Hydroponic growing allows people produce crops all year round from the comfort of their own apartment. Similarly to greenhouse it offers the controlled environment, but what is a hydroponic greenhouse?
What is the difference between hydroponics and greenhouses?
The main difference between hydroponics and greenhouses is that in hydroponic systems plant nutrients are provided in the soluble form while in greenhouses plants grow in the soil. However, many gardeners install hydroponic growing systems in greenhouses.
Both greenhouse and hydroponics provide controlled environment for the plant growth. So, it is easy to control and maintain light, temperature, humidity, soil’s acidity as well as the amount of nutrients and water.
Pros and Cons of Hydroponic and Soil-based Growing in Greenhouse
1. Location:
Can hydroponics be done outside?
Although hydroponic systems are designed for indoor use, hydroponics can be grown outside. Hydroponics let you grow crops where soil is limited or is contaminated. Also, with hydroponics you can grow crops in your apartment. If you decide to use hydroponic system in greenhouse, site the structure east to west as it maximizes the use of sunlight in winter.
Soil greenhouse growing is outdoors, however, it is possible to have an attached greenhouse or a conservatory which is connected to the house. You need to choose a spot with good soil and dig in organic matter if you are planning to grow directly in the beds inside your greenhouse.
2. Space:
When growing in soil plants need a lot of space to spread out their roots reaching for water and nutrients.
How much space do hydroponic plants need?
Hydroponic growing is great for saving space in your greenhouse as you place the roots in a tank with oxygenated nutrient solution and roots are in direct contact with minerals. That way you can grow plants close to each other without worrying about overcrowding.
3. Cost:
The initial costs of hydroponics are quite high, the set up equipment including light, containers, a pump and the nutrient solutions can cost you hundreds of dollars. In both cases you would need to invest into a greenhouse initially.
I recommend a Palram Nature Series Hobby Greenhouse which costs around 420$ and you can get it online. You can find more information on how much does a hydroponic greenhouse cost in ‘What Is A Hydroponic Greenhouse?’ article.
4. Plants:
What plants can grow hydroponically?
Every plant can grow hydroponically in the right setting. With hydroponic systems what to grow depends on the size, type of hydroponic system and how experienced you are. You can grow crops all year round hydroponically. Every plant can grow in a greenhouse, most of them can grow all year round. Similarly to hydroponics, what to grow depends on the size of the greenhouse.
5. Profit:
Plants grow faster hydroponically rather than in soil. Why? To sum up, hydroponic growing puts plants in the perfect conditions, so instead of spending energy on sourcing nutrients and water, plants use the energy for growth and production of fruits.
6. Types:
There are 6 main types of hydroponic growing systems:
- Aeroponics
- Wick Systems
- Drip Systems
- Deep Water Culture (DWC)
- Nutrient Film Technique (NFT)
- Ebb and Flow or Flood and Drain
To find more information on how does hydroponic greenhouse work and what is the easiest hydroponic system to use, read this article.
There are 4 basic methods of growing plants in the greenhouse with soil:
- Directly in the soil
- Pots
- Ring culture
- Growing bags
7. Human engagement:
Hydroponics require human interaction at all time. Although it takes only few minutes to check hydroponic system, once skipped check can result in the loss of harvest. If gardening is your hobby and you would like to skip a day or two, growing conventionally in soil allows that.
8. Control:
It is hard to control how much water and nutrients a plant is receiving when growing in the soil. With hydroponics you can control the amount of water, nutrients and oxygen every plant is receiving.
In hydroponic growing you can adjust pH levels of the growing medium easily. When growing plants in the soil, pH levels can fluctuate from low to high which often causes nutrient deficiencies resulting in the loss of profit.
9. Water Usage:
Crops that grow on soil require a lot of watering. Crops that grow hydroponically use 10 times less water in comparison to soil-grown crops. With hydroponic growing water is recycled – plants take up needed water amount and the excess goes back to the system and is reused. However, there is a chance of water loss via evaporation or leaks from the system.
10. Lighting:
It is sufficient to grow plants hydroponically using natural sunlight, however, in the areas where you can’t solely rely on good weather or want to grow all year round, it does make sense to use grow lights.
You can choose from 3 types of grow lights for hydroponic greenhouse including Fluorescent Lights (CFL), High Intensity Discharge (HID) and Light Emitting Diode (LED). You can find more information on the greenhouse lighting requirements in this article.
11. Ventilation:
Ventilation plays an important role in hydroponic system. It gets rid of the still and humid air and prevents plant from diseases and pests. For a hydroponic greenhouse you need to have vents to let the fresh air in and exhaust fan to remove hot air which also intakes cool air.
You need to pay attention to ventilation in winter as it also plays an important role in temperature control and can help to increase the temperature without using electricity.
12. Diseases:
Diseases like root rot, powdery mildew, are common in the soil-based greenhouses. Also, some diseases arise from the soil, these are damping off, fungal diseases caused by Fusarium wilt, Pythium blight caused by various Pythium species and Rhizoctonia caused by Rhizoctonia species.
When growing hydroponically you don’t need to worry about soil related diseases, hence the use of pesticides and chemicals is not required.
Is hydroponic gardening healthy?
Although hydroponics don’t need soil so you can avoid soil-borne diseases, bear in mind that your plants are growing in a closed system full of water and in case of infection it spreads quickly to other plants.
Therefore, you need to have a good management plan in place. Make sure to check the system periodically and if contamination occurs, sterilize the infected water, nutrients solution and the whole system in a due course.
13. Use of chemicals:
Hydroponic greenhouse doesn’t require use of insecticides and herbicides because there is no soil involved so you don’t need to deal with weeds, pests or soil-borne diseases.
14. Technical Problems:
All hydroponic systems are running on electricity meaning that power outage will stop the whole system and plants will dry out quickly and can die within few hours.
Technical Problems should not affect plants growing in the soil in a greenhouse drastically. You can leave plants growing in the soil for days and some cases for weeks with minimum supervision and they will survive.
Is hydroponic growing better than soil?
Most of the greenhouse enthusiasts are switching from traditional soil growing to hydroponics due to the various reasons. Although the initial costs are higher than soil growing, hydroponics save on space, water and produce more plants in a shorted period of time.
In addition, plants that are growing in hydroponic system are not suffering from diseases, so you don’t need to use nasty chemicals. Also, all the nutrients are provided with the nutrient solution directly to the roots, as a result, plants do not suffer from nutrient deficiencies.
To sum up, hydroponic growing is better than soil even though it can be pricey to start and requires more control but provides you with healthier profitable yield.
