Now a days its quit common to listen the word Hydroponics, Its trending also. This technology is not new its really far from Babylon farming. Now a days due to soil erosion or water scarcity hydroponics came in to boom where you can grow crops with less water, no soil. Overall growing more food with fewer resources.
What does Hydroponic Farming mean?
Its simple, here we have to use water as substitute for soil. Soil have nutrients but water did not have anything so here we add necessary nutrients for healthy and fast growth. The nutrients contain Micro and Macro nutrients like nitrogen, calcium, potassium, zinc many more.
Now lets talk about Benefits of Hydroponics?
There are a lot of advantages to a hydroponic farming. They can solve many problems like excess use of water, pesticides, fertilizers, cost of farming and many more. This is the future of farming and can solve many problems in Agriculture sector.
1. Uses very less space
Hydroponics uses very less space that plants grown in soil. Hydroponics can save up to 99% of the space to farm it depends on the system. vertical farming is best option to save space in hydroponics method.
Hydroponics plant roots do not have to search for nutrients because we are giving sufficient nutrients directly to the plant roots, so, the plant roots do not spread like in soil so plant to plant distance can be very low. When you add in vertical stacking methods, it’s easy to see how a much smaller area is needed to produce a hydroponic garden than a traditional one.
2. Saves water
Growing plants in water actually uses less water than growing plants in soil. fact is hydroponics plants can grow with 98% less water than traditional farming.
According to a 2019 report from the World Health Organization, only 71 percent of the world’s population has a safely-managed water drinking service. By 2025, half of the world’s population will live in water-stressed areas. Conserving water is likely to become more and more crucial as time goes on, making irrigation for agriculture more difficult and less profitable.
As population increases food production also increases it consumes more water than ever. It seems that if we want to be serious about conserving water, hydroponics is an important part of the process.
3. We can create a Micro-Climate
Hydroponics farms can always have little or big poly house or green house. this means they can create a climate inside the farm, in traditional farming this is not possible or they may have to encounter with big issues. Traditional farming need to face lot of pest and they will be addressed with insecticides. Here in hydroponics plants can be grown all year round due to temperature humidity control. Even in winter we can grow with some grow lights.
4. Produces higher yields
Creating ideal conditions ensures plants receive the perfect amount of nutrients, which come in direct contact with roots. Additionally, microclimates allow for year-round growth and faster crop cycles. All of this adds up to create far higher yields than traditional farming methods.
5. Less labor
Without the need for tilling, weeding, herbicide and insecticide application, and other labor-intensive farm jobs, hydroponics offers a lighter load for laborers and can easily be managed with far fewer man-hours. This both cuts back on the cost of producing crops, and frees up time for other pursuits. In fact, a small hydroponic greenhouse can be entirely managed by a single part-time worker.
6. No soil required
We are loosing useful soil. Its estimated that half of the worlds good soil has been lost in the past 150 years. This all is due to erosion, compaction, loss of soil structure, salinity, loss of nutrients. Additionally, there is a wide variation in soil quality from one location to the next, and many plants have strong preferences for a particular soil type. This means traditional farmers can only grow crops suited to the soil in their areas. In large parts of the world, few crops can be grown using traditional methods. With hydroponic gardens, the soil is not a concern so farmers can grow whatever crops would be most beneficial to their community without concern for soil degradation.
7. Can produce good quality food
We all need our fruits and veggies fresh and better. Few people happen to live in an area where they can get fresh produce year-round due to climate and soil conditions. So how do we get high-quality food into the hands of the majority of the world’s population, even in the offseason?
In traditional farming after harvest they get ripened at warehouse and after some days they get delivered to stores or markets. Sometimes ethylene gas is used to ripen the food. Food that ripened on the plants have good nutrients and taste also. Because hydroponic gardens contain their own microbiomes, these crops can be grown just about anywhere. This means they can be picked at the peak of ripeness since they don’t have far to go before they reach the homes and restaurants where they’ll be enjoyed.
8. Reduces Supply Chain
At traditional commercial growing operations, lots of water, energy is used to grow crops and to get good output. Then they travel using vehicles to long and long by trains, trucks, cars. At last they got preserved in some chemicals to increase shelf life. In Hydroponics energy is almost cut to very extinct level. We can produce food in hydroponics in urban areas even in fully metro cities also . So, here food chain process is very low and grown locally with very less waste and less transportation and with lot of freshens.
9. No matter of seasonality
We’ve all seen it. Buy strawberries in the middle of the summer and they’re cheap, fresh, and delicious. Try to buy them in the winter months and you might pay as much as three times the price for berries that don’t taste nearly as good. Seasonality is an unfortunate reality for traditional farming methods.
In a hydroponic greenhouse, conditions are controlled by the grower. This means you can grow your strawberries and harvest them in the dead of winter. And if a locust swarm comes through, the greenhouse will protect your precious crops from damage, no matter how many of the critters infest fields nearby. For growers, this means the ability to enter into longer-term wholesale contracts with fixed pricing. And they’ll be sure to deliver, come what may.
10. Faster crop growth
Most fruits and vegetables take several months to reach maturity using traditional methods. Plants must take their nutrients from the soil, which can be a slow process. What nutrients they absorb are often wasted through the maturing process.
The growth rate for a hydroponic plant is 30-50 percent faster than a plant grown in soil. With hydroponics, nutrients are more easily available for the plant to absorb. The grower can control light, heat, nutrients, hydration, pests, and all other aspects of the growing process. This means the whole cycle can be streamlined for larger, faster-growing plants with a higher yield.
If you want to start or enter into the world of hydroponics, Maximum Cultivator might be the best solution for you. Contact us to discuss about hydroponic farming