Earlier this week I attended the Cafe on Hydroponics. I had never really heard of hydroponics before, but what surprised me the most was the level of control one can get by growing plants in hydroponic environments instead of regular greenhouse pots. Since all of the nutrients exclusively come from the water that the plants are grown it, it’s really easy to fine tune that nutrient mixture for optimum results.
Even though commercial hydroponics are mostly just popular in Japan as of now, they could become a lot more widespread in the coming years. One of the advantages of hydroponics is that you can create structures that house the plants with as little space usage as possible: it was mentioned that so-called “vertical farming” is a potential technique whereby a greenhouse stacks a bunch of arrays of plants on top of each other. Even though this requires a lot of energy with pumps, lights, climate control, etc. the space savings that one could get by doing this “stacking” could potentially make this a more efficient way to farm in the future.
I worked on a farm this summer with a hydroponic greenhouse and there are definitely a lot of advantages versus traditional farming (I.e. more efficient utilization of space because they can be grown vertically). Pest management may also be easier depending on the way your greenhouse is built because in a field you do have to deal with agricultural pests (i.e. squash bugs, rabbits, etc.)
Coming from a very agriculturally-based area where farming takes a more traditional form, I think the concept of hydroponic farming is SO cool, and such a testament to the benefits of technological and scientific advancement. I would really be interested in knowing how many different vegetables could potentially be cultivated in a hydroponic environment, especially here at Cornell, and seeing not only the scientific data, but also the economic and environmental impacts of a shift to hydroponic greenhouses. I think it’s an area where there really should be lots of interdisciplinary study.