Hydroponics may not be a household word, but it's actually been around for years now, so what is it? Hydroponics is a gardening technique that is a subset of hydroculture. In other words, it’s a method of growing plants by using a mineral nutrient solution suspended in water without the use of soil. Plants, as most of us know, are terrestrial and grow in soil or a potting mix. You have to water them, feed them fertilizer and then you can pick them from the ground.
Hydroponic plants grow with their roots in a mineral nutrient solution or in an inert medium, such as perlite or gravel. We don’t use soil as with plants that grow in the ground or in a pot. For the most part, plants will grow anywhere as long as you meet their basic needs. Have you seen weeds growing out of a crack in the road or in places that seem unlikely, or even impossible? Plants only need air, water, light and the proper nutrients in order to grow.
What about the Dirt?
Sun energy chemically changes water and carbon dioxide into sugar. We call that process photosynthesis. Expelled oxygen is actually a waste product of photosynthesis. That's why trees and plants are important in our world. As long as the basics of these components come together, growth can take place. However, without proper soil and fertilizer, or in the case of hydroponics, the media and nutrients, growth may not be optimal.
In nature, we assume that plants depend on dirt or soil to grow, but not so in hydroculture. With proper nutrients instead of soil, hydroponics uses an inert growing medium such as sponges, clay, rock or any substance that doesn't affect the plant’s pH. Since the plant's entire food source is water, soil serves no purpose and would actually cause more problems, just as it can in terra gardens. Soil can alter pH, introduce disease and unwanted bacteria, as well as pests and other problems that water and air gardening avoids.
How Does the Garden Grow?
The plant grows suspended in a basket or cup over the water source below. In hydroponically-planted seedlings, the roots grow downward toward the water naturally, then seem to explode when they get to the minerals. That finishes the necessary chain, and the plants thrive better in water than soil under the same basic conditions. By starting plants indoors for later transplant, hydro farmers can get viable plants in the ground and then harvest them sooner than gardeners who depend on Mother Nature to provide the light and nutrition for sprouts to get going.
What Holds the Plants Up?
In hydro growing, the roots don't anchor the plant, as in soil; so they get the support they need from the grow media. That way, more energy is redirected to the foliage, and ultimately the flowers and fruit. The water is where you add the nutrients, to enable the small tubing in the reservoir to deliver essential nutrients to the grow chamber above. As time goes by and the plants grow larger and consume the nutrients, you will need to add more, or else the growth will slow and eventually the plants could die. Nearly constant circulation is necessary in order to deliver two of the required needs to your plants: water and nutrition.
So Nutrients are Like Vitamins?
The nutrients are generally a different formulation from crop to crop, depending on the needs of the particular plant. A lettuce plant, for example, doesn't need the same flowering fertilizers as much as a tomato. For example, phosphorus, potassium and magnesium are necessary for flower production, but starter plants and foliage growth depend mostly on a steady heavy dose of nitrogen. Flowering and fruiting plants will also consume more calcium, sulfur and micro nutrients, such as iron, manganese, boron, molybdenum and copper.
With all these factors working together, only one more thing is absolutely necessary to grow plants: light. Proper lighting, whether natural or man-made, is the main component of plant growth, whether hydroponically or soil grown. The light in a hydro system comes from above the plants. In fact, you have to block the light out from the reservoir, so algae doesn’t build up and compete with the plants for nutrition. Algae can also clog pumps and filters, causing a failure that could be catastrophic.
This is just a quick overview of the main difference between a soil and water based growing system. In future articles, we will branch into other methods using hydroponic equipment.
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