Hydroponics
The art of cultivating plant life in a nutrient-water solution, whose roots are supported by a substance other than soil. This could be considered a fairly accurate definition of the term “hydroponics.” In its more advanced stages, hydroponics can be a complex art indeed. Two of the greatest benefits of hydroponics gardening are the freshness and high nutritional value of the vegetables and herbs that can be grown. For these reasons, you can also find recipes from famous chefs who use hydroponically grown produce in their own kitchens.
With the exception of a cursory knowledge of how hydroponics came about, most readers couldn’t care less about the long list of people who have experimented with hydroponics, or when. Nor do most readers care that some nutrients can be “locked in” under certain conditions and are therefore unavailable to the plant.
History
Hydroponics is at least as ancient as the Pyramids. The Hanging Gardens of Babylon, which are listed as one of the Seven Wonders of the World, used a crude form of hydroponics. The world’s rice crops have been grown in this way from time immemorial. In 1934, however, a University of California professor adapted this time-tested technique to other crops. The results were twenty-five foot tomato vines that had to be harvested with ladders. Modern hydroponics was born and it has been advancing ever since.
During the Second World War, Allied soldiers ate hydroponic vegetables grown on their air and naval bases in the South Pacific. Today, hydroponic installations help feed millions of people; they may be found flourishing in the deserts of Israel, Lebanon and Kuwait, on the islands of Ceylon, the Philippines and the Canaries, on the roof tops of Calcutta and in the parched villages of West Bengal.
Half of Vancouver Island’s tomato crop and one-fifth of Moscow’s are hydroponically produced. There are full-fledged hydroponics systems in American nuclear submarines, Russian space stations and on offshore drillings rigs. Large zoos keep their animals healthy with hydroponics green food, and race horses stay sleek and powerful on grass grown hydroponically year round. There are large and small systems used by companies and individuals as far north as Baffin Island and Eskimo Point in Canada’s Arctic. Commercial growers are using this marvelous technique to produce food on a large scale from Israel to India, and from Armenia to the Sahara.