Ventilation – The Basics

• By Hydro Harvest
• 24 December 2024

Good ventilation can be the difference between a healthy, productive, quiet-running grow space and a fetid, low-yield, clattering hovel. It’s a critical component of any indoor garden.

In order to understand what makes for good ventilation you need the answers to a few questions. How, specifically, does ventilation benefit your plants? What are the key components you’ll need for your ventilation system? And how do you arrange them to best effect? Happily, our series of guides to ventilation deals with precisely these questions. First up, we bring you the basics and the benefits.

The benefits of ventilation

Because it’s not physically connected to your plants it’s possible, especially for beginners, to underestimate the importance of proper ventilation.

In truth, a ventilation system plays a massive part in plant development. Just think about how much plants rely on air and airflow in their natural environment. Why wouldn’t they need something similar indoors?

Bringing plants to life

Naturally, plants grow outdoors where they can exploit the fresh air surrounding their leaves, stems, and flowers 24/7.

From that fresh air they draw down carbon dioxide for photosynthesis and oxygen for respiration – life-supporting processes.

More than that, plants in the wild benefit from the constant movement of fresh air. Oxygen and other waste gases are swept away by outdoor breezes. In the process that same breeze circulates a fresh supply into contact with leaves and stems.

If you’re growing indoors it is essential that you mimic these conditions. You need to supply fresh air in order to stimulate growth and you need to remove waste gases.

Remember, stagnant air is not only devoid of life-giving properties, it’s also a haven for pathogens. Therefore its really important to maintain constant airflow. That’s where ventilation comes in.

The indoor environment

So, decent air movement is a basic requirement in terms of plant processes. One to mimic indoors. But ventilation also acts as a form of climatic control for an indoor garden.

You will most likely have any number of essential appliances running in your growing space. Naturally these appliances will create heat and humidity. Some heat and humidity is good, but excess levels must to be removed. By ventilating you have an effective method of doing exactly that.

Ventilation means you can reliably prevent temperature and airborne moisture from getting out of hand. That’s really important in a growing environment where there are very few other ‘release-valves’. With an indoor garden you can’t simply open a window. The only practical way to harmonise your climate is with engineered airflow.

Keeping it fresh

Closer to the plants themselves, the airflow generated by fans helps to prevent pockets of hot air from forming, stagnating, and adversely affecting development. Just by stimulating movement you can keep things nice and fresh.

Yield-bearing strength

Another benefit of airflow is the strength it trains into branches and stems. Lightly buffeted by moving air, these plant structures become stronger, more vital, and capable of bearing greater yields. As a result your plants can properly support a crop when in fruit or flower and are far less prone to splitting.

Control

Don’t just think of ventilation as an obligation. It’s also a big opportunity to step up on nature. A fan-driven ventilation system gives you incredible control over when and how air is introduced and extracted. Effectively, you can time the elements to maximum advantage, just as you would with your lighting. You can’t do that in the wild.

The secret life of plants

Finally, but no less crucially, a ventilation system allows you to remove nuisance odours. Even a simple arrangement of affordable, quiet, readily-available filters and fans can help your indoor growing space go completely unnoticed.

So, what exactly do you need to create your ventilation system? Find out here.