Hydroponics is often a means of growing plants in nutrient water without the use of soil. Instead of soil a non-reacting medium is employed such as perlite, gravel, or the husk of coconuts. It was known as early as the 18 century that plants absorb their minerals in water as ions. The soil in traditional growing provides a nutrient reservoir but will not actually contribute to plants growth. Water dissolves the minerals inside plants soil enabling the plants to use them. In hydroponics the minerals necessary for plants growth are artificially dissolved within the water making soil unnecessary. You'll be able to grow almost any soil based plant using hydroponics. Hydroponics is definately a promising field that there's much research into various ways in the academic community.

The 1st book ever published on hydroponics was published in 1627. And, water cultivation soon was a popular technique. Experiments were done as well as in 1699 it was found that plants grown in sanitized water grew less rapidly then plants grown in plain water. This can be due to the dissolved ions found within non-pure water. By 1842 scientists had published a list of nine elements believed to be responsible for plant growth as well as the results of which resulted in what is known as modern hydroponics. At first they used soilless cultivation and grew terrestrial plants while using nine essential elements. It quickly spread throughout academia and became an area of hot research.

Among the first achievements of hydroponics was performed by Dr. Gericke at the University of Berkley. He been able to create tomato plants that grew to over 25 feet tall. During the time this was considered only possible due to usage of hydroponics. He claimed that hydroponics would revolutionize growing. If perhaps he were alive how to see how it has. He wrote a magazine in 1940 called the Complete Guide to Soilless Growing which had become the go to guide on hydroponics of the day; although, initially he refused to publicly reveal his secret.

Due to the extravagant nature of his claims several scientists set about reviewing his work. Initially they found that soilless growing was not better than soil growing. They learned that the yield of crops were tied to other factors other than minerals, such as light. The research overlooked most of the important factors that make hydroponics benefit plants. Namely that hydroponics allows the plants roots to seize more oxygen. During this time period mineral solutions were developed called Hoagland solutions were developed and are still in use today. Hydroponics was adopted on Wake Island in early stages to grow vegetables and then there was no soil. Recently hydroponics may be thoroughly researched by NASA.

With the advancement of modern hydroponics along came advances in grow lights. Initially the introduction of HPS (high pressure sodium) grow lights allowed plants to get grown indoors. They produced high light output and allowed plants to mature fully. Recently the advances of LED grow lights initiated a policy of to revolutionize the concept of hydroponics. They completely eliminate the heat issues that occur with HPS lights and will reduce electrical costs by up to two thirds.

grow lights