What are the latest soilless cultivation vegetable varieties?
Soilless vegetable cultivation is the most advanced cultivation technique in the world today. Because soilless cultivation has many advantages over soil cultivation, the area under soilless cultivation has shown a straight-line upward trend in recent years. Generally, the main types of soilless cultivation fall into three major categories: hydroponics, rock wool culture and substrate culture. Now let us take a look at which vegetables can be grown soillessly!
Which vegetables can be grown soillessly?
1. Soilless hydroponics: lettuce, rapeseed (bok choy), celery, beet, water spinach, Chinese chives, garlic sprouts, amaranth, etc.
2. Rock wool culture: tomato, cucumber, bitter melon, zucchini, sweet pepper, etc.
3. Substrate culture: potato, radish, colored bell pepper, hot pepper, tomato, eggplant, etc.
What types of soilless cultivation are there?
1. Soilless hydroponics: hydroponic vegetables refer to vegetables grown in a way different from traditional soil cultivation, in which most of the root system grows within the layers of nutrient solution, and the nutrient solution alone provides water, nutrients and oxygen, though certain substrates may be used when raising seedlings.
2. Rock wool culture: rock wool culture is the planting of plants in pre-made rock wool. Rock wool is made from 60% diabase, 20% limestone and 20% coke, melted at a high temperature of 1600°C, blown into 0.005 mm fibers and pressed into blocks.
3. Substrate culture: substrate culture is the fixing of crop roots in an organic or inorganic substrate, with nutrient solution supplied to the crops by drip irrigation or trickle irrigation. The cultivation substrate can be put into plastic bags and laid in cultivation furrows or troughs.
Advantages of soilless cultivation of vegetables
1. It can increase yield: in soilless cultivation, the various nutrient elements required by crops are applied as an artificially formulated nutrient solution. Nutrients can be supplied scientifically according to the crop species and the different growth stages of the same crop, so the crops grow robustly and have strong growth vigor.
2. The environment is clean and hygienic: soilless cultivation uses inorganic fertilizers, whereas soil cultivation applies organic fertilizers; as the fertilizers decompose and ferment, they produce odors that pollute the environment and also cause the eggs of many pests to breed, harming the crops. Soilless cultivation does not have these problems.
3. It saves water, fertilizer and labor: soilless cultivation does not require operations such as intertillage, plowing and hoeing, saving effort and labor. Watering and topdressing are solved at the same time, and the nutrient supply system provides them at set times and in set amounts, so there is no waste, and management is very convenient, greatly reducing labor intensity.
4. It avoids continuous cropping obstacles: soilless cultivation can avoid continuous cropping obstacles. In vegetable planting, rational crop rotation and avoiding consecutive years of repeated cropping are among the important measures to prevent the severe occurrence and spread of diseases, and soilless cultivation fundamentally solves this problem.
5. It is not limited by soil: soilless cultivation completely frees crops from the soil environment and is not limited by soil quality or water conservancy conditions. Many deserts, wastelands or areas difficult to cultivate on Earth can be utilized by adopting soilless cultivation methods.
6. It makes full use of space: soilless cultivation breaks free from the constraints of land, so it is not limited by space. It can use the flat rooftops of urban buildings to grow vegetables and flowers, invisibly expanding the cultivation area, and production can also be carried out according to human will.