In the recent past, the hydroponics movement is gaining a lot of traction all over the world. It can be easily spotted in classrooms, urban communities, apartment patios, commercial farms, food banks, hospitals, and greenhouses. As more people are showing interest in this field and have started growing their own fruits, herbs and veggies, the methods and practices have become more efficient, effective and a lot easier to set and maintain.
What is hydroponics?
In simple terms, it is process of growing different types of plants in water that is rich in nutrients in the absence of soil. This is surely in contrast to the belief that soil is essential for growing plants. This technology signifies that soil just acts as a medium for plants and herbs to absorb their required nutrients.
There have been considerable debates over the usage of hydroponic method and is compared with the conventional soil-based gardening techniques. Here is a brief comparison of what has been explored so far.
As mentioned earlier, by using hydroponics technique, you would be eliminating the need for soil as water enriched with the desired nutrients would be used instead for growing plants and herbs. In a hydroponic garden, a neutral medium is used to support the plant’s roots as well as its weight. The medium that is used is mostly porous so that it can hold oxygen and moisture that is needed by the plant to grow.
Once you remove the need for the soil, it was found that the rate of growth of plants gets doubled which means that people get more harvesting opportunities. The roots of these plants do not have to travel long distance in search of nutrients and therefore the plants are not grown convoluted. The roots are quite smaller because the nutrients are easily available.
Since the nutrients are readily available, the roots of hydroponics plants are quite smaller that later eliminates the root competition. More plants can be easily grown in a shared area. This makes it easy for the residents of apartments or the city dwellers to grow their own plants easily.
Soil is one of the prime factors that contribute towards the proliferation of pests in the gardens. These pests can either hinder the growth of your plants or can harm them as well. To keep your plants well protected from pests, many people invest in pesticides. These pesticides are harmful to the environment. If you grow hydroponics plants, there would be no pests and therefore the need of pesticides would be completely eliminated. Hence, one way or the other, you would be promoting green living.
Since all nutrients are readily available to the plants, their roots do not have to spend time and energy in looking for them. This way, the plants grow healthier and larger because they tend to absorb all the nutrients at a much faster rate.