FAQ

What is soil-less gardening?

What are the advantages of soil-less growing?

What are the difficulties in growing plants in soil?

What is the commerical aversion to using the term "hydroponics"?

What is Soilless Gardening

Soilless gardening is the process of growing plants in a water-based liquid nutrient without soil. This is also known as hydroponics - means water work.

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What are the advantages of soil-less gardening?

In addition to water and carbon dioxide in the air, plants need nutrients, trace elements, and oxygen to be supplied to their roots for photosynthesis to occur. This is true whether the plants are grown in an inert medium or in soil. Plants essentially "don't care" where the nutrients are coming from as long as they are available in sufficient levels and in proper form for uptake by the roots. If the nutrient solution contains the right proportion of inorganic compounds and trace minerals to optimally support photosynthesis and plant growth, the plants will be afforded what they need for growth and at the same time their roots will be maintained in a moist or wet root environment. In short, soilless gardening lets the gardener control plant nutrition, oxygen delivery and root moisture - difficult to obtain when growing plants in soil.

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What are the difficulties in growing plants in soil?

For plants grown in soil, soil conditioning and fertilizing is crucial for healthy plants and high yields. In the home gardening context, soil conditioning, as generally practiced, is an inexact procedure at best. The home gardener generally doesn't know the composition of his/her soil. Soil mixtures differ in makeup and organic content, as do soil amendments. There are a plethora of fertilizers on the market that are intended to be added to the soil on a regular basis; most casual gardeners apply fertilizers irregularly, if at all. And the downside of fertilizers is that they kill soil microbes necessary to break down the organic compounds into inorganics that the plant can utilize. Fertilizers also percolate through the soil and contaminate our aquifers and groundwaters.

Even if optimal soil chemistry could be concocted and maintained, the soil must also remain porous for oxygen to reach the roots, but not so porous that regular watering will quickly leach away plant nutrients from the root level. Evaporation at the soil surface is also a problem. For nutrients to be made available to the plant roots, the soil must also contain microbes that break down organic compounds not directly usable by the plants. Importantly, the soil must also remain moist for the plants to uptake nutrients and for photosynthesis to proceed. These issues are not only important for plants grown in the ground but are particularly challenging for plants grown in pots due to nutrient and mineral leaching and the difficulty of keeping a uniform moisture level.

In a world where water is quickly approaching drought conditions in many parts of the world, much of the water that we use in both commercial and home gardening percolates below the root level and carries "nutrients" and pesticides into the groundwater. From a water utilization standpoint, even drip irrigation is a poor compromise to growing plants in a soil-less environment.

What is the commerical aversion to using the term "hydroponics"?

Hydroponics as a term once seemed to be the economic kiss of death due to its wide use in marijuana cultivation. AeroGarden (tm) and their literature buries the term deep in their website - and yet they are using the technology. Many commercial growers solely use hydroponic methods to grow tomatoes, lettuce, bok chow and herbs that are sold throughout the USA; but they don't mention the term 'hydroponics' in describing their operations. Let's cut to the chase: hydroponics has become associated with growing cannabis - and so the innocuous "hydroponics" term has somehow become "tainted" with reference to the legal and illegal drug trade and the cartels. What a pity. Hydroponic developments to grow food crops have been around in the U.S. since at least the 1930's. Israel has, since 1948, developed many improvements in hydroponic technology. These improvements have led to feeding millions of people at reasonable cost while not contaminating ground water aquifers and while minimizing the use of scarce water resources. NASA has engaged in on-going research into utilizing hydroponics for long-term space exploration.

When I (Gary Fisher) was a graduate student at UCLA, I wrote a paper on maintaining an optimal diversity of chlorella (alga) as a food source in a space environment by varying the environmental conditions to maintain diversity - thus potentially avoiding a fatal mishap if the conditions on the spacecraft changed due to a system failure. When I wrote the paper, this was a radical concept. I used the then benevolent technology 'hydroponics" to support the chlorella. This concept of maintaining a diversity of species in our natural environment is currently being embraced by biologists and ecologists as a means for maintaining species diversity while our planet is undergoing changing climatic conditions.

Hydroponics is simply "water works". It should have no implicit connotation other than whether or not it is effective and commercially viable in comparison to conventional agricultural techniques. One can use technology for a variety of purposes. If you choose to be judgemental - attack the uses - not the technology. But let the science be your guide - not the hype.