Hydroponics

33 Pages 8333 Words

unt of usable space that can be farmed for agricultural purposes.



The thesis of this paper is to discuss hydroponics as an alternative to commercial farming and also that unused office space in the United States could be converted into Hydroponics’ facilities to provide food sources.
According to Carutherrs (1998) “Hydroponics is a technology for growing plants in nutrient solutions (water containing fertilizers) with or without the use of an artificial medium (sand, gravel, vermiculite, rock wool, perlite, peat moss. coir, or sawdust) to provide mechanical support. Here are some detailed descriptions of the medium and how they interact in the Hydroponics systems. Rock wool (RW)
Rock wool for horticultural use was invented in Denmark by Grodan in 1969. The product is today used extensively worldwide. In North America the majority of greenhouse vegetables are grown in Grodan. Stone wool absorbs moisture without holding nutrients, and even when it is completely saturated still retains 20% air for your plants root system. Stone wool products are made from basalt rocks and chalk, which come from the Earth. Mimicking Mother Nature’s production of "angel hair" during volcanic activity, the Grodan stone wool manufacturer heats rocks to 1600°C, to create lava. The lava is blown into a spinning chamber, which makes fibers similar to cotton candy. The fibers are packed into mats, from which Grodan cubes, blocks and slabs are cut. Small tufts of fibers are also produced and bagged as "rock wool granulates". The products make excellent use of natural resources: one cubic yard of rock becomes 37 cubic feet of wool!

L.E.C.A stands for Light Expanded Clay Aggregate and is made by baking pure natural clay at 1200 degrees Celsius for 3 hours to create a porous growing medium. Due to the neutral nature (no acid or base/alkaline qualities) of L.E.C.A, along with other properties it is perfect for growing plants, espe...