OpenRoots

Open-source, autonomous hydroponics — enabling communities to grow their own nutrient-rich food with simplicity, sustainability, and affordability at the core.


Our Mission

OpenRoots is a project dedicated to making sustainable food production accessible, affordable, and achievable for everyone—no matter where they live or how much experience they have.

Autonomous hydroponics offers a powerful response to the growing challenges of food insecurity, environmental impact, and rising costs. By reducing water usage, lowering carbon emissions, and enabling people to grow highly nutritious food in minimal space (indoors or outdoors) OpenRoots helps lay the groundwork for a healthier and more resilient future. With modular, scalable systems, both small living spaces and larger community settings can adopt hydroponic technology without the complexity of conventional agriculture.

OpenRoots is still in its infancy. If this project excites you, please join the mailing list to learn more and be notified of future announcements — there will be a need for beta testers soon. If you’d like to be involved or support the project in any way, drop me a line at steven@stosky.ca.

Why Hydroponics?

Hydroponic farming is a soilless method that can reduce water usage by up to 90% compared to traditional soil-based agriculture. By delivering nutrients directly to plant roots, it eliminates most runoff and evaporation losses, making it highly efficient. Many hydroponic setups also enable 30–50% faster growth cycles and can be arranged vertically, cutting land requirements by as much as 70%. Because the environment is more controlled, hydroponics often requires fewer or no pesticides, promoting cleaner, healthier produce year-round—even in climates where outdoor growing is limited.

Hydroponics system
Grow Light

Open-Sourcing Automated Hydroponics

OpenRoots provides an open-sourced design for automated hydroponics, integrating advanced sensors, smart relays, and a user-friendly interface. Growers can seamlessly monitor and control everything from nutrient dosing to humidity and lighting schedules, drastically reducing manual labor while ensuring precise, data-driven harvests. Features of the OpenRoots system include:

  • Water condition monitoring - pH, electrical conductivity, temperature, level, and flow.
  • Air condition monitoring - temperature, humidity, vapor pressure deficit (VPD), and CO2.
  • Relay control: lights, exhaust fans, and humidifiers for precise climate management.
  • Peristaltic pumps - automatic dosing of acid, base, nutrient A, and nutrient B solutions.
  • Auto water adjustments - keep pH and electrical conductivity within target ranges.
  • Auto air adjustments - maintain humidity, temperature, and CO2 via fans and humidifiers.
  • Emergency Alerts - email alerts if readings stray from acceptable ranges (e.g. high temp, low water).
  • Energy usage tracking - measure electrical consumption to estimate operating costs.
  • Live dashboards - gauges, graphs, and widgets for real-time data visualization.

By combining these features under an open-source framework, OpenRoots not only saves time and labor, but also fosters collaboration and innovation across a community of growers and developers. The result is a scalable, cost-effective approach that helps ensure every plant gets exactly what it needs, exactly when it needs it.

Join Our Growing Community

Beta testing is expected to begin in Summer 2025, and we’d love to have you involved. Sign up for updates, or email me directly to get involved.

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