Posts tagged Nutrient Solutions
Hydroponics Indoor Grow Room Protection In Winter
0
Winter has arrived and now is the time to strategize and protect your indoor hydroponics grow room from the influence of dropping temperature. During winter, the main difficulty you face is that your indoor grow room is warmer towards the ceiling and colder near the ground level. This can kill your hydroponic plants or cause diseases and stress. To protect your plants, it is important that you ensure proper air circulation inside your grow room. If your indoor grow room is not well protected in cold weather, the low temperature would give fungi, pests and disease causing pathogens a good environment to thrive (more…)
Importance of Adding Hydroponic Nutrients
0
Hydroponic gardening is the technique of growing plants without using any soil in a nutrient media which is hydrophilic in nature. So as the definition depicts, nutrients are practically the backbone of hydroponic systems. Without basic nutrition, a hydroponic garden will have no chance of survival. Since there is no soil which can act as a source of nutrients, the medium in which hydroponic plants are growing should contain accurate amount of minerals, vitamins, and primary, secondary, and trace nutrients.
Accuracy of nutrients in hydroponics systems is important because otherwise every stage of plant growth will be (more…)
How to Maintain Your Hydroponic Nutrients Reservoir
0
A reservoir forms the center of every single hydroponic system. An ideal nutrient reservoir like soil-growing medium will help you grow plants without having to worry about balancing chemicals, nutrients and pH level of the water. However, it’s very important to maintain hydroponic nutrient reservoir for proper growth of plants. To manage your hydroponic nutrients reservoir using nutrients, you need to follow following steps:
- Every plant requires a particular pH level of nutrient media at which it can grow healthily. To know the ideal pH level of (more…)
Best Nutrient Solutions for Indoor Gardening
0
Plants grow well in a wide range of hydroponic nutrients. Plant nutrients used in advanced hydroponics are dissolved in the water and are mostly in inorganic and ionic form. They contain cations (positively charged ions) like Mg2+, Ca2+, and K2+ whereas anions (negatively charged ions) present are So4–, No3-, and H2PO4-. These charged ions provide equilibrium to the solution and help in better growth of plants.
In indoor gardening, plants can be grown in hydroponics nutrient solution in water or any other inert medium such as coco coir or rockwool or perlite. Organic nutrients help in healthier growth of plants. These nutrients are specially formulated to meet all your plants’ needs. Another advantage is that most of the nutrients must be dissolved in water and then supplied to the plant. Some hydroponic nutrients help in overall growth of plants while others are focused on specific parts such as fruits, flowers etc.
Let’s have a look at some for the best suited nutrient solutions for indoor gardening: (more…)
Vegetable Gardening in winter
0
When autumn nights start to get cold, it’s time to prepare your garden for winter. Start closing your garden down when there is frost in the forecast or the temperature consistently starts to drop to the low 40’s or mid 30’s Fahrenheit, around late October or November. In case of setting up a hydroponic grow room, choose the right growing medium, set up an appropriate hydroponic system and make sure you provide your plants with best hydroponic nutrient solutions.
To prepare your garden for winter, cultivate and weed one last time. Pull spent annuals and renew border edges. Also, while preparing your garden for winter, trim back the perennials because they’ll be back in early spring. Clean out any (more…)
Hydroponics Lettuce Garden
0
Do you wish to grow healthy, luscious herbs and leafy vegetables? Don’t worry! Having a year- round supply of fresh crisp hydroponic lettuce leaves, herbs beans, cucumber, spinach, and other appetizing fresh foods is easy and achievable with homemade hydroponics. Hydroponics is gaining attention of most urban growers these days because its simplicity and minimal usage of scarce natural resources. Home gardeners can make their own hydroponics system to grow chemical –free hydroponic lettuce, tomatoes, herbs, and even fruits, providing healthy life to your near and dear ones.
The nutrient value of lettuces and the ease of growing them hydroponically make it a preferred choice of many home gardeners. Hydroponics is done in a soilless environment, which means it is clean to handle and work with. Lettuces are (more…)
Grow Your Own Hydroponics Beefsteak Tomatoes
1
Do you love eating beefsteak tomatoes that cover your entire burger with just one slice? The good news is that now you can plant a bountiful beefsteak tomato garden at the convenience of your home with the help of hydroponics. Have them raw, grilled, made into sauces, or in any other form of tomato recipe; these big, ripe tomatoes are not only tasty but highly nutritive too. They come in array of colors from bright red, pinkish to yellow or even purple black, and in unusual shapes like kidney or bean shape. You can also find beefsteak tomatoes in different varieties like Big Beef, Brandywine, Bucking Bronco, Beefmaster VFN (hybrid), Bush Beefsteak, and many more; Big Beef being the most popular one because of its flavor, thickness, and uniformity. An added advantage of this juicy soft vegetable is that the plant can produce fruit in (more…)
Homemade Hydroponics Systems
0
Hydroponics is a technique for growing plants in which plants are grown without using soil but in a nutrient medium. Nowadays, many growers are opting for hydroponic methods to grow fruits and vegetables. Hydroponics systems is easy to set-up and requires minimal cost. So if you want to build, your own homemade hydroponics systems, here is your guide on how to do it!
The simplest hydroponics systems that can be built at home is the Deep Water Culture system (DWC). For this, all you need is a container to fill in nutrient solution and water. Use an air pump and air stone to aerate the nutrient solution. Place a smaller container inside nutrient solution reservoir so that lower half of container is immersed. Clay pebbles act as best growth substrate/ medium for this system. DWC is one of the simplest methods and can be set up easily by the beginners as well.
One of the other popular systems amongst hydroponic growers is Ebb and Flow system. To build this system, you will need plastic container to hold the media, air pumps, nutrient solutions, outlet water fittings, and the submersive pump. To set-up ebb and flow system, place the inlet pipe at the bottom of the growth container. Nutrient solution and water is pumped in through this inlet pipe. Air pump is used to flood in the solution. Next place outlet pipe right at the top of grow box from where water and solvent will be pumped out.
Another system which you can build at home is wick hydroponic system. For this, you will need two cheap storage totes and several feet of nylon rope of cotton fibers. Place the two totes one above the other. Fill lower container with nutrient solutions and keep it oxygenated with the help of an air pump. The top tote will hold plant containers. Drill about ½ an inch holes in each container and allow nylon/ cotton ropes to dangle down from there in to the nutrient reservoir. Because of capillary action of wicks, nutrient solution will be carried up to the roots of plants. This is a very cheap and easy to set up hydroponics systems.
With the help of more advanced technical equipments, you can build any system of your liking at home; however, above mentioned are the simplest systems of all. These homemade hydroponics systems require low maintenance minimal cost to be built. While building any hydroponics systems, take into consideration space available, number and type of plants you want to grow, and your budget and then accordingly you can select the best suited system.
Indoor Hydroponics for Cushy Cannabis Growth
0
After the legalization of growing marijuana in North America for medicinal use, states like California are witnessing a wave of Cannabis cultivation. Many growers are trying to grow Cannabis at home, as it grows well in various conditions. It is naturally resistant to most pests, preventing the need for pesticides. Indoor hydroponics is the best way of growing with minimum worries and without soil tilling hassles.
Though Cannabis are tough plants, still the whole atmosphere of your grow room should be perfectly controlled to produce healthy crops. Growers use inert and sterile growing medium in a hydroponic system instead of messing up with soil. To begin with, pick up some clones of good yielding Cannabis plants, if you’re not lucky in this case, you can use seeds. Be careful to buy best quality seeds for healthy high yielding plants. Germinate them in rockwool cubes held in hydroponic cups. This will give good compact rooting. Three-fourth part of the growing cube should be immersed in water but make sure seed is not submerged.
You can use Ebb and Flow system for growing marijuana due to its low maintenance, high productivity, and ease of use. Beginners and professional growers can use this hydroponics system alike. Nutrient solutions feeds all the macro, micronutrients to the plants roots flowed through grow bed using a pump, and then remaining solution is drained off. Plants need light to photosynthesize and in indoor hydroponics cannabis garden, you need to provide proper lighting to them. You can opt for Metal Halide and High Pressure Sodium (HPS) lamps. Metal halide lamps are best for vegetative phase and HPS for flowering phase. Maintain the lights at about 20 inches high above the plants. It should not be too close or too far, which can either burn or stretch the plants. During vegetative stage, cannabis needs 16-24 hours of lighting. During flowering phase, they produce the most of the active ingredient called THC. During flowering initiation, marijuana plants need 12-13 hours of light a day. This cycle lasts for two months or maybe a little longer. When you see small white hairs at the bud sites, know that your plants are blossoming. The whole crop is usually ready for harvest within 3-4 months if grown hydroponically.
Though there are drawbacks like high initial set up cost, unwanted technical breakdown, and bit of hydroponics skill and knowledge, hydroponics has its own share of numerous advantages like less labor, controlled growing environment, prevention of soil borne pests, giving faster, higher, and healthier marijuana yields.
Try Hydroponics Farming For Optimal Yields
0
The agriculture industry is ever evolving with new inventions and technologies to grow plants more efficiently. Increased urbanization has led to scarcity of arable land. In such scenario, growing plants with a technique that can sustain changing weather conditions, and give maximum yield in lesser space is a must. Hydroponics farming is one such technique which will meet the aforementioned criteria. It is a method of growing plants using nutrient solutions, in water, without soil.
History of hydroponics farming:
In the 18th century, researchers discovered that plants absorb essential mineral nutrients as inorganic ions in water. They realized that soil is mere supporter and carrier of nutrients but is definitely not an essential factor in plant growth. The same nutrients when dissolved in water can be efficiently taken in by the plants. This led to the invention of a technique called Deep Water Culture hydroponics. However, surprisingly, the very earliest published work on growing terrestrial plants without soil was the 1627 book, Sylva Sylvarum by Francis Bacon, printed a year after his death. Water culture became a popular research technique after that.
Hydroponic Systems:
Hydroponic farming can be performed with the help of various hydroponic systems. Each system has its own principle, mechanism, set of nutrient media, and lighting system. The most famous hydroponic systems are Ebb and Flow, Nutrient Film Technique (NFT), Drip Irrigation, Wick System, and Aeroponics.
Ebb and Flow system involves temporarily flooding the grow tray with nutrient solution and then draining it back in to the reservoir. In case of NFT, nutrient solution is pumped through growing tray or growing tube and it flows over the roots of the plants. Drip irrigation follows mechanism of using timer controlled submersed pump to flow nutrient solution and water into the container. Wick system, as the name suggests, uses capillary action of cotton or nylon wicks to provide nutrients to plant roots. In case of aeroponics, too the primary growth medium is air. The roots hang in the air and are misted with nutrient solution.
Advantages of Hydroponic Farming:
- With hydroponic farming, plants can be grown anywhere.
- Hydroponic systems can be monitored by you completely and so you get a better control over plant growth.
- It is a space saving, less time consuming method and automated systems require much less labor work than that of the traditional farming methods.
- The chance of soil-borne disease is largely reduced with hydroponics as it is a soil-less culture system, thus the need to fumigate is much less.
Disadvantages of hydroponic Farming:
- Starting cost to set up a hydroponic system is quite high.
- Sound technological knowledge and professional guidance is needed to perform hydroponics farming successfully.
- Systems like NFT, Drip irrigation and Aeroponics are dependent on electric supply and power breakdown can cease working of the entire system. This can put plants’ health and lives in jeopardy.
