Hydroponics
If you are already living with off grid power and doing water recycling, than the next step is grow your own food. Green House Hydroponics is the perfect path to sustainable living.
This page will explain a few things about Hydroponics.
I am doing research with different nutrient mixes and hydroponics growing methods. My objective is to grow the same crops all year around at a steady rate, just for a family or small community. In other words a method to have reliable year round supply, without waste, excess or shortages. There may be an opportunity to extend the seasons by using CO2 atmosphere enrichment. But first let’s see what hydroponics is all about.
1. HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE.
- Farming was created some 5000 years BCE, when the nomadic populations started to settle down in groups or villages. Hunting and gathering became more difficult, so food had to be mass produced.
- So the population started planting edible plants in beds. Others started to keep animals in paddocks. Concentrating on the plants, the beds had to be ploughed and seeded and then watered and finally harvested. So the farmers needed seeds, water and were subject to the unpredictability of the weather.
- In order to predict the seasons, calendars were invented, so they knew when to sew and when to harvest. They also needed good access to clean water, so most villages were placed along streams and rivers and that is still the case in the modern world.
2. IS TRADITIONAL FARMING EFFICIENT?
The answer is definitely NO!
- Firstly most of the trees were removed to make more room for crops, yet this creating loose soil and erosion.
- Secondly irrigation took enormous amounts of water, but less than 20% goes to the plants.
- Thirdly they often planted the same crop year after year, creating nutrient poor soil.
- Fourth. Because the plants were out in the open, they had to use insecticides to kill insect infestations, plus herbicide to control weeds, as best as possible.
- Fifth. In order to get acceptable yields of their crop, huge amounts of fertilizer had to be used, and most finished up in the water ways, creating green and blue algae.
3. SO, WHERE DOES HYDROPONICS SHINE?
BENEFITS OF HYDROPONICS IN A GREENHOUSE.
- Hydroponics uses only 10% of the water that traditional farming uses. It only loses 1 to 2% of the water in evaporation.
- The nutrients are measured out and recycled over the plants roots. The plant removes the elements that it needs. Very cost effective.
- The best way to undertake hydroponics is in a green house or hot house, not out in the open. the benefits here are:
- No storm, flood or hail damage to the plants.
- Protection from severe frost, by using supplementary heaters.
- Year around growing.
- It takes less space.
- No weeding required.
- A shortage of sunlight can be compensated by occasional artificial lights.
- There is protection from insects and other foreign infiltrations, because the green house is sealed. So no need to spray insecticides.
- In the case of growing fruits, the crop is protected from birds.
- Because the green house is sealed, there is better control of the growth and health of the plants.
- It allows one to experiment with CO2 enrichment and thus faster growth and better yields.
4. DRAWBACKS OF HYDROPONICS.
- Higher initial start up cost.
- You need some expertise.
- It requires more supervision.
- You need to pay attention to the water quality, to prevent disease introduction.
5. IS HYDROPONICS A SCIENCE AN ART?
In the early days and even now Hydroponics is mostly an art. It is a Trial and Error method, where we test parameters and see how they work. And why is that?
We are dealing with an untold number of variables and I give a list here:
- There are 16 important elements in the nutrient solutions and the formulas vary greatly. Also the plant needs different nutrients in root growing, leaf growing and fruit bearing stages. Plus each plant has a different liking for certain elements.
- In relation to the above, very often an excess of one nutrient element (or anionic group) can often block uptake of other essential elements. That is the complexity of the nutrient systems. And we are still searching for the answers. Also one person may have found a interesting formula that works well in say France, yet it won’t work in Germany’s continental climate.
- We are dealing with hundreds of vegetables and when we add flowers, probably thousands. Each of those plants have their own preferences for nutrients, sunlight intensity, temperature, humidity, the degree of root aeration, light and dark times, the pH or acidity of the nutrient liquid, and even CO2 concentration etc etc. A very complex lot of variables.
- Even though we operate inside a green house, we are still subject to the variable weather, especially temperature, sunshine and light and dark times. However we can to a large extent control temperature and humidity.
- And the plant requires different conditions during the different stages of its growth.
There is a lot of research being done, and I am going to do my bit on my pet idea. But we are only just scratching the surface.
6. HYDROPONICS GROWING METHODS.
There are a lot of ways to grow your hydroponic vegetables. There are about 6 basic methods. Just to quickly mention them: Deep water or Kratky — nutrient film technique (NFT) — Drip system — Ebb and Flow — Dutch bucket — Aquaponics. On the next page, named “my Hydroponics setup” I am explaining more details on these methods above and more.
Personally I like the first four, because it is easier to grow say potatoes and carrots in a Kratky system rather than NFT.
Also please note two things:
- Now there are literally 100th of frames, buckets, channels, pipes etc to make these systems work. Some are easy to construct, yet others are leaning towards very large systems. But please remember you can do hydroponics in a jar. So don’t be tempted to buy a fancy system, it won’t make the plants grow faster.
- I don’t like aquaponics, because you are losing control of the environment and the nutrients. Also you are coupling one biological system with another and it is very easy to migrate algae or diseases from one to the other, particularly in a water system. And for Hydroponics messing with the water purity is disastrous.
Below is information about the hydroponics business in Westland.
The Netherlands is the second largest exporter of flowers and vegetables, just behind California. Just remember California has twice the population, ten times the land area and a warmer climate.
Holland is now the world leader in Hydroponics growing and are strongly supported by the university of Wageningen. In fact the Dutch are now selling their knowledge and equipment all over the world.
The pictures above are from an area named Westland. When I left the Netherlands, this are was all farmland, growing dairy as well as crops. Now it is all glass houses. But what is so clever about all this is the following. It is a completely organised and integrated environment, where all the required services are incorporated in this area. In other words your help is just around the corner. There is a lot of specialisation: For example:
There are seed preparers, seedling growers, crop growers, hot house planting contractors, hot house end of season cleaners, packaging experts, air conditioning experts, transport operators, green house repairers, general labour contractors, chemical nutrient suppliers and control equipment suppliers, and more.
I must say good on you Holland.
The Next page – My Hydroponics
A further page – Hydroponic growing
