Hydroponics

For Everybody
HydroScope
 WILLIAM TEXIER

Hydroponics
For Everybody
All about home HORTICULTURE
Illustrations: Loriel Verlomme

Copyright © Mama Editions (2013)

All rights reserved for all countries

ISBN 978-2-84594-081-9
HydroScope: designed and produced by Tigrane Hadengue

Mama Editions, 7 rue Pétion, 75011 Paris (France) Mama editions

 Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the people who helped me with this book,
from proof reading to editing my strange English,
Hilaria, Lani and Cal, Fred and Alix.
Special thanks for my wife, friend, and long time accomplice
Noucetta. And of course, I cannot forget my dear friends
Lawrence Brooke, with whom that adventure started…
and continues, and Cal Herrmann who taught me
the little chemistry that I know.
I also would like to dedicate this book to all of you
growers and plant lovers.
 William texier Hydroponics for everybody

Table of contents
Chapter 6 Chapter 9
The hydroponics Can hydroponics be organic?
grow room 119 Bioponics 171
Space. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119 Conductivity. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173
Humidity.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122 pH level.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174
Introduction 13 Chapter 3 Ventilation.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124 Filtration.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175
The nutrient solution: water, CO2. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125
A brief history. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 nutrients and filtration 79
Advantages: why hydro?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
Light. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128 Conclusion 177
Water .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79 Metal Halide (MH) –
Limitations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 High Pressure Sodium (HPS). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132
pH. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
Table: pH scale, some examples. . . . . . . . . . . . 80 LED (Light emitting diodes). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132 Annex 1
Chapter 1 Plasma light. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132
Gallery 181
The different hydroponics systems 29 Alkalinity. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
Hardness.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83 Odor. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134
Passive systems. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 Salinity. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83 Annex 2
Flood and drain.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 Filtration and treatments. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85 Chapter 7 The law and the label 195
NFT.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34 Reverse osmosis. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
Deficiencies, pests… and others 139
What does the law say?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195
DFT: Deep Flow Technique.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38 UV Filter. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86 Deficiencies. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139 Minerals. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195
Drip systems.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38 Sand filter. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88 Table of mobile, semi and fixed elements.. . 140 Mixes of mineral and organic. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 196
Aero-hydroponics. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42 Activated carbon filter. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88 Table of deficiencies/excesses. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140 Organic. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 196
Air pumps. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42 Ceramic filters. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88 Pests in indoor cultivation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142 Eco labels. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 196
Water pumps. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46 The Nutrients. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90 Above ground.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145 Consumer’s information.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 196
Vortex .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48 Table: the role of each element. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91 • Spider mites .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145 What does the label tell you?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197
Aeroponics. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50 • Aphids . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147 What the label does not say?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197
Vertical cultivation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52 Chapter 4 • Thrips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147 What do we find on the labels in real life?.. 198
DWC: Deep Water Cultivation.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55 Management of nutrient solution 97 • Whiteflies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147 In brief.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 198
Hydroponics of the future.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57 • Molds – Fungi . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147
Temperature.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
Which one to choose?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57 Below the ground.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149
pH.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100 Annex 3
Table of absorption .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100 • Root aphids. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149 Conversion chart 199
Chapter 2 • Nematodes .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149
Hydroponic substrates 61 Conductivity. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
Table of conductivity in mS/cm.. . . . . . . . . . . . . 101 • Fungus gnat . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149
Annex 4
Common features. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61 Changing the solution. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102 • Molds – Fungi . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149 Bibliography 201
Inorganic substrates. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63 Some basic advice.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104
Rockwool – Glasswool.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63 Chapter 8
Lava rocks. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
Pumice. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
Chapter 5
Hydroponics plantation
Additives: bringing life
to hydroponics 155 HydroScope 205
Perlite. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65 stage by stage 109 Silica. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156
Vermiculite. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67 Sowing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109 Humates. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157
Gravel. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67 Mother plant. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110 Plant extracts (boosters).. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158
Sand . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67 Cuttings.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112 Hormones. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160
Expanded clay pebbles.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69 Vegetative stage. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114 Algae extracts. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161
Organic substrates. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69 Flowering and fruiting. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116 Fungi and bacteria. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161
Peat moss. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69 Harvest. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118 Worm casting extract. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162
Coco coir. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71 Growing for seeds. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118 Hydrogen peroxide (H2O2 ).. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164
Sawdust. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72 Hydroponics for outdoors. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118 CO2 tabs. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165
Others. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72 Enzymes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 166
Soil-less mixes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72 Mycorrhiza.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 166
Water. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72

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Hydroponics for everybody

Introduction

The Webster dictionary gives the following wonderfully succinct definition of the word
hydroponics:
“A technique of growing plants without soil, in water containing dissolved nutrients.”
Well, that’s it in a nutshell. When done right hydroponics can produce better tasting, more
nutritious fruits, vegetables and herbs with lower ecological impact than traditional soil-
based cultivation. In this book I would like to help you «do it right». I will share with you
much practical information I’ve garnered through my lifetime of growing with hydroponics.
The more you understand, the more successful you’ll be; as we go along I’ll do my best to
explain each new term and concept and show you how to apply them.
There are two ways to grow plants in water: with the bare roots growing in a nutriment
solution, or with a non-soil, inert substrate. In some languages, the term “hydroponics”
is reserved for water-based cultivation, while the term «soil-less» is used for substrate-
based culture. We will discuss both in this book.
The basic principles of hydroponics are very simple, almost childish: a nutrient solution
must be kept at a tolerable temperature, oxygenated, and provide the plants with the
nutriments they need. The part about oxygenation is really the heart of it. To make a good
hydroponics system, the water has to be saturated with oxygen at all times. Once you
know that, you could almost throw away the book: you’ve learned the most important
factor, so important that I will come back to the subject often.
The word hydroponics comes from two Greek roots: “Hydro” meaning water and “ponos”
meaning work. You can translate it in several ways: by “water at work”, or by “working
with water”, also by “the work of water”; whichever you prefer, the meaning it conveys
is clear. The word hydroponics, by and large, does not describe a single technology, but
rather it covers many different techniques that we will examine further on. Sadly and
confusingly, this means that the term hydro (1) also encompasses poor practices that can
be extremely damaging for the environment, wasteful of water, and produce low quality
food totally devoid of interest both in terms of taste and nutritional value. If you’ve only
encountered hydroponics products in the form of those tasteless tomatoes and odorless
roses at your local supermarket, I can’t blame you for having concluded that hydroponics
is an unnatural and environmentally polluting way to produce industrial quantities of
something that only looks like food. Unfortunately, you are not wrong. The processes to
grow those products generate ungodly mountains of waste, old plastic mulching, used
slabs of rock wool and many other unwanted materials, none of them biodegradable.

1. I often use hydro as a shorthand for hydroponics.

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 William texier Hydroponics for everybody

Fortunately, hydroponics has much, much more to offer. I will do my best to enlighten
you and steer you away from those benighted practices. A brief history
Let us start by learning to distinguish between open and closed systems. Most commercial +/- 2000 BC: First recorded potted plant. This happened in Egypt. It has nothing to do with
operations are purely open systems (and pretty basic ones). The plants are grown on a hydro, but I like that date. In some ways, this is the beginning of the story: for the first
rock wool slab; a nutrient solution is circulated various times a day, according to ambi- time, man took plants out of the ground, put them in potted soil, and brought them home.
ent temperature, subsequently releasing 25 to 30 per cent of this nutrient solution into
-600 BC: The famous hanging gardens of Babylon, often cited as being the first recorded
the ground with each watering. This is done to avoid a salt build up in the substrate. This
use of hydroponics. 1 Sadly, the ancient fabled plantings do not strictly meet our defi-
technique, very damaging for the ecosystem, is what gives a bad name to hydroponics.
nition of hydro: although the plants were grown in channels with a constant stream of
It is still largely in use today because it is extremely cheap to put in place. To achieve a
water bathing their roots, the channels were filled with earth. Incidentally, the gardens
competitive market price, most commercial growers use this open system to maintain
didn’t really “hang” either; that idea stems from a mistranslation of a Greek word mean-
low production level cost. However, many recent new regulations mandate recovering
ing overhanging. Nevertheless, this is the oldest recorded use of a large irrigation system
this wastewater from the drain and disposing of it safely. Wastewater is now often treated
integrated into a building.
and re circulated.
-1100: Indian tribes in South America and Mexico (Aztecs and others as well) used float-
Then there are closed systems, where the nutrient solution circulates from a tank to a
ing rafts, called chinampas, to increase their arable land: Made of interwoven stems of
crop and then back into the tank. In this case, all the water used is absorbed by the plant
rushes, reeds and corn, these man-made “islands” floated on the lakes. On these frames
and transpired, resulting in high water use efficiency. There is also no contact between
they would place the rich mud from volcanic soil. These floating islands were then used to
the nutrient solution and the ground, therefore no risk of polluting the soil, or having
grow food crops. The plants would get their nutrition both from the mud and by sending
unwanted nutriments leaching into the ground water.
roots down in the water. The lake waters, very rich in dissolved salts, were cool and well
These are the systems most likely to be encountered in your local grow shop. Since they oxygenated. This technique was also used in other parts of the world. For example, in 1275,
are the easiest to adapt to various sizes of grow rooms they represent the vast majority Marco Polo encountered floating gardens in China. Although we cannot be certain where
of the offer on the hobby market. Closing the system resolves the waste of water, but and when floating gardens were first used, they were the first true hydroponics technology.
multiple problems remain.
1699: John Woodward, a naturalist historian interested in botany, also a fellow of the
You can still produce very poor quality crops in a closed hydro system. The other issue Royal Society of England, made the first experiment demonstrating that plants get their
to address is nutrition. Most commercial hydroponics growers do not give their plant a nutrition from the soil and by means of water. We do not know what the rest of the
proper nutrition. They simply cannot afford to do it. Yet, in order to produce tasty food, people on the planet knew on the subject, but until 1699, the occidental man had very
you must provide your plants with all the elements they need, in a form they can absorb. little knowledge how and why a plant would grow. In what was the first hydroponics
We will discuss that subject in detail in a later chapter. experiment, Woodward showed that plants grew better in river water than in the purer
distilled water, i.e. that plants must extract something from the water that helps them
The other key reason why commercial hydro produces poor results is simply because the
grow. By growing plants in water to which he added various amounts of soil, he demon-
plant varieties chosen for large-scale cultivation are selected primarily for appearance
strated that the greater the amount of soil, the better the growth, therefore plants must
and handling properties. For example, tomato cultivars are selected so that all the fruits
benefit from something within the soil.
will be of the same size and color, and that hundreds of hands can handle them in the
store without blemish. None of that has to do with taste or nutritional value. And yet, if After that, knowledge of plant physiology was gained slowly. It took another hundred
you take a good variety, say your favorite tomato plant from your garden, and place it in a years for another British scientist, Joseph Priestley, to demonstrate that plants change
hydroponics system and give it the proper nutrition, then you will obtain something that the composition of the air around them. Later he “discovered” oxygen, and proved that
may surprise you: delicious tomatoes, faster and with a much higher yield than in soil. plants absorb it and release carbon dioxide. Then in 1779, Jan Ingenhousz demonstrated
My years of experience have taught me that this will work pretty much with any plant. that light is essential for photosynthesis to happen. So it is as late as the dawn of the 19th
century, that we knew most mechanisms of plant growth, but not yet the exact elements
What is called hydroponics and what is not? The line sometimes is fine. There are two
needed for that growth.
prerequisites for a growing operation to qualify as hydroponics: The nutrients must be
brought to the roots via irrigation water, and the substrate, if any, must be inert and provide 1860: A German scientist, Julius Von Sachs, publishes a formula for a nutrient solution that
only a physical support. At the most, the substrate might have a cation exchange capacity can be dissolved in water and used to grow plants. Together with Knop, an agricultural
(like coco fiber does for instance), but in no case should it deliver any kind of nutriment chemist, they laid the foundation for water-based culture. I could not put my hands on
to the plant. Imagine that you have plants growing in pots on a table and that you irrigate Von Sachs’ exact formula, but in view of the limited range of mineral salts that they had
and feed each pot via an individual dripper. If the pots are filled with an inert substrate, on hand, it must have been rather primitive and I doubt that they could sustain growth
this is hydroponics. If the same pot is filled with potting soil, it is not. The practice of for a very long time with it. From then on however, thanks to water culture, by trial and
adding nutrients to the irrigation water through feed lines and emitters, when in soil, is error, by adding or suppressing elements from the nutrient solution, scientists were able
called fertigation, not hydroponics. to find out which elements are essential for plant growth, and which ones are not.

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 Hydroponics for everybody

1920-1930: Dr. William F. Gericke is considered, especially in the Anglo-Saxon world, the
founder of modern hydroponics with two important developments to his credit. He was
the first to take water-based culture out of the lab and turn it into a commercial-scale
operation. He also coined the word hydroponics. His work attracted a lot of attention.
These were heady times and society was mutating rapidly with exciting scientific discov-
eries being made more and more frequently. Some writers went so far as to declare that
arable land was now a thing of the past. This premature attention was unfortunate. The
technology was in its infancy, and it would take a scientist of Gericke’s caliber to grow
a crop successfully. This led to many failures, many people engaging wholeheartedly in
commercial ventures that did not hold true to their promises. On the good side, this pub-
licity generated a lot of research in laboratories, public as well as private. His book “the
Complete Guide to Soilless Gardening “is still available, the last reprint as recent as 2008.
During the same years that Gericke was perfecting the “hardware”, the physical systems,
Dennis R. Hoagland was working on the software side of hydroponics, i.e. the nutrient. In
1933, he published the formula for his famous Hoagland’s solution. This formula evolved
slightly during the following years (notably through the introduction of iron chelate), but
the base is still there. It is still in use as the reference standard for routine experiments
in many plant research laboratories. To be honest, sometimes I wonder why they still
bother to use this formula which is now quite outdated. It is also still used by commercial
growers who do not want to spend more money on a better formula. You might even have
bought some Hoagland’s solution yourself. Recently, many nutrient supply companies
have sprung up; people hoping to prosper selling nutrients generally use the Hoagland’s
formula because it is easy to find (it’s all over the net) and cheap to make.
1940-1944: The first use of hydroponics on a large scale. Unfortunately, it took a war. In
the Pacific Islands, the U.S. army was faced with the challenge of feeding large numbers
of soldiers. Food supplies, especially fresh, were hazardous to ship, and difficult to grow
on those rocky islands where the soil is often saturated with salt, and water is scarce.
Therefore, they resorted to hydroponics. They must have liked it, because the practice
continued well after the war and into the 50s. They utilized a gravel bed system developed
by Robert and Alice Withrow at Purdue University, the so called “Nutriculture System.”
This setup was the base for what is now called Flood and Drain, or Ebb and Flow (it has
nothing to do with the brand name known as Nutriculture today). It was a large-scale
bed system. The beds were filled with gravel, flooded with nutrient solution a few times
a day, and then were allowed to drain slowly. 2
After that, nothing really happened for sometime. The cost of starting an operation con-
tributed to this, but also the technology was not quite perfected. One difficulty was that
gravel or sand, the most popular substrates of the time, are too heavy or too compact for
the purpose. There was still no way to keep iron effectively in solution. Those are the years
when many projects were started in desert regions of the world. Most if not all failed,
marking the decline of the technology for the next decades.
1960-1970: Around this time, a number important developments contributed to the rebirth
of hydroponics: Rockwool, a material principally used for building insulation, began to be
used, with slight modifications, as a substrate for plant growth. Artificial chelates were
being manufactured, making it possible to keep the micro nutrients in solution more ef-
ficiently. Some complex salts such as MAP (mono ammonium phosphate) appeared on the
1
market, diversifying the sources of soluble phosphorus. Concurrently, the plastic industry
was booming, and many new products were developed for use in the greenhouse industry.

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 William texier

Greenhouses slowly shift from glass to plastic covering. The hydroponics concrete beds
were replaced by plastic channels, plastic trays, plastic sheeting. We are entering into 2
our brave new world.
1970: Dr. Allen Cooper develops the Nutrient Film Technique (NFT). In 1979 he published
the “ABC of NFT”, a little book still popular. NFT was immediately adopted around the
world to commercially grow short cycle crops such as salad greens.
1970-1990: During this period, different hydroponics technologies gained acceptance in
various places around the world. More food crops were grown that way, not always for
the best. Meanwhile, an important new phenomenon appeared: Indoor home growing.
In 1978 Lawrence Brooke founded General Hydroponics. He modified and improved
large-scale hydroponics systems with the goal of reducing them to the size of an urban
grow room. He fueled it with the best nutrient at the time, one formulated with Dr. Cal
Herrmann of the NASA Ames Research Center. For the first time this technology was of-
fered to small-scale urban growers. However, the market was slow to grow at first, even
in California. Then, in the mid 1980s, it suddenly exploded as scores of people began
dedicating themselves to home growing.
In 1986 Dr. Hillel Soffer, working with the University of California at Davis, developed the
vortex, which remains the most efficient hydroponics system on the market. His research
first established a direct correlation between plant growth and dissolved oxygen level in
the nutrient solution. By adjusting the level of dissolved oxygen, he was able to change
the speed of growth in ficus benjamina. This was the foundation for Aero Hydroponics,
an important branch in modern hydro.
Around that time also, most of the U.S. and Canadian companies still active today appeared
on the market. So, since about the mid 80s, there have been two contrasting branches of
hydroponics: the large scale commercial one, and the home growers. Many are aficionados
of tropical or medicinal specimens, or are collectors of specific varieties of plants.
Meanwhile, in Europe, not much was going on except in Holland. While growing many
different crops, mostly flowers in huge greenhouse operations, the Dutch practiced their
own version of indoor growing. Among other things, they can be credited for developing
the “sea of green” technique: growing many small plants instead of a few big ones.
1995 - until today: On the commercial hydroponics front, the industry is growing rather
rapidly, but also changing and adapting to new times. More sophisticated systems, eco-
friendly, have become profitable, especially for short-term crops such as lettuce and herbs.
On the indoor growing front, General Hydroponics opened a sister company in Europe in
1995. At about the same time, Nutriculture, a British-based corporate, started a European
distribution. Soon many companies joined, based in Europe or exporting material from
North America. The technology slowly gained ground, country by country, as more grow
shops were opened. Northern countries first adopted indoor hydroponics, then France,
Spain, Italy, Portugal, all motivated by the pleasure and pride of consuming something
one has produced oneself. Now, it is the eastern countries’ turn to build an indoor grow-
ing industry.
The introduction of hydroponics technologies for noncommercial public sector and beau-
tiful private home use has opened the door to scores of applications, from growing one’s
own medicinal and culinary herbs to growing flowers. Even more recently, a fascinating

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new trend of hydro has appeared: integrating hydroponics into architectural design, as
interior and exterior decoration elements, house façades and on roofs. Vegetation grow-
ing on a house front or on its roof makes for excellent insulation as well as an efficient
sink for carbon dioxide (CO2). Indoors, one can grow plants to clean all sorts of pollutants
from the air while at the same time creating exquisite, living textures and colors. This
movement is rapidly expanding as urban dwellers seek to incorporate more green life
into their environment. 3
Each one of the three branches of hydroponics, commercial, home growing, and decoration
/ insulation / de-pollution, could be the subject of a full book, but in the next chapters,
I will concentrate chiefly on the second, indoor growing, a large subject by itself.

Advantages: why hydro?

You might very well ask yourself: why bother to spend money on hydroponics systems,
when you can just put a plant in a pot with soil and grow it with no major investment? In
fact, I think this reasoning is wrong and there are zillions of reasons to use hydroponics
technologies. Let’s review what hydro can do, first in the wide world, and then in your
own growing space.

Control of nutrition
The first benefit — and it is of utmost importance — is that you can control completely
the nutrition of your plant. Only the elements that you put in the water will be present
in the root zone, in the proportions that you choose. You can control the quality as well
as the quantity of the nutrients dissolved in the water at all times. Remember that it is
thanks to hydroponic technologies that plant science has advanced for the past 200 years,
in particular in the field of plant nutrition. Today, most research around plants involves
hydroponics. As controversial as it might be, it is also used for research in genetics and
gene transfer.

Conservation of water
Don’t get this wrong. A plant needs to transpire a certain quantity of water to sustain a
healthy growth. The fast, lush growth happening in hydroponics will mean significant
water consumption. However all the water used will be transpired by the plant. None is
wasted in the soil or by evaporation. The savings in water as compared to similar plants
grown in soil is quite dramatic. Recent improvements in irrigation practices, from spray-
ing a whole field to delivering water at the base of the plants, has significantly improved
water consumption in horticulture. However, hydroponics is still many times more ef-
ficient in that regard.

Conservation of nutrient
By the same token, all the nutrient used is absorbed by the plant. None is lost into the
ground, therefore avoiding the danger of ground water pollution and microbial life in the
soil is not impacted.
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Better health and faster growth reduces the need Access to the roots
for pesticides It is very practical to check the health of your roots at all times. With hydro, plant roots
The word pesticide by itself is a misnomer. These substances should be called biocides, are not buried in soil, which makes it much more convenient to check on root health.
since they kill anything alive (but who would buy a biocide!) Many people mistakenly Frequent checking for possible pathogens allows early detection; early treatment increases
believe that pesticides kill only pests. In fact, they are not selective and also kill beneficial effectiveness. Root inspection will also tell you a lot about your plant’s health and how it
organisms. Their use should be restricted to the rare exception. A plant in hydro, if well will develop in the future. In most hydro systems, one has easy access to the roots. With
tended, will grow fast and healthy, allowing that plant to outgrow the pest, or be strong experience, you can discard those cuttings that are alive, grow healthy roots… but don’t
enough to resist it. This does not mean that you will never need pest control with hydro, have a nice implantation around the stem. I have grown so used to it that it is weird for
but rather that the need will be reduced and you can cure problems with gentler solutions me to grow a plant without looking at its roots.
than killing everything alive at the perimeters of your plants. This, of course, is most true Using a hydro setup is especially beneficial when cultivating a crop where the root is the
for fast growing annuals. It is more debatable for perennials, even though the strong vigor main product. In most medicinal plants, the active principles are located (or are also) in
exhibited by hydroponically grown plants helps also in that case. the roots. In some cases, the ones in the roots differ from those in the aerial part of the
plant. It is impossible to extract them without destroying the plant. As a result, many
No need for herbicide medicinals are over-harvested in nature, sometimes to the point of extinction. In some
closed hydroponics systems, the roots are bare and soak in a flow of nutrient. In this situ-
This one is rather obvious. In those plastic trays or plastic channels, there is no room for
ation, you can harvest a large quantity of the roots on an almost continuous basis without
weeds to grow. Both the facts that herbicide is not needed, and that pests can be killed
destroying the plants. Obviously, you have to cut some of the aerial parts at the same time
gently, makes hydroponics a very clean technology.
to keep the plant in good balance. In some cases, this green biomass is by itself another
source of extraction, other times it is simply composted. Harvesting roots in this man-
A plant started in hydroponics is vigorous ner keep them clean, not requiring a wash or any other process before extraction. They
If you keep a mother plant in hydro to then clone it and transplant the babies outside are also very rich in active principles, but concentration can be increased even further
in soil, they will grow more vigorously than if they come from a mother in soil. I have by adapting the plant nutrition to the type of molecule that one wishes to produce. Fur-
performed that experiment myself many times and the difference is always dramatic. thermore, we can increase the growth of the roots themselves by controlling the level of
dissolved oxygen in the nutrient solution. In this field, as in all the others when it comes
Optimum utilization of plant genetic potentials to cultivation, it is necessary to secure a market, and organize the commercialization of
the product before starting the cultivation. However, in this case, it is less critical than
A classic image of a growing operation is a chain, which is only as strong as its weakest
with fruits or vegetables, since the dry roots can be kept for a long time with no damage.
link. What this means in cultivation is that there will always be a limiting factor. It could
This opens new horizons to the greenhouse industry, an endangered one.
be light, carbon dioxide (CO2), humidity, nutritional deficiency, or whatever. When grow-
ing hydroponically, you remove most of the weak links in the chain, especially everything
related to element blockage in soil, which happens often for many reasons. The plant now Production of a large quantity of biomass
has optimal conditions to express its full potential. Genetics might become the weak link, Hydroponics does that. The high level of nitrate in the nutrient solution allows the plant
if you did not choose your variety wisely. Over the years we grew in our greenhouse huge to explode its vegetative growth. That is an advantage when a large mass of green is
plants never seen in nature; it is not that we do anything special, we just reinforce weak needed. Hydroponic basins could be used to clean heavily polluted waters. The by-product
links. In your grow room, you can often put your plants in ideal situations in terms of nutri- would be a large green mass that could be converted into fuel. The technology exists and
tion, light level, temperature, and humidity. Your weak link will then be carbon dioxide. numerous successful experiments have been conducted. In one remarkable instance in
Portugal, a research institute managed to clean the effluents from a pig farm, and those
Increase both size and quality of crops are as bad as you can get. They turned them into a profitable crop. Why this method is
not used more widely is a puzzle to me.
It is obvious that if you improve the overall health of the plant, you will also increase the
output, the harvest. Hydroponically grown produce is noticeably larger than soil-grown.
Suddenly, a cherry tomato does not look like a cherry any more. Also, on the nutritional Growing a crop in extreme conditions
front, analyses of hydroponically grown produce systematically demonstrate a large The first serious research in modern hydroponics was made by NASA, the US space agency,
increase, often double, in the quantities of both vitamins and mineral salts content. This I believe as early as the late 1960s, early 70s. It is impossible for man to live in space for a
also holds true for active principles in medicinal plants. long time, without having the means to produce fresh food. NASA even did some experi-
ments in growing at zero gravity… quite a challenge. Closer to us on Earth, most isolated
research stations, lost in places like Antarctica, Arctic and many other inhospitable envi-
ronments, use hydro to supplement their diet. A hydro system that stays in my memory

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is one that we made for a mission in Antarctica. The cultivation room, igloo shaped, was one of the reasons why the flowering and fruiting go faster: The plants get a strong signal
also equipped with hammocks so that the members of the team could come in turns to that it is time to flower, and at the same time they are provided with all the elements that
relax, get warm and take in some light. Of course, there again the main benefit was to they need to do it. After all those years of growing hydroponically, I am still amazed how
provide fresh staple foods, priceless for a long-term expedition. a minute change in the equilibrium of the nutrient solution results in a large difference
in plant growth. It can be plant morphology, or taste and nutritional value of the crop.
The setting does not have to be so dramatic. Hydroponics also has its place on tourist
Apparently, the composition in salts of the nutrient solution is the main factor that will
islands, such as in the Caribbean. The land is poor, salty and obviously cannot provide
influence the final product.
a large tourist population with fresh produce. Most is imported yet it can be produced
cheaper on the island with hydroponics technologies.
Accelerated growth of a mother plant
Some experiments are made also to incorporate hydroponics units in emergency shel-
A plant grown hydroponically with a nutrition rich in nitrogen will grow lush green veg-
ters, the type used after an earthquake or a typhoon. In a little over a month, it should be
etation. For some people, it is even too much, but if you need to produce a large quantity
possible for a family to rebuild a portion of its vegetable garden. This was experimented
of cuttings continuously, there is nothing like a mother plant in an efficient hydroponics
with a couple of times in South America. The Institute of Simplified Hydroponics, (http://
system. This fact is widely used in the horticulture industry to propagate many species
www.carbon.org/index.html) dedicates itself to the development of that form of “low-tech
of plants in large quantities. Again, those clones can be grown in hydroponics but also in
hydro” suited for the third world. They have projects in progress on different continents.
soil, where they will have the famous cutting vigor… but with an extra edge.
Let’s review now the advantages more specifically related to grow rooms:
This is too good to be true, you say, and yes, there are some disadvantages.

Better use of space

The root mat does not have to extend so much as it does in soil. The plants can get all the
nutrition they need in a restricted space, without competition between them to speak
Limitations
of. As a result, plants can be grown much closer to each other than they can in soil. This The first and most important disadvantage is that the plants are not protected from your
allows practices such as the “sea of green”, in which the plant density is incredible: it can mistakes. Soil has a buffering capacity, which provides a certain stability around the root
reach 60/70 plants per square meter. Without going to that extreme, we will see later in mat. In healthy soil, all the physical and biological parameters are in balance. If you give
this book that under lights it is better to grow many small plants than a few big ones: your plants too much nutrient, a wrong mix, or something with the pH completely off,
hydroponics is extremely suited for this technique. the micro-organisms in the top soil as well as the soil chemistry itself will tend to rees-
tablish equilibrium. This happens also in hydro, but only to a limited extent. The nutrient
No soil to carry up and down solution has some buffering capacity, especially in terms of pH, but nothing comparable
This, for me, is a big advantage. In fact, I first came to hydro just for that. In the 80s when with soil. Something as trivial as a pH meter off scale can have dire consequences, such as
I first decided that I wanted to have a grow room, I could not stand the idea of carrying killing your entire crop in a day. Things happen fast in hydro. An image that I like to use is
all those heavy bags back and forth. It is not much of a concern when you live in a house, the comparison between driving a race car and driving your family car. At the wheel of a
but when you are in an apartment, carrying large quantities of bags full of soil is not very race car, you go much faster, but an accident is likely to have much worse consequences.
practical. It can even turn into a real pain. Hydro generates little refuse, and there is not Growing in hydro is the same. It goes so fast that you can literally see the plants grow…
much to be replaced between each crop. That makes it a perfect technology for small, but you can kill them in one hour.
confined spaces. I started out with water-culture technologies thanks to a certain lazi- Temperature is also a limitation. 18° C to 22° C in the root zone is the range at which plants
ness, and I’ve never stopped since then. I have never regretted that choice and nothing grow best in hydro. They can tolerate much more. Up to about 26° C nothing happens,
would make me put my plants back into earth. I rather work on ways of incorporating then growth slows down, and at around 35° C their roots, lacking dissolved oxygen, start
the benefits of earth into water. dying fast, and so do the plants. There are means of fighting the heat that we will see
later ; nonetheless, it is a severe limitation, especially in tropical countries and indoors,
Control of nutrition where artificial lights generate a lot of heat.
I list it here again because it takes another meaning in this context. Unlike plants such as Another limitation is that you cannot grow every crop in hydroponics. All the roots or
tomatoes or peppers, and many others growing and reproducing at the same time, there tuber crops, such as carrots or potatoes; everything that is harvested from inside the
is a group of plants with a marked vegetative stage followed by a marked flowering and ground, require very special systems. The economics of a crop are also a limitation. For
fruiting stage. For these plants, the two stages require utterly different nutrition. This can instance, wheat would grow well in hydro but this would not be economically feasible. The
be accomplished in soil, at the expense of a certain waste, by flushing repeatedly with geographical location, as well as the local market, will determine which crop is feasible
water. In hydro, this is only “empty the tank, fill up the tank”. The leftover vegetative to grow and which is not.
solution does not have to be discarded. It goes on your house or garden plants, not down
the drain. I think that that drastic change in the composition of the nutrient solution is

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There are other criticisms I often hear when I talk with people on the subject of hydro.
The two main ones are that it is expensive to initiate, and it is unnatural. I even have heard
the expression “plants on a drip”, used in its medical sense.
It is true that hydroponics systems have a cost that can be steep, but in indoor cultivation
you rapidly recover the money you spent. The reason is simple: electricity is expensive.
When you grow plants under lights, you want to harvest your crop as fast as possible be-
cause the total usage of electricity, between the lights and climate control, is significant,
even for the smallest growing operation. The faster you get your harvest, the lower your
production costs. Hydroponics saves time, and a lot of it. In this case time is really money.
As for unnatural, I find this also debatable. After all, what is natural? Is planting an entire
field with a single plant “natural”? Nature is diversity. Think about it; by definition all
forms of agricultures are “unnatural” practices, strange as that may sound. When humans
were still at the hunter/gatherer stage, our impact on the planet was nearly nil. Like all
other living organisms, we would take our food from our environment, but we did not
modify it very much most of the time. The problem started when we passed on to the
agricultural stage, when we started to plant crops in fields. This allowed man to change
from a nomadic life to a sedentary one. Soon the villages became cities, then cities-states,
fighting with each other for more land, and that led to the civilization that is ours today. All
of today’s problems can be traced back to the first man who planted a field. Hydroponics
with its plastic tubes and mineral salts might seem weird at first sight, but at the end of
the day, it is no more or less unnatural than agriculture itself.
Strangely, people don’t seem to mind using mineral salts to feed their house plants in
soil. They do it recklessly, with the risk of nutrients ending up in ground water or the city
sewer. Conversely, they seem to mind using those same mineral salts, in an even purer
form, in the safety of a plastic gutter. They would resort to foliar feeding, not very common
in nature you must admit, but they see roots bathing in a nutrient solution as unnatural.
There are many islands where the land cannot feed the large tourist population, tropical
countries where the soil is full of hungry pests, places where the land has been so abused
that it has lost most of its fertility, places with no arable land at all. Everywhere that organic
cultivation cannot be the only option, hydroponics could be one of the solutions to feed
a hungry world without destroying our environment. It is a type of agriculture that can
provide man with nutritious and delicious produce as well as medicines in places where
it would be impossible otherwise. Its level of “unnaturalness” is irrelevant.
That said, let’s enter the subject in more detail. A first step will be to review the different
systems encompassed by the word hydroponics, and get oriented to the ones available
in the shops today. We will also examine which of the hydroponics technologies are best
suited for the different stages of growth in a grow room.

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