Hydro vs. Soil

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For thousands of years people have used soil to produce plants of all varieties. Hydroponics has been used for about a thousand years but, according to Exploring the Global Garden, ND, did not become publicly known about until late 1920’s, when Dr. William F. Gericke termed the word “hydroponics”. The Greek word has a meaning of water, which is hydro, and ponos, which is labor. Pictures of the doctor appeared in newspapers across America of him harvesting tomato plants growing as high as 25 feet (rain.org, ND). When choosing how to grow a plant, many issues come into play, such as: the amount of experience the grower has, the budget of the operation, and the grower’s desire for plant specifications. Many variables come into play so deciding between the two can be experimental. If a seed is placed in soil and watered routinely then it will grow. This is an experiment we are taught at a very young age and is basic knowledge for cultivating plants. But how many people know what nutrition, if the plant lives in water, is required in order for the plant to be fruitful? This is not common knowledge to most of the general population. Soil can provide nutrition for the plant and then some times use of fertilizers mixed with your water can replenish nutrition taken from the soil. With only the knowledge of keeping the soil slightly damp one can successfully grow most plants. When growing a plant in a hydroponic setup one might ask, how much nutrition should be put into the water and how? There is a different equation used for the many variations on hydroponically grown plants. The equation that is needed for your certain situation might not be easily found or accessible. The amount of knowledge that is needed for either application is required for success of growth of the plant. Growing a plant hydroponically requires understanding of the process for growth of the plant.

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