[ENG Drainage Under Control: The Next Step Towards More Efficient Soilless Cultivation

In soilless cultivation, every irrigation and fertigation event represents an investment in water, fertilizers and energy.

For this reason, knowing how much is delivered to the crop is important.

But it is not enough.

To truly understand the efficiency of irrigation and nutritional management, it is also necessary to observe what happens after water and nutrients have been supplied.

How much drainage is produced?

How frequently?

What is its electrical conductivity?

How much water is actually being used by the crop?

And above all: how much of what is supplied is actually absorbed by the plant?

These questions are becoming increasingly important in hydroponic and soilless production.

Drainage should not simply be considered a by-product of irrigation.

It can become a valuable source of information about crop conditions and fertigation efficiency.

It is not enough to know how much water goes in

In traditional irrigation management, attention is mainly focused on the amount of water supplied.

But in soilless cultivation, the water balance can be monitored much more precisely.

Knowing simultaneously:

• irrigation volume;

• drainage volume;

• electrical conductivity;

• trends over time;

• climatic conditions;

• substrate characteristics;

provides a much more complete picture of crop behavior.

Comparing irrigation and drainage can provide valuable information about the actual response of the system.

Excessive drainage may indicate that water application exceeds crop requirements.

Insufficient drainage, on the other hand, can be a signal that needs to be interpreted together with other crop parameters.

In both cases, data becomes a tool for improving management.

Drainage tells us what is happening in the substrate

In soilless cultivation, the substrate is the environment where roots must find the right balance of water, oxygen and nutrients.

Management is therefore not simply about keeping the substrate wet.

It is about finding the right balance.

Too much water can reduce oxygen availability in the root zone.

Too little can create water stress.

Poor fertigation management can also affect nutrient concentration and solution conductivity.

Drainage can provide useful information about these processes.

Monitoring it therefore means indirectly observing the root environment.

From drainage as a loss to drainage as data

For years, drainage was mainly considered a loss of water and fertilizers.

Today, this interpretation is changing.

Drainage can be viewed from two perspectives:

a resource to optimize and a source of data to interpret.

From an economic perspective, reducing unnecessary drainage means reducing water and fertilizer consumption.

From an agronomic perspective, monitoring it provides information about crop behavior.

This dual value makes drainage monitoring particularly interesting for farms aiming to increase both efficiency and precision.

When monitoring becomes continuous

One of the limitations of manual monitoring is the difficulty of obtaining a continuous picture of what is happening.

An occasional sample can provide useful information, but it does not necessarily describe what happened throughout an entire irrigation cycle.

Automated monitoring makes it possible to collect information more frequently and observe how parameters evolve over time.

KNITINK has developed systems specifically for this purpose.

The new generation of DrainCheck, presented by the company in 2026, was designed to make drainage monitoring more robust, easier to install and more accessible to hydroponic operations of different sizes.

This transforms drainage from an occasional observation into a parameter that can be monitored as part of daily crop management.

The real value comes from connecting the data

A sensor produces information.

An integrated platform can produce much more complete knowledge.

The value of drainage monitoring increases when its data are compared with:

• irrigation;

• fertigation;

• climate conditions;

• substrate moisture;

• temperature;

• radiation;

• water consumption;

• crop management.

It is the integration of these different sources of information that makes correct interpretation possible.

KNITINK follows this philosophy by connecting monitoring, automation and data management within a single digital ecosystem.

From measurement to automation

The next step is particularly interesting.

Once reliable data are available, they can be used not only to observe what is happening but also to automatically modify the behavior of the irrigation system.

This is the principle behind irrigation based on actual crop demand.

KNITINK, for example, uses monitoring systems and sensors to support demand-based irrigation strategies, with real-time data transmitted to the platform and used to generate operational irrigation signals.

The logic is therefore:

measure → interpret → decide → automate → verify.

This is the step that transforms a simple monitoring system into a true smart farming system.

Less waste, greater efficiency

Efficient water use will become increasingly important.

But the issue is not only water.

Every liter of nutrient solution also involves fertilizer and energy consumption.

Reducing unnecessary applications therefore means addressing several cost items at the same time.

Drainage monitoring can help identify situations in which water and nutrient inputs can be optimized.

In high-value crops, even small improvements repeated across thousands of irrigation cycles can create significant differences in annual farm performance.

Drainage and the circular economy

The topic becomes even more interesting when considering the possibility of recovering and recirculating drainage water.

In systems designed for recovery, drainage can be collected, analyzed and potentially reintroduced into the production process according to specific strategies.

KNITINK also provides solutions for monitoring and managing drainage and its potential recirculation.

This approach can help reduce overall resource consumption and make production systems more efficient.

Of course, drainage recovery requires careful monitoring of the solution and appropriate agronomic management.

It is not simply about reusing water.

It is about knowing what that water contains before deciding how to use it again.

Sustainability needs to be measurable

Saying that a crop is sustainable is no longer enough.

Increasingly, sustainability will need to be demonstrated through data.

How much water is used per kilogram of product?

How much fertilizer is applied?

How much is lost?

What is the drainage volume?

How much is recovered?

How efficient is the irrigation system?

These are all indicators that can contribute to building a more accurate picture of system sustainability.

Digitalization therefore makes it possible to move from declared sustainability to measured and documented sustainability.

Particularly relevant for berry crops

Drainage monitoring becomes even more important in high-value soilless crops such as strawberries, raspberries, blueberries and other berries.

In these systems, precision in water and nutrient management can significantly affect:

• vegetative development;

• plant balance;

• fruit size;

• quality;

• yield;

• production costs.

KNITINK has developed solutions for hydroponic strawberry and blueberry production, where irrigation and drainage monitoring can be integrated into the digital management of the production system.

KNITINK: When Drainage Becomes a Source of Information

The real evolution of digital agriculture is not simply about installing more and more sensors.

It is about giving meaning to the data collected.

Drainage is a perfect example.

It can evolve from being a simple consequence of irrigation into an indicator of system efficiency, a tool for fertigation control and a source of information for improving agronomic decisions.

Through its monitoring, automation and data-management solutions, KNITINK is developing an ecosystem in which information collected in the field can be transformed into concrete actions.

The future of soilless cultivation will therefore not simply be about producing more.

It will be about producing better, using fewer resources and understanding more precisely what is happening within the production system.

And to achieve this, sometimes we need to look not only at what goes into the crop.

But also at what comes out. info@agroconsulenze.com www.knitink.com