The Future Of Hydroponics

By Author: Urban Garden
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Hydroponics may seem like a relatively new term, and many people are unfamiliar with what it actually refers to. Hydroponics is a branch of agriculture where plants are grown without the use of soil. Instead of using soil, you add the nutrients directly to a plant’s water supply.

Hydroponics has actually been around for thousands of years. It is theorized that the Babylonians used a form of hydroponics to water the famous Hanging Gardens of Babylon. The gardens were located on the banks of the Euphrates River. The gardens were watered by pulling water up from the river to the top of the gardens and then letting the water trickle down each terrace of the garden. The ancient Aztecs also used a form of hydroponics. When they built their capital city on Lake Tenochtitlan, the marshy habitat made it impossible to grow crops. To deal with this problem, the Aztecs built special rafts, added a little soil from the bottom of the lake, added crops and floated the rafts to the middle of the water. The crops would grow and the roots would extend below the rafts into the lake. Formal research into hydroponics didn’t begin until ...
... the 17th century, when Sir Francis Bacon experimented with soil-less farming. His research sparked off a major surge in hydroponics. The first commercial use for hydroponics was applied during WWII in the Pacific theatre, when it was used to grow crops for troops on tiny islands unsuitable for farming.

Through extensive research and experimentation with hydroponics, agriculturalists have discovered several advantages to using hydroponics as opposed to traditional farming. The first advantage is that with hydroponics, you can grow crops anywhere. Where growing crops traditionally is impossible, like the Arizona desert, growing them using hydroponics is very possible and practical. Another advantage is that you need a fraction of the space for hydroponics compared to traditional farming, which is becoming increasingly useful as the world population continues to rise. A third benefit of hydroponics is that no water is wasted. You only need to use about 10% of the water for a hydroponics system as compared to soil farming. Not only is it much better for the environment, it is also extremely cost-effective. Last but not least, it takes about half as much time to grow plants using hydroponics. The one thing that turns people away is the initial capital investment. You might have to buy large, expensive systems when you first start out, depending on the size of your grow. However, over time hydroponics is actually much cheaper than traditional farming.

Hydroponics is the fastest growing sector of agriculture, and it has huge implications for the future of our planet. More and more people are switching to hydroponics, and it is highly likely that it will come to dominate food production. There are a ton of garden shops out there, and it can be difficult to find a reliable one. Urban Garden Supply is a Clackamas, Oregon based garden center that offers a unique selection of Hydroponic Systems. If you are in need of quality, reliable Portland Hydroponics, checking out Urban Garden Supply will save you a lot of time, money and hassle.

Urban Garden writes for Portland Garden Supply, Urban Garden Supply.