Hydroponics Basics

With advances in hydroponics, we no longer need cultivatable land to produce plants. Hydroponics is a simple method that enables plant growth using water and essential mineral nutrients. Hydroponics is essentially a type of agriculture where you grow plants without soil, and is becoming more and more popular. Instead of soil, you use a nutrient solution which is prepared by dissolving nutrients in water. The nutrient solution gives your plants the vitamins, minerals, and other nutrients that they would otherwise derive from soil. Hydroponics' comes from the Greek words hydro' - water, and ponos' - work. Hydroponics is a technique of plant cultivation that primarily uses water as a base; or in other words, it is a soil-less cultivation process. In the absence of soil, hydroponics uses methods like the nutrient film technique (NFT) to gather plant nutrition. Hydroponics does not mean you only need water for your plants. There are, growing media that you can use in place of soil, and hydroponics nutrients and supplements to help promote plant growth. You can use hydroponics growing media like perlite, gravel, sand, coir among other materials in place of soil, depending on the crop you choose to grow hydroponically. With the population soaring and arable land becoming more and more scarce and costly, hydroponics is becoming increasingly popular. Plants can be grown in greenhouses, multilevel buildings, basements, rooftops, and even your own home. Rooftop gardening using hydroponics is also becoming a trend in bigger cities where the cost of procuring land is very high. Hydroponics is easy and convenient and is allows more people to start being amateur growers, especially since you can grow more plants in the same area than what you could grow using soil-based cultivation techniques. Hydroponics is an eco- friendly technique which will help save water and grow healthier more productive plants. You can use hydroponic growing media like perlite, gravel, sand, coir among other materials in place of soil, depending on the crop you choose. What you get out of hydroponics is much more than what you could ever hope to get out of soil-based cultivation and traditional agricultural techniques. The yield from hydroponics is much higher almost 30-35% more. With increasing food shortage crises plaguing the world, hydroponics could be the solution to food scarcity. Since hydroponics takes up less space, it won't interfere with existing green cover by decreasing forest space that might be converted to agricultural zones. Hydroponics is not climate dependant and is most effective when the plants are grown indoors. You will have several options to grow your hydroponics plants from a simple grow room to a climate controlled greenhouse.