Thank you very much Pupilla Charites for the research and insight as to where hydroponics began , you are also a man of vision sharing so much for those ( including me) who have been plodding along for years , not realising what has preceeded with our own infancies in trying to improve growing ,methods. I think we are all beginning to realise that there is a beginning but boy oh boy there is no end and that is what makes hydroponic gardening so exciting.

To add to my previous message, Hydroponics are really a blessing, next week my wife and I are of to Hong Kong for a couple of weeks.
I have organised a gardener to mow the lawns and generally look after our gardens, however with our hydroponic gardens running 3 different methods , we can leave and return to a healthy plants , what other method can offer the same benefits.

Hi Robert, have a great trip! There's an unwritten historical chapter of hydroponics about Australia. It wasn't a coincidence since the first hydro commercial use was in the geographical nearby tropical/desert-ish Pacific Islands, the sensation first caught on internationally in Australia's popular press (by 1939), and that Australia has been a hydroponics' powerhouse of ideas ever since ;-)

Thanks, I'm glad it was worth putting together for a post...

Great post.

Thanks!

Thanks Cole and Rio ;-) I better make an adjustment to it since you guys are reading.

The comment that the Pan Am Wake Island got a lot of attention didn't mean it was the first commercial operation. It was by far the most awesome, and was begun in January 1938. The first commercial operation was actually in Santa Cruz, CA around 1934. It was a spectacular tomato growing success, but a dismal financial failure due to the electric bill for keeping the solution heated.

One of Gericke's early innovations was recognizing that the frequent adjustments needed to be made to the nutrient solution could not require enthusiasts or farmers to dump it and refill it like scientists every time a small change was needed. Specifically iron needed to be regularly added (no chelates originally), and an early Gericke's DIY solution was to pack some fertilizer in wax and allow an iron salt to be slowly released by the melting of the wax, like in Gericke's 1930 patent application for a "Fertilizing unit for growing plants in water" which was issued to him.

My guess, anyway is that it was the rate of melting of the wax, and not the plants, that required the higher reservoir temperature control so everything worked, and contributed to the electric bill, maybe someone else can confirm.

There are some great comments in that patent, like:

"The production of plants in water by laymen was precluded by lack of knowledge, and by conveniences and other means available to the scientist. If a product could be obtained which would meet or supply the requirements of growth of plants in water without the necessity of the laborious and specialized features of the method as employed in scientific laboratories, laymen could grow plants in water. The invention herein to be described is such a product. It is a complete fertilizing unit that supplies to and maintains when added to a specified quantity of any ordinary potable water the required conditions and properties requisite for the growth of plants."

This post was edited by PupillaCharites on Fri, Mar 7, 14 at 23:40

Weren't all of the first systems built of concrete? The next big innovation to change hydro would have been plastics, in the 1970's, which allowed for less costly construction. After that came further plastics technology that developed low-cost poly greenhouse films.

Hi Cole, The above 1930 patent was a very early prototype which included automatic acid and nutrient addition in very creative ways. But the very first systems in the mid-1930's like we use were nothing that would be out of place at your backyard or mine ... they were just shallow "tanks" usually made from lumber and then sealed with blacktop (an asphalt product), or tarpaper (the same thing is common today where PE film/sheet is now used in place of the tar paper).

The tanks were very shallow, usually 6 inches and the water level usually an inch below the top, and they were long, like you would expect for an agricultural row, but usually about 3 feet wide (hobby systems) or 6 feet wide (commercial) for convenience of reach. There were no net pots, but rather just multiple plant removable trays. Each tray was made by attaching the entire bottom of chicken wire on a simple wood rectangle of say, 1"x6"s and 1"x4"s --- by far the most common. You just lift them on and off the tank frame like picking up drawers. The media in each tray then covered the entire chicken wire for about 3-4" deep, they were cellulose products on top, like wood doll stuffing, wood shavings, and rice hulls. The trays fit snugly into to "tank" bottoms. in convenient sizes like a mosaic, usually one on each side of the width and anywhere from three (hobby size) along the length to more than a dozen (big and commercial) long. These were based on Gericke designs, and he did a lot of consulting through the 1930's and tended to credit enormously those who he consulted for allowing him to do practical hydroponics (imagine when he left the severely critical environment of the scientists at the university how he must have felt getting to tinker with tens of different variations of systems with people really enthusiastic to do it). Look at this, the only adjustments from Gericke's hobby design are the plastic film which replaces the asphalt paint, and that this talented Perth writer and Gardener used screws instead of brackets. Congratulations to George, you even got one of Gericke's favorites, potatoes! From that great country down under, here's a beautiful, productive "retro design".

Concrete was one of three choices for the bottom half (the "shallow tank" a.k.a., "basin", but not the trays). Concrete was in a decent proportion of early commercial systems. Concrete though had to prepared something like we should do with rockwool.

The thing about concrete is those systems lasted longer, so with the world going to war and people moving around, the numerous wooden systems that fell into disuse, just like today were not as durable so easily got mangled and tossed in the trash, like forgotten toys, lost without a trace. That gave an impression later on that early systems were concrete, because more of those survived. In addition to wood tanks and trays, and concrete (tanks), sheet metal was also used for tank making successfully after sealing in some of Gericke's designs.

Sounds right, but we'll have to do more research to be sure when the plastic systems got popular. PVC pipe took off in the early to mid-1950's but as you note, the real thing to see is when the first plastics that were both economical were widely available were applied to hydro systems.

This post was edited by PupillaCharites on Sun, Mar 9, 14 at 5:32

..."gave an impression later on that early systems were concrete, because more of those survived."

That is a really good point. It reminds me of the expression 'history is written by the winners.'

The timeline of 20th century hydro was probably also affected by the introduction of metal halide lights in the late 70s/early 80s, which made indoor growing feasible.

Definitely agree with your comment about indoor growing being a big influence, plus, rockwool came on the scene in 1969, it really became convenient when insulation became a big deal and the oil crises started. The insulation companies were swimming in profits and had the resouces to develop products for new markets as they reinvested their profits back into their business. The new rockwool was optimized for the solution retention and capillary action as a super, conveniently marketed, inert growing medium.

Politically, I'm sure that Nixon singlehandedly was the incubator for a new crop of hydroponics companies - a huge boost in 1970-72; there are plenty of other forums to discuss that...