How Hydroponics farming differs from Regular farming?

How Hydroponics farming differs from Regular farming?

Gardening has evolved to the next stage with the introduction of growing methods like Hydroponics. “Hydro” meaning water and “Ponics” meaning working is the shortest and most direct interpretation of this method. It essentially removes the need for soil as the medium for growth, support, and delivery of nutrition and replaces it with soil. The benefit of this is apparent in the basic consistency of these mediums. Water is easy to work with has a great solubility factor and can be controlled to have no added material(RO) except that which we add for the benefit of the plant’s growth.

This method leverages the superiority of controlled production to give a more guaranteed crop result than soil where mass production is a hit or miss and the plants themselves are subject to the goodwill of the seasons and mother nature.

The fundamental difference is that Hydroponic growing requires specialized hydroponic equipment, which also optimizes the growing process. For ex. NFT(nutrient film technique) commonly used to grow leafy greens and herbs uses a thin film of water that completely reduces the plants need to grow long and thick fibrous root systems and focus on growing their leaves and stems thus greatly reducing seed to harvest times and increasing the harvestable material from the plant. The nutrients that are added can also be designed to cater to the plants leafy growth and boost this production even more. A combination of modern agricultural practices, protected farming, and automation of farm processes have greatly brought down the cost of hydroponics farming in India to make it a viable and lucrative business opportunity right now.

Unlike soil gardening, hydroponics can be done anywhere and by anyone. It reduces the complexity of problem-solving that soil farming has left us with. Hydroponic home systems are easy to install and dismantle to transport. Someone doing hydroponics in Gurgaon could very well pack up their hydroponics system and shift it to another place of residence. One no longer needs to start a whole new garden when moving from place to place.

Another change that hydroponics brings to the table against traditional methods of soil farming is the power of data and technology. In one year of soil growing the number of factors affecting soil fertility and composition could be too vast and difficult to control or correct sometimes a single seasonal event can render acres of land useless for farmers. But hydroponics can be as controlled as tracking the growth in internodal spaces at a particular season, under set temperatures and nutrient levels under monitored light intensities. Data gathering and inference could lead to the development of proprietary farming practices for a guaranteed quantity and quality of the crop. This is an advantage even organic farming cannot provide. Hydroponics raises farming to meet the standards of the “Scientific Revolution”.
Hydroponics blends the best of modern agriculture to provide a clean, efficient, replicable and controllable method of growing.