Hydroponic Greenhouse Gardening

Preparing the land, planting crops, provision of water, weeding, tilling, applying fertilizer and harvesting are some of the important stages of traditional farming methods. But increasing demand for food crops necessitated scientists to explore new techniques of optimizing yields while increasing the annual turnaround of the cropping cycle

The new technology that emerged for accelerating cropping cycles and increasing yields comprised mainly of the application of mainly inorganic chemicals including sewage sludge, herbicides and pesticides of which the harmful effects on the consumers gradually became evident only after many years of ignorant indulgence. Now people are turning back once again to basic organic food grown without the application of inorganic compounds like fertilizers etc. In this context, health conscious people place more faith in small time and greenhouse farmers for genuine organic products than on large-scale farmers.

This led to an effective reversal of technology forcing us back to square one. Scientists had to work hard once again to find a new technique to increase yields and turnaround of crops without hampering the health of consumers. A breakthrough has been made which is broadly known as hydroponics. A control experiment conducted by scientists to prove this point comprised of taking two equal batches of tomatoes, one being subjected to the conventional soil system of cultivation and the other being subjected to the new hydroponics system. The first batch produced 10 tons while the other cultivated under hydroponics produced 60 tons.

The new technique being adopted is to diffuse nutrients in to the water system feeding the plants as the plants have been found to absorb nutrients better and with no harmful effects on consumers' health, only when the nutrients are fed to the plants dissolved in water through their root system.

Hydroponics has been found not only to increase yields manifold, but also to shorten the cropping periods as well by giving a higher annual turnaround of crops. Hydroponics can be achieved under greenhouse conditions far more effectively and efficiently by placing water trays below the level of the plants and driving the nutrient rich water through these trays where after adequate circulation, the unabsorbed water is drained and re-used instead of being allowed to be absorbed to the ground below as in traditional farming. In farming under this new technique, there is no need to till the land, root out weeds or treat for diseases as it used be under soil cultivation techniques.

A disadvantage in controlled environment or greenhouse gardening however is that the plants may not receive enough sunlight and carbon dioxide needed for their healthy growth which is generally overcome by the installation of powerful electrical lights and the artificial infusion of carbon dioxide in to the air within the greenhouse.

Different farmers practice hydroponics with minor modifications. Deep Water Culture, Aeroponics, Flood and drain and Nutrient film technique are some of the methods employed. The procedure in the first three methods is basically to have the plants held up to expose their roots in the air when a pump blows air at them in the first case and nutrients in the second case while the third method has been already described above.

We have had hydroponic greenhouse gardening for around the last thirty years and a high point in it is that it requires very little space, besides some appliances and materials such as water in containers or soil channels, few organic nutrients, some tubes for draining excess water for re-use and high powered electric lights with additional options such as carbon dioxide, a blower pump and a drain pump.