Hydroponic Greenhouses – Growing Plants without Soil

Hydroponics is proof that plants can be grown in a controlled environment, free from soil-borne pests and diseases. Plants grown hydroponically are raised in greenhouses under carefully controlled conditions. Within the hydroponics greenhouse gravel is usually used as a medium for root support, and mixtures of nutrients are periodically fed to the crops in liquid form.

The method is called sub-irrigation culture, and commercial hydroponic greenhouses are refined so, once seedlings are planted almost all of the work is done by automation. In these greenhouses delicate sensors in the gravel decide when the plants need more solutions and turn on the pumps, which give the plants the right amount of solution. Hydroponics allows fresh produce to be grown without using dangerous herbicides or pesticides in the plants.

In hydroponics plants are grown without the use of soil, so plants are fed the exact nutrients needed for rapid growth and volume production. Inside hydroponic greenhouses there are many structures used for hydroponic method. Some hydroponic gardeners use hydroponic tanks that are made are made from big drums, which are cut in half. The bottom of each trough should be brazed with brass tubing, with a garden hose clamped to one end of the tube, and the other end attached to a similar tube which is brazed into a small can.

The insides of the tanks and the can should be painted with an asphalt-based paint, which is used to prevent metal surfaces from rusting. Tanks should also be filled with pea-sized gravel, and it is essential that a small piece of fiberglass screen be placed over the inlet tube inside the container, before the gravel is installed.

Some gardeners start the process of planting the tanks by first starting seedlings in paper cups full of vermiculate, with the bottoms of the containers perforated enough to allow the hydroponic solution to enter.

After the plants are started, the entire cup should be placed in the gravel. The can is filled with the solution, and when it’s time to feed the plants the container is lifted higher than the tank.

Fluid flows down the hose and into the gravel, which irrigates the plant’s roots from below. When the can is empty, it’s placed back down below the tanks, and the liquid flows out of the gravel, down the hose and back where it came from. This should be done three times a day to ensure the crops are moist, but are never flooded with solution for more than a few seconds.

There are many advantages to growing plants in a hydroponics greenhouse. Crop yields are increased dramatically over conventional agriculture, when grew hydroponically. For example, the yield per acre of tomatoes grown conventionally is five to ten tons; on the harvest of hydroponically grown tomatoes is 60 to 300 tons. The dramatic difference is true for other crops also, such as lettuce. The lettuce crop grown in a hydroponic greenhouse yields an increase of 12,000 pounds over conventionally grown lettuce.

Steve Fox a farmer from Albuquerque, NM suggests that extensive use of hydroponic greenhouses, with greater yields of produce, would free cropland for organic agriculture. Instead of poisoning soil with chemical fertilizers, the chemicals will be kept in a greenhouse where they couldn’t poison anything other than the gravel beds. There is nothing wrong with using chemical fertilizers in these scenarios, because in organic gardening if you build the soil with organic material, then eventually enough nutrients will be provided to grow healthy produce.

The advantages to hydroponic greenhouses are not limited to just greater crop yields. The advantages are found on three levels. On the first level, using hydroponics also extends the growing season, doesn’t require heavy labor, and there’s no need for greenhouse soil.

The second level advantages include greater rural densities, methods can be standardized, and it maintains hydrological cycles. The third level advantages include, establishment of earlier ecologies, oxygen production in urban areas, and autonomous self-contained environment.