Systems & Growing Media

What is Hydroponic Growing?

Hydroponic growing is a growing method using either growing media or water as the growing "tool".

Commercially hydroponic growing was developed in 1920's and fully incorporated in the 1960's in Europe and the 1980's in Australia.

Today it is a big business and almost 95% of cut flowers (ie roses, gerberas, orchids, carnations etc) are grown hydroponically, as well as tomatoes, capsicum, strawberries, cucumbers, fodder, herbs, berries and many more.

There is no doubt that this is an ideal system for conserving water in Australia.

Basically there are 2 main systems: open and closed.

Closed systems recirculate the water.

• NFT- (Nutrient Film Technique) water with nutrients that recirculates around roots, 2-3 mm in depth.
• Flood and drain - approximately 20mm of water with nutrients floods and drains through the container several times a day.
• Aeroponics - sprays of water and nutrients around roots in a growing chamber.

Open systems run to waste. These are media used:

Coco peat / Coir Rockwool, Growool Perlite Vermiculite Sand

Scoria Sawdust Pine bark Peat moss Pumice and more..

The water and nutrients can be collected, treated and recirculated.

The benefits for hydroponic growing are:

• Year round gardening
• It is clean
• Greater and quicker production. For example yield of 15kg field tomatoes against 60kg hydroponic tomatoes per m2
• Enhanced flavour of crops
• Reduced or eliminated use of pesticides
• Any quality land can be used

Hydroponic gardening is used by NASA to feed astronauts in space and also used in Antarctic expeditions to feed staff!

Hydroponic Advisory can provide consulting and advice for commercial growers on:

• Systems, media and crop matching
• Testing properties of the media both physical and chemical properties
• Testing pH, EC and toxicities of the media
• Selection of media appropriate for your crop and conditions
• Occupational Health & Safety (OHS) and hygiene in relation to the growing media

We suggest some background reading on this topic and have provided a comprehensive reading list on Systems and Growing Media for you.

Please contact us for more details about how we can assist your business.