What is Hydroponics?

Hydroponics is the science of growing plants in water with or without a soil-less medium. With skill this can evolve into an art. Many times people think about hydroponics, they consider crops planted with their roots hanging straight into the water without any type of medium for the roots. That is only one type of hydroponic method called N.F.T. or Nutritional Film Technique.

There are many different variations of the N.F.T. system employed all over the world but the N.F.T. is one of the most commercially popular. What a lot of people seldom realize is the fact that there are numerous techniques and constantly evolving method developed in hydroponics. In this post, we‘ll tell you the most popular methods, as well as the advantages and disadvantages of each one together with loads of impressive, basic details about hydroponics.

The Effectiveness of Hydroponics

When you supply a plant precisely with what it requires, any time it requires it, in the proportion that it requires it will then create an optimum environment for the plant to live up to it’s genetic potential. Soil truly can’t compare to the ability of hydroponics to create quicker and higher yields from vegetables to flowers.

With hydroponics the crops are cultivated in an inert substance such as rockwool, perlite or vermiculite. The water the plants are in is perfectly Ph balanced while plant nutrients are transported to the roots in an extremely soluble manner. This enables the crop to uptake its food with minimal energy in contrast to being in soil in which the roots need to find the nutrients since it’s not as readily available to them.

While using high quality soil and additives that make it more arable helps, it still can’t come close to the ability of hydroponics to deliver nutrients quickly to the root zone. The energy used by the roots during this development is energy that can be effectively used on vegetative development as well as flower and fruit production.

Say you decided to plant two genetically similar crops making use of soil for example in one and hydroponics for the second, you may at once notice the impact growing in water can make. Quicker, rapid growth, more nutrition and great yields are simply a few of the numerous reasons that hydroponics has been applied all over the world from large scale greenhouses to home hobby farmers.

What are different mediums to plant in?

Planting mediums are the component wherein the roots of the crop develop. This includes a wide variety of materials such as vermiculite, coconut coir, rockwool, gravel, perlite, sand or any type of sterile substance. Mediums are inert components that are unable to provide any kind of nourishment to the crops.

All nourishment is provided from the nutrient mixture (a mixture of fertilizer and water). You could for that reason, effortlessly manage to give the plants exactly what they may need when they need it. The concentration and pH of the solution is easy to manage to ensure that the crops get the needed quantity of food. The feeding or watering periods can even be managed by an affordable timer to ensure that the crops receive nutrient laden water on schedule, when needed.

The difference that exist between hydroponic and soil nutrients?

Hydroponic and soil fertilizers both contains the of three primary macro nutrients of potassium, nitrogen and phosphorus. The significant difference in hydroponic fertilizers is the fact that they consist of the appropriate quantities of the necessary micro-nutrients which are not in fertilizers for soil. They do this because plants are supposed to get these micro-nutrients in the soil, assuming that most of these trace substances are present.

Issues may occur for these soil based crops in the event that one of or even all the micro-nutrients are not found in the soil or have been used up by subsequent (or too much) plantings. Hydroponic fertilizers are often refined to inhibit the growth of unwanted bacteria in the nutrient solution. This refinement also helps with increased nutrient absorption by the plant.

Organic fertilizers, generally, are extremely distinctive compared to both hydroponic or ordinary plant fertilizers both by formulation and the way they supply nutrition to the plant. Organic soil fertilizers depend on the synergistic microbial behavior of bacteria to process nutritional components for quicker uptake by plants.

Hydroponic and soil fertilizers give nutrients in a ready-to-use manner. Even though in the past, they were manufactured for exclusive use where you couldn’t use organic fertilizers in hydroponics. However, several remarkable organic nutrients have become available recently to the market refined enough to be used in hydroponics. This gives Hydro enthusiasts more opportunities to experiment with production and flavor enhancement.

Why are Micronutrients important?

These are called trace elements, and are very important nutritional precursors in allowing the plant to uptake the necessary macronutrients of Nitrogen, Phosphorous and Potassium. Some of these are:

• Magnesium
• Sulfur
• Zinc
• Cobalt
• Boron
• Calcium
• Copper
• Iron
• Manganese
• Molybdenum

When a plant has a deficiency in some of these trace elements it will then become susceptible to diseases. As well, serving the purpose of being a nutritive precursor if these micronutrients are in low amounts or not found at all it will inhibit proper plant uptake of the macro-nutrients, Nitrogen-Phosphorous-Potassium.

The plant will then predictably not yield as much as it was capable of. Many commercial farms are deficient in micro-nutrients from years of over-use of the soil.

Subsequently these nutritive deficiencies get passed on to people who then consume produce low in nutritive value.

Is Hydroponics difficult?

It can be as complicated or simple as you want to make it. Hydroponics could be as amazingly easy as planting one crop in a hand watered bucket with or without a grow medium. Not a single automation, grow lights or power supply needed.

Obviously, the possibility to choose hi-tech is restricted merely by your imagination and finances. Nearly all facets of a gardens operations may be computerized. In the event you want to track grow data from your systems, you can then even connect them to your mobile phone or laptop anywhere around the world.

Almost all hobby driven hydroponic techniques are somewhere between the two methods stated earlier. The basic home hydroponic technique generally includes a couple of areas: a simple timer, a growing tray, a submersible pump to water the plants, an air pump, reservoir and air stone to create oxygen in the nutrient mixture, and of course, a sufficient light source.

Why are Ph levels important?

Ph levels are important to all plants regardless whether the growing medium is hydro or soil. The only difference is that the specific Ph level is different for each medium. Keeping plants at their respective Ph levels serves to optimize nutrient uptake. Some important nutrients are more available at certain points on the Ph range. One of the benefits of hydroponics is that we are able to manipulate the Ph range quickly in order to facilitate the optimum uptake of these nutrients.