What is hydroponics?

What Does hydroponics Mean

The notion of hydroponics is used in the field of botany to refer to the technique that allows to grow species in an aqueous solution . Crops of this type, therefore, dispense with land.

General characteristics
For the development of hydroponics, the nutrients that plants need are dissolved in the water . The usual thing is that the roots of the plants are in suspension, although sometimes a gravel or sand support is used.

Hydroponics allows cultivation without soil

Thanks to the dissolution of minerals in the water, the roots absorb the essential nutrients for the growth and subsistence of the specimen. In traditional agricultural practices, vegetables find the nutrients in the soil , while with hydroponics that reserve is found in the aqueous solution.

Hydroponics appears as an ideal option in regions with little availability of agricultural land or whose soil has been degraded. It is possible to start a hydroponic grow with little space and a small investment.
Advantages of hydroponics
Among the advantages of hydroponics compared to other agricultural practices, are the saving of resources (the water used can be reused), the safety of the food obtained (since no fertilizers or chemical products are used ) and the productive stability throughout the year. .
Another benefit of hydroponics is speed . Since the seed germinates until the lettuce harvest can be carried out, to mention one case, barely sixty days pass.
If hydroponics is developed in greenhouses , in addition, it can be carried out in harsh climates. Thus it is possible to guarantee the availability of vegetables in any season, for example.
Story
Although hydroponics is not as old as other techniques related to agriculture, the first evidence of its use dates back several centuries . However, it is important not to confuse certain practices of the past with hydroponics, even if they share some of its characteristics.
Two examples of gardens that should not be confused with hydroponics are the following: those that the Aztecs made with a kind of raft that they covered with earth (the so-called chinampas ); the Pendants of Babylon , which were irrigated from the roof.

On the other hand, it is believed that in the ancient Roman Empire certain hydroponic practices were carried out to cultivate some species of vegetables in environmentally controlled areas. For example, the Emperor Tiberius Julius Caesar Augustus , who ruled between the years 14 and 37 and belonged to the Julio-Claudian dynasty, took advantage of them to cultivate cucumbers.
Already in the IV century a. C. began to study hydroponics in a formal way, although today we do not have written documents prior to the seventeenth century, time in which Jan van Helmont , a native of Belgium, recorded his experience in the nutrition of plants with Water. The first published work, on the other hand, we owe to Francis Bacon , in the year 1627.

It is necessary to use a mineral solution for nutrition
Nutritive solution
Mineral solutions to obtain the necessary nutrients to cultivate in this way were only developed in the 19th century. We are talking about the thirteen elements of mineral origin that are used to provide plants raised through hydroponics with the essential resources for their development: nitrogen, potassium, phosphorus, calcium, magnesium, sulfur, iron, manganese, zinc, boron, copper, silicon, molybdenum .
We must not forget that this group of techniques that encompasses the concept of hydroponics is used precisely in cases where the person does not have a suitable soil for agriculture. Even in areas where the development of crops was possible in the past but the soils have been deteriorated by bad practices, it can be an ideal alternative to not stop production.

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