Tuesday, 8 January 2013

Benefits of Aeroponics as an Indoor Gardening System



Primarily considered as a hobby before 90s, Aeroponics has quickly grown to become the flagship of modern farming techniques. The idea of soil-free farming has always found its takers, as conditions and cost have often compelled us to seek out the new ideas.

Being from the similar background of soil-free rearing of plants, Aeroponics takes one step further by eliminating the need for any medium whatsoever. Aeroponics system often consists of plants supported on channels with their roots dangling midair for the whole time.

So, when in hydroponics, the nutrients are supplied to the plants thorough water acting as a reservoir, Aeroponics just takes out the middleman entirely. The nutrients are directly sprayed onto the roots of the growing plants dangling in form of an atomized mist sprayed with much high pressure.

So, here we’ll discuss the benefits of employing the Aeroponics system for gardening, by citing the some basic differences that separate the same from the conventional hydroponics.

Better Results

As the plant roots directly receive the nutrients in atomized form, the uptake for the same certainly is faster. Also, since every spray of nutrients is separated with intermittent time gap, the oxygen intake of the plants is much more. This not only accelerates the growth of the plants, the roots even spread out seeking more air and speeding the vegetative growth altogether.

Aeroponics is the most advanced method of farming, which takes the whole ‘accountability to every input’ idea to a entirely new level. As with the absence of any growth medium and thus resultant spatial availability issues , the plant are no more deprived from any  amount of nutrients and oxygen.

Efficient Resource Management
Three crucial factors are to be considered here. Water, nutrients and air, these are the factors which were primarily targeted in the first place with the advent of aeroponics. 

No system of any kind in modern farming provides such efficient use of water. As the nutrients solution is directly sprayed on to the roots, the water requirement is much less. This is in lieu of fact that water is no longer acting as the medium, but instead as to transmit the nutrients to the roots directly. Thus the total water requirement can be maintained up to 1/20th of the amount that is used in conventional methods.

With no medium to dilute the possibility of uptake by roots, the nutrients requirement in an aeroponics system can be tuned much more closely. As the maximum amount of nutrient supplies taken by roots, the total nutrients input in the system decreases even further. Nutrients are can be now supplied evenly throughout the crop, thus eliminating the randomized effect that a growth medium has in this respect

In hydroponics or any other method, the supply of air is managed thought the medium itself, which in turn leads to uneven distribution. So, now we have dangling roots in constant supply of air i.e. oxygen and CO2, making the equipments such as aerators more or less redundant.
Economical

Aeroponics systems are generally built with few commonly found or even recycled materials. A readymade setup is also available if one is looking for an aesthetically pleasant structure. Tubes, buckets are often used in a modular structure to build an efficient system.

Money is also saved in maintenance of the system with a nutrients solution of 700-900 ppm is found to be quite adequate for a typical scenario. A simple water pump giving out 60 psi worth of pressure can be used to provide the required atomized mist. 

Disease-Free Conditions

With a constant supply of fresh air and absence of a medium which may act as a shelter, pathogens are less of a problem in any Aeroponics system. Not only the excess oxygen keeps the anaerobic bacteria at bay, removal of affected plant part is much easier. 

Mobility

An aeroponics system offers a certain ease when it comes to moving the entire crop from one place to another.

Changes in the Regimen

Any kind of change in the nutrient input is much economical if not easier, as the plants do not need to be flushed altogether. This gives a grower certain freedom so as to manage the crop more efficiently

The benefits which are listed above presents a better scenario for any grower in order to procure the maximum yield with best of the quality.

No comments:

Post a Comment