DiscoverScroll article

Hydroponics is a type of horticulture and a subset of hydroculture which involves growing plants, usually crops or medicinal plants, without soil, by using water-based mineral nutrient solutions in an artificial environment.

Terrestrial or aquatic plants may grow freely with their roots exposed to the nutritious liquid or the roots may be mechanically supported by an inert medium such as perlite, gravel, or other substrates. Despite inert media, roots can cause changes of the rhizosphere pH and root exudates can affect rhizosphere biology and physiological balance of the nutrient solution when secondary metabolites are produced in plants. Transgenic plants grown hydroponically allow the release of pharmaceutical proteins as part of the root exudate into the hydroponic medium. The nutrients used in hydroponic systems can come from many different organic or inorganic sources, including fish excrement, duck manure, purchased chemical fertilizers, or artificial standard or hybrid nutrient solutions. In contrast to field cultivation, plants are commonly grown hydroponically in a greenhouse or contained environment on inert media, adapted to the controlled environment agriculture (CEA) process. Plants commonly grown hydroponically include tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, strawberries, lettuces, and cannabis, usually for commercial use, as well as Arabidopsis thaliana, which serves as a model organism in plant science and genetics. Hydroponics offers many advantages, notably a decrease in water usage in agriculture. intensive farming methods requires 214 liters (47 imp gal; 57 U.S. gal) of water; using hydroponics, 70 liters (15 imp gal; 18 U.S. gal); and Hydroponic cultures lead to highest biomass and protein production compared to other growth substrates, of plants cultivated in the same environmental conditions and supplied with equal amounts of nutrients. Hydroponics is not only used on earth, but has also proven itself in plant production experiments in Earth orbit.

As a result of his work, water culture became a popular research technique. He found that plants in less-pure water sources grew better than plants in distilled water. He then introduced the term Hydroponics, water culture, in 1937, proposed to him by W. For example, the Hoagland and Arnon study did not adequately appreciate that hydroponics has other key benefits compared to soil culture including the fact that the roots of the plant have constant access to oxygen and that the plants have access to as much or as little water and nutrients as they need. This is important as one of the most common errors when cultivating plants is over- and underwatering; hydroponics prevents this from occurring as large amounts of water, which may drown root systems in soil, can be made available to the plant in hydroponics, and any water not used, is drained away, recirculated, or actively aerated, eliminating anoxic conditions in the root area. Ray Wheeler, a plant physiologist at Kennedy Space Center's Space Life Science Lab, believes that hydroponics will allow water and nutrient recycling needed for space travel and eventual bioregenerative life support systems where plants are used to produce oxygen and food, while removing carbon dioxide.

The main advantage of the NFT system over other forms of hydroponics is that the plant roots are exposed to adequate supplies of water, oxygen, and nutrients.

Aeroponics also uses 65% less water than hydroponics.

Commercial hydroponics production of large plants like tomatoes, cucumber, and peppers uses one form or another of run-to-waste hydroponics.

While deep water culture involves the plant roots hanging down into a reservoir of nutrient solution, in top-fed deep water culture the solution is pumped from the reservoir up to the roots (top feeding). With top-fed deep water culture, the roots get easy access to water from the beginning and will grow to the reservoir below much more quickly than with a deep water culture system.

Because plants are provided with water, nutrients, and light in a controlled environment, hydroponics allows crops to grow faster and potentially yield more within the same or smaller footprint.

Quick Facts

• Hydroponics offers many advantages, notably a decrease in water usage in agriculture.
• Hydroponics is not only used on earth, but has also proven itself in plant production experiments in Earth orbit.
• using hydroponics, 70 liters (15 imp gal; 18 U.S. gal); and
• Commercial hydroponics production of large plants like tomatoes, cucumber, and peppers uses one form or another of run-to-waste hydroponics.
• Hydroponic cultures lead to highest biomass and protein production compared to other growth substrates, of plants cultivated in the same environmental conditions and supplied with equal amounts of nutrients.

Source material: Wikipedia - "Hydroponics". Adapted and summarized for DiscoverScroll. Original contributors are credited through the linked Wikipedia article. Read original on Wikipedia. CC BY-SA 4.0. Changes were made from the original.