How A Desk Fan Can Help Bring Your Indoor Seedlings To Life

One of the smartest things that you can do when starting seedlings indoors is to mimic the natural world. You may already be familiar with why it's important to choose the perfect grow light or about the benefits of bottom watering, but it can be easy to forget another crucial element: air flow. In a 2013 study published by Horticulture, Environment, and Biotechnology, it was found that proper air flow led to a decrease in tip burn on lettuce and that "stable horizontal air flow" does more to reduce this kind of plant damage than fluctuations in air temperature. Another study from 2020 published by Frontiers in Plant Science had similar findings: a group of researchers studying plant growth in a controlled environment for the purpose of space-grown food found that adequate air distribution is necessary for the overall health of plants in that environment.

There's no need to invest in fancy airflow systems when growing plants at home, though. Getting the air moving around your plants and seed trays can be as straightforward as setting up a simple desk fan. If you grow on bakers racks, a collection of mini desk fans, like the Comfort Zone Portable Fans, can clip onto each shelf to keep air moving. This can save you from having to constantly rotate trays and reposition fans. Otherwise, something more substantial, like the LEVOIT Tower Fan, will cover a wider area.

Generating proper circulation around your seedlings has a few different benefits. For one, it can keep plants from damping off, a condition caused by fungus or mold that leads to weak plants. When hit with this disease, stems collapse below the soil line and then seedlings fall over and die. Once the disease takes hold, it's not something that can be fixed, so your best course of action is prevention. Airflow helps to reduce the moisture on top of the soil and promotes proper air circulation, making it harder for infection to happen in the first place.

Photosynthesis also gets an assist from air blowing around, as it effectively redistributes the carbon dioxide that is required for the process. With stagnant air, plants will remove the carbon dioxide nearby and have no way to access more of it. The natural movement of air (from wind, a fan, or otherwise) also boosts a plant growth hormone called an auxin, which is central to a seedling's stem development and makes the plant stronger. Fans should be placed nearby seedlings but not too close or directly at them and should run for 24 hours to get the best results.