How to Grow Hydroponic Vegetables? A Full Breakdown of Planting Methods and Key Techniques
Hydroponic vegetables refer to a cultivation method in which most of the root system grows within layers of nutrient solution, receiving water, nutrients and oxygen only through the nutrient solution. Leafy vegetables are the most common, such as lettuce, Ceylon spinach, water spinach and Gynura bicolor, and some fruiting vegetables can also be grown hydroponically, such as cucumber, melon and tomato. Let's take a look below at how to grow hydroponic vegetables!
What Are the Characteristics of Hydroponic Vegetables?
1. The root system consists mainly of milky-white fibrous roots, used to absorb water and nutrients.
2. The root system adapts to the aquatic environment, with some aerial roots on the outer part used to absorb oxygen.
3. Hydroponic vegetables have a short growth cycle and reach market early.
Root Treatment for Hydroponic Vegetables
1. Wash off the soil or other growing medium from the roots with clean water.
2. Cut off old or dead roots, dead skin and excess lateral roots.
3. Soak the roots in a hydroponic plant disinfectant solution for 15 to 20 minutes to sterilize and disinfect and to play a domestication role.
4. Rinse again several times with clean water, then plant into the growing container.
How to Grow Hydroponic Vegetables?
1. Make a hydroponic box: The main body of the hydroponic box is a watertight box, which can be a basin, pot or wooden box, but a polystyrene foam plastic box is best. A foam plastic floating board of the same length and width is set into the box to hold small plastic bowls or cups containing the seedlings and medium. Holes are punched in the floating board, with a hole diameter just large enough to hold the planting cups.
2. Prepare the nutrient solution: There are many nutrient solution formulas for hydroponic vegetables. The widely used Versailles nutrient solution formula is, per 1 liter of water, 0.568 g potassium nitrate, 0.710 g calcium nitrate, 0.142 g ammonium phosphate, 0.284 g magnesium sulfate, 0.112 g ferric chloride, 0.00284 g potassium iodide, 0.00056 g boric acid, 0.00056 g zinc sulfate and 0.00056 g manganese sulfate.
3. Planting medium: Seedlings can be raised in advance in nutrient soil, and are planted when they have 2 true leaves and 1 heart leaf to 4 true leaves and 1 heart leaf. Use peat and water-washed cinder mixed at 1:1 to make the planting medium. Punch a hole in the bottom of the planting cup and thread through a non-woven fabric strip about 2 cm wide and about 10 cm long, with about 3 cm of the strip inside the cup. First put 1/2 of the medium into the planting cup, then plant the small seedling, then add more medium to plant it in.
4. Planting the seedlings: When planting the seedlings, try to keep the small seedlings' roots straight and undamaged. Add half the amount of nutrient solution to the hydroponic box, set the planting cups into the holes of the floating board, and make sure the non-woven fabric strips protrude at least 3 cm below the bottom of the floating board. Set the planted floating board onto the hydroponic box, and adjust the liquid level so that it just touches the bottom of the planting cups.
What Types of Hydroponic Vegetables Are There?
1. Tomato: Tomatoes are generally grown hydroponically in a greenhouse, and this cultivation method can be carried out all year round. Hydroponic tomato production in a solar greenhouse can have its crop scheduling determined according to the greenhouse's performance, generally focusing on the winter-spring crop and the early spring crop.
2. Bitter gourd: Bitter gourd is an annual climbing herbaceous plant of the Cucurbitaceae family, with soft hairs on the stems, branches, petioles and pedicels, and axillary tendrils. Its cultivation requirements are not strict, it has vigorous growth, strong fruit-setting ability and a long harvest period, making it very suitable for hydroponics.
3. Eggplant: In recent years, the area of eggplant grown using solar greenhouses and plastic tunnels has been continuously expanding, but due to continuous cropping and repeated planting, diseases, especially soil-borne diseases, occur severely. Hydroponics can overcome this problem, and it has gradually become popular in recent years.
4. Ginger: With traditional planting patterns, continuous cropping of ginger cannot clear the nematodes and ginger blast pathogen remaining in the soil, making it very easy to infect ginger blast disease. Once infected with ginger blast disease, a large patch of plants will wither and die. Hydroponics can solve this problem.
5. Cucumber: Cucumbers often suffer from pests and diseases in production, but hydroponics can avoid soil-borne pests and diseases and continuous cropping obstacles, and also has the characteristics of reducing pesticide use, improving crop yield and quality, saving fertilizer and labor, and not being limited by soil fertility conditions.