hydroponics
 hydroponic vegetables





HISTORY OF HYDROPONICS

 The term “hydroponic” was coined by Dr. William F. Gericke of the University of California, who experimented with the soil-free growing method in the late 1920s and early 1930s.

But hydroponics is not a new idea. It’s thought that hydroponic techniques were used in the famous Hanging Gardens of Babylon, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.

The U.S. Air Force used hydroponics on Wake Island, an atoll west of Hawai‘i where growing conditions were poor. They put in 120-square-feet of hydroponic growing beds that, each week, produced a rather amazing 30 lbs. of tomatoes, 20 lbs. of string beans, 40 lbs. of sweet corn and 20 heads of lettuce.

The U.S. Army also grew hydroponic vegetables for its troops on Iwo Jima, using crushed volcanic rock as the growing medium, with comparable yields.

Hydroponic: Clean and Green

What It Is
“Hydroponics”—the word stems from the Greek words “hydro” (water) and “ponos” (labor)—simply means growing plants not in soil but in water and fertilizer.
    
Here at Hamakua Springs we grow our crops hydroponically, and this means we are able to use much less of the pesticides and fertilizers needed for vegetables grown in soil.  This makes for a healthier product. Hydroponic techniques are also environment-friendly in that they utilize less energy.

The benefits are great:

• We avoid pests and diseases that can come with growing plants in soil, and this lessens our need for insecticides. For ground cover we use weed mats, which suppress weeds and decrease our need for and use of herbicides.

• Our energy costs are lower because we don’t need tractors to till the soil.

• Our overhead cover, which protects the plants from rain, lowers fungal growth and the amount of pesticides we need to control fungus.

There are two methods of growing plants without soil, and at Hamakua Springs we use both:

Water culture is when the plant’s roots sit directly in water, where they absorb nutrients.

Aggregate culture means plants grow in gravel, sand, perlite or similar media and in water, with nutrition pumped in from below the roots or trickled down from above.

When we do have to spray, as much as possible we use chemicals approved for organic farming. Our philosophy is to always use the gentlest chemicals first.



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