Hydroponic Systems

Hydroponics is an art of growing plants in nutrient-rich water, without soil, a type of controlled-agriculture environment (CEA) with a careful balance of multiple systemic components. The major benefit of this emerging technology is the application of nutrient solution directly to the root zone so that the plants can spend their energy in growing larger and at a rapid rate resulting in higher yields, where as a plant with roots in soil has to work hard to extract its nutrition from the soil, wasting time and energy. Another huge advantage is the high sustainability, in that all the inputs are efficiently utilized by the crops, contrary to the soil-grown crops where substantial amounts of nutrients are lost by leaching.Plants grown hydroponically receive the right kind and the right amount of nutrients at exactly the right time under strictly controlled conditions. With unreliable climatic conditions ravaging India, hydroponics enables a year-round food production. This soil-free technique helps conserve water using about 10 times lesser than that of the field crops, by water recycling. It also eliminates the need for pesticidesinsecticides that could adversely pollute the ecosystem. The beckoning features of hydroponics such as less space requirements, less water consumption, omission of soil-borne diseases and infestations and the higher yields of products with better taste have slowly made it acceptable on a commercial level too.