Hydroponics Farming

 

As I have said before, in previous articles, hydroponics farming can be traced back hundreds, and thousands, of years. However it was only in the last century that we really started to look at the technique with a view to utilizing it in commercial growing of food crops.

The Early Days Of Modern Hydroponics

Typically it was mans need that drove the development of hydroponics. Unfortunately in many areas of the USA, and other countries, good quality soil is a rare, and therefore expensive, commodity. At the beginning of the twentieth century transport systems were not as sufficient as they are today and this meant that much of the food required by growing towns and cities required a nearby food source. By the 1930's there had been marked improvements in the development of hydroponics, which negated the need for soil, but it was still not widely accepted.

It was not until science had progressed in other areas that hydroponics began to become a viable method of food production. The advances made in the plastics industry led to reduced costs in the building of the complete system and the advances made in the area of lighting (with the invention of grow lights) expanded the usefulness of the technique. Strangely we have to thank the scientists from NASA for many of the direct advances made in hydroponics farming due to their interest in the technique for growing plants in space.

Hydroponics Farming Today

In this century we have began to see inroads into the commercial uptake of hydroponic systems. In Europe there is great interest with a number of farms devoted to growing crops this way and in the US arid regions can now benefit from the modern, cost effective, commercial hydroponic systems which can be built relatively quickly and be run with very low maintenance costs.

In the photograph above you can see a huge hydroponics greenhouse with a healthy looking crop. From a distance there appears to be little difference between this and an ordinary greenhouse using soil as a growing medium, however, the crops grow much faster, considerably bigger and certainly far more healthy in the hydroponic system and this is the key reason why so many farmers are now considering making the changeover to soiless farming.

 

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