contest entry. extremly basic of hydroponics

Is my entry good enough to win the contest.

  • Yes

    Votes: 4 66.7%
  • No

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Its good but not good enough

    Votes: 2 33.3%

  • Total voters
    6

tckfui

Well-Known Member
Hydroponics chambers are a fairly new method for growing plants, there usually

used for growing vegetables such as tomatoes, peppers, cabbage, lettuces, and somehow

even potatoes and carrots. Hydroponics has been around for over 300 years, but hasn’t

become widely used until recently because there were still a lot of problems. However

hydroponics has come a long way in the last few decades, and have been available to the

public more recently, hundreds of people start hydroponics gardens each week.

The first Hydroponics’ nutrients were made over 300 years ago by a man named John Woodward. He conducted these tests in order to find out whether plants

received their nutrients from, soil, or water. He came to the conclusion that neither were sufficient to grow plants on there own, but was ridiculed by farmers who

thought water was the only means for plants to obtain nutrients, and that the soil was simply used for stability and to dig down to tap into sources of moisture or

water. Woodward being a scientist couldn’t just leave it at that, and began studying plants and how they grew more closely, thus giving birth to modern-day

hydroponics. Hydroponics were used in ancient times, but because this is a brief paper 300 years ago will be the beginning of hydroponics. Modern hydroponics were

not based upon ancient hydroponics, we knew little about ancient hydroponics until more recently. With hydroponics water is the only thing that is used to give

plants nutrients, they are soilless setups. Hydroponics nutrients need to be added to the water. The reason these nutrients need to be added is because water has

little, if any minerals and nutrients that a plant needs to survive. There are hundreds of different brands of nutrients but they all have the same basic components

which are Nitrogen or N, phosphate or P2O5, and potash or K20, each company uses different amount of each chemical, than they add there own extra chemicals in

minute amounts.

Hydroponics nutrients come in either two or three parts. One is the nutrients that plants need during their vegetative growth period, plants that are “veging” like a

nutrient mix of about 1:3:6, that means 1 part Nitrogen 4 parts Phosphates and 7 part potash, this is the order nutrients are labeled on packages N:P:K. The

vegetative stage of a plant is when the plant is focusing all its energy on growing new leaves and flower sights, as well as growing both up and out. During this

vegetative growth some people put their plants under 24 hours of light or 16/8 14/10 or 18/4 (light On/Off), the reason for this is that most plants don’t require time

to rest or “sleep” until they begin to flower.

During the flowering stage of a plants life they like a mixture of about 1:4:7. This might not seem like a big difference from the 1:3:6 plants like during vegetative

growth. But apparently it is.

The third part of the nutrient solution is a growth booster that is a ratio of about 3:0:2 this isn’t necessary but useful.

The plants also need to stand upright, which is not possible in water, so to keep the plants upright a grow medium is needed, there are many different grow mediums

a few are Hydroton also called expanded clay pellets, lava rocks, and rock-wool, each one is very porous and also allows a sufficient amount of air to reach the

roots. A new medium that is rapidly becoming very popular is called coco-fiber, it’s the hairs from the outside of a coconut, its bin said that they have natural oils

that help roots grow more rapidly.

There are dozens of different types of Hydroponics systems these are a few that are popular because they can be used in small scale grows and large scale grows,

and also because they’re relatively easy to use.

Deep Water Culture or DWC- with a DWC system the roots of the plant are completely submerged in nutrient rich water. Because plants roots need lots of air as well

as water in the bottom of one of these chambers are air stones that are hooked up to air pumps (the same ones used for fish tanks). This gives the plant the air

and water that it needs to live a happy life.

Aeroponic chamber- they are becoming incredibly popular because they are said to be a low maintenance hydroponics systems.

Aeroponic setups have a water pump inside of them (same ones used for fish tanks) that pumps water through misters. Most people have these misters spray the

roots 24 hours a day. Since the roots are just being sprayed they receive much more air than other kinds of hydroponic systems, while still getting as much nutrient

rich water, and this makes the plants grow at a much faster rate.

Ebb and Flow- These systems are pretty different from the other two, in that the other systems can house their own reservoirs, Ebb and Flow system must have an

external reservoir, a table with deep sides, is filled with Hydroton and in this lose hydroton plants can be placed pretty much anywhere on the table.

The table need to sit above its reservoir, because the reservoir hold all the water for the table, and 3 times a day a pump, pumps water into the table for a short

period of time, watering the roots and than all the water empties out into the reservoir, acting kind of like the Ebb and Flow of the ocean, and allowing plants to

receive the amount of air and water they need.

A few other hydroponics systems that I wont get into because I don’t know much about them are drip irrigation, Nutrient film transfer NFT, and others I cant thing

of.

I know its not great... but me no care:blsmoke:
 
Nice write up and thanks for the info. Something you may want to edit is the history of hydroponics. Hydro has been around for thousands of years and was used in Asia and Egypt. The Hanging Gardens of Babylon (one of the ancient wonders of the world) was a hydroponic garden.

One other critique if I may... putting spaces between paragraphs increases legibility - especially viewing in a browser.
 
tricky tricky... I didnt know that the gardens of babylon were hydroponic, thats nuts... I never thought they were that crazy but now I do. and I agree about the double spacing. Ill look alittle into ancient hydroponics and see if I can sum it up quickly and add it in, if not Ill edit that out
 
:evil::evil:when I wrote this paper for a class two weeks ago I looked up history of hydroponics and came up with nothing that went beond 60 years ago, now I'm finding its bin around for a long ass time man... going to write a corrected breif history and post it up later:blsmoke:
 
while you are correcting, I use flood and drain. My water pumps come on at 11:00 and you hear that tub draining sound by 11:15, once a day roclwool or coco. I don't know anyone that lets them sit flooded for an hour. VV
 
Okay I edited it up there. I changed the time for the ebb and flow and... Um I did somthing else...
any other changes? or did I not change or write enough somewear?
any feedback welcome
 
tricky tricky... I didnt know that the gardens of babylon were hydroponic, thats nuts... I never thought they were that crazy but now I do. and I agree about the double spacing. Ill look alittle into ancient hydroponics and see if I can sum it up quickly and add it in, if not Ill edit that out

I thought they were Aquaponics.. they had fish as I recall reading
 
Aeroponic chamber- they are becoming incredibly popular because they are said to be a low maintenance hydroponics systems.

Aeroponic setups have a water pump inside of them (same ones used for fish tanks) that pumps water through misters. Most people have these misters spray the

roots 24 hours a day. Since the roots are just being sprayed they receive much more air than other kinds of hydroponic systems, while still getting as much nutrient

rich water, and this makes the plants grow at a much faster rate.

Just my 2 cents here. I would perhaps mention that the cause of the Aeroponic system being so efficient if you will is that the "mist" or better put as water particle size is directly connected with the amount of oxygen the roots are getting, and this smaller particle size also allows for a reduction in nutrient use as the roots become more finely haired than the typical root growing in soil or any other growing medium they better extract the nutes. This is also what makes the fogging systems an absolute god of hydroponics..until your fogger fails. Both Aeroponic and Fogponic roots are very susceptible to root damage due to drying as there is no medium to get them though a dry spell. Most all fogponic systems I have seen run 24/7, I run my Aeroponic 4x6 tray with 25 jets at about 3 minute on/off intervals around the clock. If I suffer a power failure I have found the tray being covered does build up humidity that keeps damp for hours and hours.

Hope this helps in some way.
 
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