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Why grow with hydroponics?
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Posted by grow-anything (My Page) on Tue, Oct 20, 09 at 17:39
| I have a small 8 x 10 heated greenhouse and a larger 16 x 10 hoop house. I have been reading and can’t decide if growing anything hydroponically would be of any benefit to me or not. I have used the hoop house this summer to root several hundred small azaleas and evergreens just for my own use. It appears that growing anything with hydroponics requires more space that growing in dirt. My question is what advantage would I get by growing with hydro? I have everything I need to set up a system and the space to do it, but question why it matters if I grow/start stuff in water or dirt. I do use some water trays to root lots of annuals etc. but don’t understand why I should consider growing in water. Anyone help me here? |
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RE: Why grow with hydroponics?
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I suppose that depends on what you're growing. I would never consider growing azaleas or evergreens hydroponically though I may root cuttings that way.
If you're going to grow food, on the other hand, I do it for a number of reasons:
pest control - a lot of insects place there larvae in the soil and it later crawls onto plants. no dirt pests removed.
pathogen control - many soil borne diseases are eliminated by not using soil.
weed control - no dirt, no weeds
comfort - it's much easier to tend to your plants (and look for those pesky leaf larvae) from a standing position. soil gardening is prohibitive of beds raised to waist level.
water control - with hydro I can set up a continual water system or one on a timer and don't have to worry about neglecting watering my plants for a week or so. not that you can't do that with soil, but you'll still need to adjust things based on environmental conditions.
and finally, less environmental impact - not so much for me (I'm small potatoes), but on a larger scale, you could recycle your nutrients and thus not dump anything back into the soil. with soil gardening, you fertilze a plot of dirt and hope you plant gets enough, your weeds don't get enough, and not too much leeches into the subsurface water. again for me not relevant. I typically water plants in my yard with the spent nutes. But, if and when I go production, I plan on 100% recycling nutrient. |
RE: Why grow with hydroponics?
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| Thanks for the response. I would think then that if I only want to propagate normal plant found around the yard and garden then the hydroponics method would not be of much benefit? Everything that I start from seed or cuttings would wind up in the ground sooner or later. I guess I just wondered if starting some of the smaller cuttings in this method would be worth the effort. |
RE: Why grow with hydroponics?
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| if all your plants are eventually destined for soil then dont use hydroponics. |
RE: Why grow with hydroponics?
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I don't know a good cloning box roots cuttings pretty quickly, but it would probably be on a plant by plants basis.
you just can't let the roots get too big before transplanting or you'll have difficulty getting them in the soil. |
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