after production and assembly to form,.

When the product is for export, we will usually completely disassemble and separate the grow gutter bracket in the form of loose parts of the classification of packaging, which can make the volume of the goods themselves greatly reduced, so as to increase the internal volume of the container loading, so that we can use the limited volume to send more materials to our customers with limited volume. Sometimes for domestic customers, we also choose to use this mode to send the goods to reduce the volume of cargo transported and the resulting increase in freight costs.

Mainstream design of grow gutter bracket

Usage of steel grow gutter

In the project of steel grow gutters, because of the high unit strength of steel planters, the density of brackets is usually low, but because of the weight of steel planters and the heavy weight of crop units they carry, the strength requirements of planters brackets are higher than other grow gutter. Therefore, we usually use hot-dip galvanized Φ26 or Φ 32 mm diameter round tubes as the main structure of the brackets, and 40*20 hot-dip galvanized square tubes as the cross tubes above the grow gutter, and connect the adjusting screws to form an adjustable steel structure.

The fixing method of the bottom of the stand is relatively diverse, according to the ground form and soil characteristics to choose the corresponding fixing form: by steel wire to fix, additional rebar ground nail fixed way and hardened ground expansion bolt fixed way.

Application to PVC grow gutters

For the more traditional PVC grow gutter system, since the hardness of the planting trough itself is not strong, we usually increase the density of the grow gutter bracket so as to ensure the stable connection between the planting gutter bracket and the gutter body. At the same time, the increase in the density of the planting trough bracket can make the weight per unit bracket reduced, so the strength of the trough bracket is not required in the actual application of PVC troughs, mainly for cost control and target achievement.

In addition, since most PVC grow gutters are U-shaped or V-shaped, the gutter walls on both sides of the gutter are under greater pressure after some gutters with larger substrate capacity are filled with substrate, so the performance of wrapped flat steel wrapped surface brackets is particularly outstanding when cost factors are taken into account.

Planting pipes for hydroponics such as leafy vegetables

Hydroponic planting methods such as hydroponic leafy vegetables also need to raise the planting gutter body to a certain height above the ground, because of the hydroponic pipeline’s own size and type, so its subsidiary planting grow gutter bracket type is also very diverse, but its basic structure and design principle is mainly similar to the steel grow gutter, mainly the top crossbar design, the central use of screw adjustment design, the bottom plate using round pipe directly fixed or at the bottom using expansion bolts or ground nails fixed.

However, for leafy vegetable or other hydroponic planting grow systems, the top of the bracket must be flat because multiple planting gutters need to be placed on top of a single bracket, so the countersunk design of the adjusting bolt is one of the important details to be noted.

Some suggestions for grow gutter bracket selection

Determining the foundation of the ground is the best reference for the selection of the grow gutter bracket, because the foundation of the ground directly determines the fixing method and the density of the planting tank bracket. In some ground environments where multiple brackets can be used at the same time, it is necessary to consider a variety of factors to choose the most reasonable bracket.