What is Hydroponics?

Hydroponics comes from the Greek words HYDRO, meaning water, and PONOS, meaning labour. A basic translation of this is ‘in hydroponics water does all the work.’

All plants have the same basic needs of light, food (nutrients), carbon dioxide (C02), water heat and fresh air. If any of these are lacking the plant will have problems growing. Different plants require these needs in differing ratios, but they are all needed whether the plant is in the soil or grown hydroponically.
With soiless gardening we can control and enhance all of a plants’ basic needs, we even have the advantage of being able to ensure adequate oxygen gets to the roots.

Hydroponics is, by its most simple definition, the growing of plants without soil.
The plants are supported in an inert media such as perlite, vermiculite, clay pebbles or rockwool and are fed a nutrient solution. This means that the plant does not have to develop a large root system in order to feed. Soil based plants divide their energy evenly between growing upwards and growing downwards (rooting). A hydroponically grown plant expends a greater amount of its effort growing upwards because all the nutrients it needs are readily available.

Having all nutrients available benefits the plants by promoting quicker growth and, in the case of crop bearing plants, higher yields. Further more, hydroponically grown plants are healthier and more robust than their soil grown counterparts, and when homegrown, taste superior to those found in supermarkets.
Under the right conditions a hydroponically grown plant will grow between 2 and 4 times faster than in soil.

The techniques used by commercial growers are now available to the home grower.
Setting up a system is quick and easy and, once running, maintenance consists of monitoroing the nutrients and periodically adding more nutrients and water.The system does all the hard work, and all that’s left is to sit back and enjoy the fruits of your labour.

What is NFT?

NFT = Nutrient Film Technique.

With this method, which is probably the most popular and widely used method of hydro, the plants are rooted in rockwool cubes or an inert media such as soiless peat, once either the roots are sprouting from the bottom of the cube or potbound if grown in a pot of peat , the plant is placed onto a tray which is slightly angled, this tray sits above a nutrient reservoir.

The Nutrients are pumped up onto one end of the tray and then then run off back into the reservoir after trickling over the plant roots which are bedded into a spreader mat after a few days on the tray.

As the roots are always surounded by oxygen as opposed to seing smothered by soil and always have food available as and when they need it , the plant is allowed to grow to its full potential

With the Flood & Drain method, plants are supported in pots with the plant roots surrounded by porous clay pebbles, which have been baked at high temperatures so they are sterile and have a honeycomb inner which aids drainage and aeration.

The plants are sat on a trough which has a reservoir underneath and a delivery tube and a drainage tube, at timed intervals throughout the day the trough is flooded to required level for a set time and then as the pump stops flooding the trough the draining effect as the solution returns to the reservoir , inturn draws fresh oxygen around the rootzone.

The trough can be flooded upto 6 times a day depending on the requirements of your plants.

Drip irrigation applies to both soil and non soil grown plants, ie, if growing ion soil drip irrigation is a way to deliver water to your plants at certain intervals effectively, when growing hydroponically the plants are fed both water and butrients constantly.

The plants are usually supported in various media, such as , perlite, coconut coir, clay pebbles, or even rockwool slabs. The nutrient solution is either gravity fed or pump fed and can also be either recollected for reuse or run to waste.

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