While hydroponic farming offers a number of advantages over traditional cultivating methods, one mistake can spell doom for an entire batch of crops.

Just ask Brigette Leach, the owner of Avalon Farms, located outside the Village of Climax, located in Kalamazoo County.

Shortly after transitioning from raising livestock to growing hydroponic tomatoes, Leach made a small, yet catastrophic error when mixing together the nutrients the plants receive when watered. As a result, the entire crop withered and died within several hours.

“At our place, you have to have a thick skin, because when you make mistakes everybody notices,” Leach said. “Well, it was so bad that they didn’t even tease me for months, because I was so sensitive about that.”

The business owner shared the secrets of her farm’s success to the members of the Dowagiac Rotary Club Thursday afternoon, during their regular lunchtime meeting. Detailing everything the history of the Avalon farm to their distribution partners, the members in attendance learned everything they wanted to know about the hydroponic business and more during her talk.

Owned by her family since 1932, Leach and her husband, Larry, have been growing salad greens and tomatoes using hydroponic greenhouses at their farms since 2000, she said. In contrast to traditional farming methods, hydroponic crops are embedded in cubes, supported by alternative substrates instead of soil, Leach said.

“Hydroponics is kind of this ‘woo-woo’ thing to a lot of people, who think it’s all new technology, when in fact it’s really fairly old technology,” she said.

The idea behind the technique is deliver all the essential nutrients to the crops via watering. The Avalon greenhouses mixes together these substances, which are stored in two giant vats, and delivers the liquid to the plants via emitters placed near the roots of each plant.

Despite the alternative method of raising the plants, much of the same labor is needed to maintain them before harvesting, such as pruning. They also must be wary of diseases and pests, often using organic methods to deal with them.

They also utilize a natural method to help pollinate their plants, using regular shipments of bumblebees to perform the task.

“We get a new hive about every six weeks,” Leach said. “Those bumblebees do a very efficient job of pollinating those tomato plants. They know exactly when that blossom is ready to be pollinated.”