Aspects of Hydroponics Which 90% of People Get Wrong

Hydroponics is often subjected to an undeserved bad press. Let’s separate the fact from the fiction and take a look at what exactly hydroponics means to the world of gardening and food production.

The word hydroponics is derived from Latin and means “working water.” hydroponic growing is the growing of plants without soil. All of the nutrients plants normally get from soil are instead delivered to the plants through water. To give the plants everything they need to thrive, hydroponic experts have developed nutrient mixes to add to the water.

One common misconception about hydroponics is that is a new fangled, fashionable trend. If you think about it though it is not a new method and has been used by many past communities going back proabably hundreds of years. Egyptians are known to have used hydroponics. Great strides have been made in the field since the 1970s, when agriculturalists began studying it in earnest as an alternate means of food production, which perhaps is the reason behind so many people thinking it is a new invention.

Hydroponics has absolutely nothing to do with genetic food modification (GMA) although many people do erroneously ink them in their minds. It is a fact that GM crop modification has been hailed as a solution to world hunger, in the same way as hydroponics has, it is a different point entirely though. The GM story has been so much argued against that hydroponics also at time gets bad publicity. In truth, hydroponic food is 100% natural food, it is a food which has been modified at all, and no chemicals are added to the plants to make them grow that they would not get in traditional fields. It is just a different method of cultivation and no genetic chages are needed or attempted.

Some people believe hydroponics is bad for the environment and climate change. Nothing could be less a statement of the reality. The water culture grown plant consumes only about 1/10th of the water of the soil grown equivalent. The water is used for the desired plants only; there is no water wasted on weeds. In additionally, no discharge of pesticides into the surroundings can take place. Many greenhouse grown crops do consume a lot of energy, but this is the same for both soil grown and water cultivated options.

Despite what many people think, hydroponics plant cultures can be set up without costing a fortune,. Nobody would deny that nutrient solutions and growth mediums are costly, but the field has come a long way in developing reusable materials to balance some of these costs. In the small scale practicing hydroponics should be equivalent in cost to soil based crops.

Nor is hydroponics an obscure gardening technique. It is utilized throughout the globe, and in some parts of the world, it is the most often used system. For instance, in British Columbia, 90% of the plants grown in greenhouses are hydroponic plants.

One thing people consider a benefit of hydroponics is actually a myth as well. Hydroponics and organic farming are not interchangeable terms. In fact one does not imply the other, although many of us do think it does. The biggest number of hydroponic cultivaters use pesticides on their crops. A big advantage is that in traditional agriculture the pesticides and fertilizers used tend to run-off and pollute the area around the field, whereas this alternative does not. It is possible to grow hydroponic crops organically, but it should not be assumed that all hydroponic crops are.

A further untruth about hydroponics is that it is solely used for illegal drug growers to grow marijuana. It is a fallacy. It is true that some do use the method for illegal under-cover crops, nevertheless, the vast majority are just gardeners like you or I. 

There is a very big future ahead for the soil-less growing method as it can produce so much more food than just using the land. With more understanding of the field, hydroponic growers will find it easier to convince the public about the viability of their crops.