BY ENHANCING awareness amongst the people that the excessive use of soil for crop production by using undue amount of fertilizers and agrochemicals etc., the general features of soil are deteriorating day by day and people are suspicious in fear that the time will come that will show the entire failure of potential of soil for crop production that is food security resultantly, the life on earth will be at danger and miserable condition. Population is increasing at rapid rate consequent upon per unit area; the pressure of food is mounting. For many, its a greater concern than just whats being put into our bodies. Its the entire process that is upsetting to a growing segment of society. From planting, to harvest, and all avenues how the food is processed, transported to grocery stores, and stored upon arrival. The entire food production supply chain is an ethical concern regarding both human health and the sustainability of our environment. Alternative solutions are available for us to make small shifts in our thinking and lifestyles in order to play a small, yet important part in reducing the impact of traditional food production. This is where hydroponics, both large and small scale provide long-term, viable solutions.


Hydroponics is a subset of hydroculture and is a method of growing plants using mineral nutrient solutions, in water, without soil. Terrestrial plants may be grown with their roots in the mineral solution only, or in an inert medium, such as perlite or gravel. The word, Hydroponic, is Latin which means working water. Simply it is the art of growing plants without soil. Hydroponic culture is emerging as a popular hobby since it provides many advantages over traditional soil culture. More growers are interested to grow their own food, indoors, round the year by virtue of soilless method. The oldest published work of Francis Bacon on soilless cultivation of plants which was published in his book Sylva Sylvarum in 1627, a year after his death whereas, German Botanists Julius von Sachs and Wilhelm Knop during the years 1859-1875enlisted nine elements which believed to be essential for plant growth. Growth of terrestrial plants without soil in mineral nutrient solutions was called solution culture. It quickly became a standard research and teaching technique and is still being widely used. Solution culture is now considered a type of hydroponics where there is no inert medium. In 1929, William Frederick Gericke of the University of California at Berkeley began promoting the solution culture be used for agricultural crop production. In the 1960s, Allen Cooper of England developed the Nutrient film technique. The Land Pavilion at Walt Disney Worlds EPCOT Center opened in 1982 with prominent features of a variety of hydroponic technique.


The entire global industrial and commercial construction industry are revolutionized by the advancements in hydroponics. Buildings are being constructed by incorporating the designs of hydroponics infrastructures in vertical farms thus a lot of awareness of future competition for food production is in the mind of architectures and thus multistory buildings, airports etc. are constructed of hydroponics.


If one give a plant exactly what the plant needs, when it is materialized, the plant will be much healthy for this purpose no extra escorting have been done. Hydroponics is an easy task; while the using of soil is rather difficult. With hydroponics the plants are grown in an inert growing medium and a perfectly balanced, pH adjusted nutrient solution and provides to the roots in a highly soluble form. This allows the plant to uptake its food with very little effort as opposed to soil where the roots must search out the nutrients and extract them. This is true even when using rich, organic soil and top of the line nutrients. The energy expended by the roots in this process is utilized for vegetative growth flower and fruit production. If one grows two genetically identical plants using soil for one and hydroponics for the other, one will almost immediately observe the difference. Faster, better growth and greater productions of the reasons that the hydroponics is being adapted all around the world for commercial food production along with a growing number of home and hobby gardeners.


Growing medium is the material in which the roots of the plant are growing. This covers a vast variety of substances which include Rockwool, perlite, vermiculite, coconut fiber, gravel, sand and many more. The growing medium is an inert substance that doesnt supply any nutrition to the plants. All the nutrition comes from the nutrient solution that is made by mixing proportionate amount of water and fertilizer. Hence one can therefore, easily control everything that the plants needed. The strength and pH of the nutrient solution can easily be adjusted so that the plants receive just the needed amount of food. The watering/feeding cycles can be controlled by an inexpensive timer so that the plants get watered on schedule, as their need.


Both hydroponic and soil culture, NPK are the main ingredients of fertilizers used for crop production, the major difference of hydroponics in fertilizer usage is that it contains appropriate amount of all essential micro and macro nutrients that are needed for plant growth and development whereas, in soil culture plants have to get these elements with efforts by expanding their roots to the site of elements consequent upon a lot of energy is needed or those are depleted by multi cropping. In hydroponics fertilizers are usually use in refine and available form thus making them more stable and soluble form hence better uptake take place by the plants. On the other hand organic fertilizers have composition for breaking down through microbial activities and consequently availability to plants is possible.


By summarizing above laborious description about hydroponics it is concluded that hydroponic culture is rather more beneficial than soil culture by providing high productivity by virtue of maintaining soil pH, avoiding depletion and degradation of soil by excessive use of agrochemicals which not only beneficent to growers in cutting short the expenditure but also ecofriendly. It prevents excessive use of quality water thus preventive measures of water logging and salinity. It is much useful for plant protection measures and adopting weed free culture consequent upon less chances of insect pest attack and disease infestation. In short it is the theme which is applicable for resource conservation and assuring food security to the masses. On the other hand it is comparatively expensive and needs for proper operational assignments and skillful labor or expertise is needed for the purpose additional expenditure has to be anchored. Therefore, it is the Govt. to be viable to create awareness of hydroponics in farming community. It is an easy task if extension agents are fully trained and it is possible if the Pre-service and In-service training staff is trained by imparting technical training inland and abroad.

By Web Team

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