Preventing Diseases Coming Into Your Fresh Produce

Sankaran:

“The first thing is to understand the controlling factors. How do you make sure of the soil and the water quality health. Our job is the water quality.” Outside of heavy metals, some micro-nutrients are toxic to plants in moderate concentrations or specific conditions.  KETOS looks at water quality as the first aspect in food safety because elements or toxins in water are often filtered and held by soil.

“If people don’t make the investment to understand water quality, once they realize the damage to their produce, it might be too late. One of the most common things, which we haven’t measured yet but actively looking into it, is how we can understand e-coli. We always end up having e-coli outbreaks and product recalls because of e-coli. We need to get ahead of that because there’s millions of dollars of losses and food waste.”

Safety issues

Kris Nightengale, VP Agricultural Sales notes: “If you look at the US data regarding food safety issues and over 80% of the cases had livestock grazing in proximity or higher in the watershed in relation to the produce field. Indoor and vertical agriculture seeks to solve the problem by taking the food out of the open and into a highly controlled enclosed environment.” Some pathogens are known to translocate in plants and become a part of the cell structure. This means that no amount of washing is going to disinfect the produce.

The KETOS shield continuously monitors the pH, ORP, and chlorine, which ensures chlorine can be maintained at the proper level to ensure effective sanitization. Even though indoor production facilities go to great lengths to filter and treat influent and circulating water, pathogens can still be introduced through fertilizer, worker, and pests.

“Healthy plants are not the hosts for pathogens that unhealthy plants are. Because indoor production works on a circulating loop system, nutrient imbalances can move very quickly through a facility. It’s not uncommon for indoor growers to watch a perfectly healthy crop start exhibiting symptoms of changing vigor in a matter of hours. Water tests are generally infrequent and there is a significant lag time from the lab. KETOS is filling in the massive data gap that growers can directly and immediately tie to crop health”, Nightengale affirms.  

Keeping the water nutritious 

One of the biggest issues that the US is dealing with right now, not necessarily how good the water treatment plants are, but how good the piping across the distribution network. Those pipes could have been laid out 100 years ago and could be contaminated with toxins. Knowing the water quality, both at the source and the destination is very important.

“KETOS is deploying systems to help with irrigation as well as help implement a broader distribution network for leak detection, understanding lead contamination in pipes, so that repairs can be conducted proactively vs. an expensive infrastructure replacement”, Sankaran says. “You cannot act upon what you don’t measure.”

“Agriculture has successfully implemented technology across many facets of its operations and its time for water management to be a more important discussion as this is a precious asset that can impact not just the farmers but of all of the consumers at large .”

Nightengale adds: “KETOS is able to address the gaps in the marketplace today for water intelligence in-depth, and the right kind of data can provide you insights for what’s actually occurring at your fingertips.”

View fullsize

For more information: 
KETOS
Meena Sankaran, Founder, and CEO
meena@KETOS.co  
Kris Nightengale
kris.nightengale@KETOS.co 
www.KETOS.co 

View fullsize

Publication date: Tue 15 Sep 2020
Author: Rebekka Boekhout
© HortiDaily.com

How Advanced Nutrients pH Perfect Technology Makes Growing Hydroponically Brain-Dead Simple!

If you are a new hydroponics grower … or even if you have years of experience under your belt … one thing that’s very important for all indoor growers to understand is the importance of pH in hydroponics.

In short, if you don’t understand how to monitor and achieve the best pH level for hydroponics, then you can seriously hurt your results and even drastically reduce your harvests.

What is pH and why is it so important?

pH is the measure of the level of acidity or alkalinity of your entire garden which consists of your nutrient solution and growing medium. It ‘s a scale that’s represented by figure 1 showing pH values from most alkaline to most acidic using common materials.)

To achieve optimal growing conditions, you want to achieve and maintain the best pH level for plants.

Here is why it’s so important to get the perfect ph balance …

Living, growing organisms such as your high-value plants are essentially chemical machines. One of your most important jobs as a grower is to keep those chemicals in balance. This means avoiding a shift in the pH toward either pH extreme: excessive acidity or excessive alkalinity.

The pH level makes the difference between having a grow room full of nutrient-healthy, thriving plants and seeing your time, effort, and money end up as little more than a compost waste pile!

Here’s what happens when pH gets out of balance

When the pH of your hydroponic system gets out of balance—which can happen quickly if some kind of stabilizing agent or mechanism is not put in place—the ability of your plants to absorb macro, secondary, and micronutrients, as well as vitamins, carbohydrates, and other beneficial sources, is limited.

For example, when the nutrient solution has a high (alkaline) pH, iron and manganese are locked out. That’s because they form poorly soluble chemical compounds. Adding chelators to compounds helps to keep them in bio-available form. However, chelation itself is a pH-dependent process.

Another reason why pH is so important for the absorption of nutrients is biochemistry. Nutrients cannot enter the plant roots on their own because plant cells are protected by membranes that are difficult for water soluble ions to penetrate. To overcome this barrier, nutrients are carried inside the plant by special transporters. These transporters are big protein molecules in the cell membranes. They recognize nutrient ions and let them enter the plant cells. Since proteins are rich in ionizable chemical compounds, their function is dependent on pH. Thus, every transporter protein has an optimal pH range where it works best.

In addition, the beneficial bacteria and fungi included in sophisticated hydroponic supplements need a consistent pH. These microorganisms thrive at pH 5.5–7.0 (Perry, 2003). A more acidic pH can foster an environment that allows the growth of pathogenic microorganisms, which may pose a risk to plant health.

Here’s what happens when pH gets out of balance

When the pH of your hydroponic system gets out of balance—which can happen quickly if some kind of stabilizing agent or mechanism is not put in place—the ability of your plants to absorb macro, secondary, and micronutrients, as well as vitamins, carbohydrates, and other beneficial sources, is limited.

For example, when the nutrient solution has a high (alkaline) pH, iron and manganese are locked out. That’s because they form poorly soluble chemical compounds. Adding chelators to compounds helps to keep them in bio-available form. However, chelation itself is a pH-dependent process.

Another reason why pH is so important for the absorption of nutrients is biochemistry. Nutrients cannot enter the plant roots on their own because plant cells are protected by membranes that are difficult for water soluble ions to penetrate. To overcome this barrier, nutrients are carried inside the plant by special transporters. These transporters are big protein molecules in the cell membranes. They recognize nutrient ions and let them enter the plant cells. Since proteins are rich in ionizable chemical compounds, their function is dependent on pH. Thus, every transporter protein has an optimal pH range where it works best.

In addition, the beneficial bacteria and fungi included in sophisticated hydroponic supplements need a consistent pH. These microorganisms thrive at pH 5.5–7.0 (Perry, 2003). A more acidic pH can foster an environment that allows the growth of pathogenic microorganisms, which may pose a risk to plant health.

In fact, pH affects every function of the root zone

For example, carbohydrate transporters in the roots require the right pH in order to perform their job of absorbing carbohydrates. These carbs are assimilated from decaying organic matter or carbohydrate supplements, which the plant uses as food.

Maintaining the normal pH of the nutrient solution and growing medium as close as possible to your plant species’ unique pH “sweet spot” is critical to obtaining a rich harvest.

The sweet spot is the optimal pH range where all the plant essential nutrients are readily available for absorption. For high value plants, the sweet spot is pH 5.5–6.3.

Why is maintaining a stable, consistent pH so difficult?

Three major factors tend to disrupt the pH balance for plants. Learning to control these influences is essential for a successful harvest.

* pH Problem #1: Your Water.

The truth is that there’s no such thing as pH perfect water. Here’s why …

Freshly distilled or deionized water has a pH of 7. However, the pH of the water may fall to as low as 5.5 within hours of preparation because water absorbs carbon dioxide (CO2) from the air.

The behavior of tap water is even more complex. It contains dissolved and slightly alkaline calcium and/or magnesium salts. In this case, absorption of CO2 from the air makes predicting the pH even more challenging.

Because the calcium and magnesium salts in most tap waters (not to mention even more chemically complex well and spring waters) create such serious problems, many hydroponic growers, from hobbyists to huge commercial greenhouses, prefer using treated water.

Although a number of water treatment systems exist, reverse-osmosis (RO) is considered the most economical. Water obtained from an RO system is almost as good as expensive distilled water.

Another option is to adjust the pH of tap water before using it. This can be done with so-called pH up or pH down additives. However, this task is demanding and often done incorrectly—and what’s worse, the acidic and alkaline chemicals used in these products, and the resulting sudden fluctuations in pH when they are added to the reservoir, can be hard on your plants.

* pH Problem #2: Your Nutrients.

Many pH changes are caused by the nutrients themselves. Many growers don’t realize there is a relationship between pH and ppm. Here’s what that means …

The more compounds in the water— measured in parts per million (ppm) or by the nutrient solution’s electroconductivity (EC)—the greater their influence on pH.

For example, the urea used in many fertilizers is broken down by enzymes into one molecule of CO2 (a slightly acidic compound) and two molecules of ammonia (a slightly alkaline compound). This can cause erratic changes in pH.

In addition to urea, any compound containing an amide chemical bond
(e.g., the proteinates used in many fertilizers) can, when broken down, affect the pH in unpredictable ways.

Nutrient absorption also leads to changes in pH. When a plant absorbs a lot of potassium ions, it gives out hydrogen ions in return. The result is a net decrease in pH. The situation reverses when the plant absorbs a lot of nitrate ions and gives out hydroxyl ions to compensate, thus increasing the pH (Bar-Yosef, Ganmore- Neumann, Imas, and Kafkafi, 1997; Ryan, P.R. and Delhaize, E., 2001).

In short, the higher the rate of nutrient absorption, the more dramatic the change in pH.

* pH Problem #3: Your Growing Medium.

The growing medium (also called the substrate) affects pH as well.

For example, coco-based growing media undergo subtle changes during your crop’s life cycle that affect the pH of the nutrient solution.

In fact, every chemical or biochemical process that goes on in the growing medium changes the pH of the nutrient solution. Each additional factor drives it further from the sweet spot.

In nature, the volume of surrounding soil—teeming with microbes, humates, and other pH stabilizing agents—does a good job of offsetting pH changes. Natural soils act as natural pH buffers. That’s why, in outdoor gardens, where the soil itself contributes to a more stable, consistent pH, changes in pH are more gradual than in hydroponic gardens.

In hydroponics, however, pH stability is a challenge. It is an intense gardening method where the concentration of nutrients and their absorption rate by plants are much higher than in soil. As a result, chemical and biochemical processes influence the pH to a much higher degree than in natural soils or traditional agriculture. The natural stabilizers and buffers in the nutrient solution, mainly phosphates, are weak, so indoor gardeners have to constantly be adjusting pH in hydroponics and adjust it when it goes below or above the sweet spot.

What a hassle!

Enter Advanced Nutrients pH Perfect® Technology – Automatically Balances Your pH For You.

The fact is that Advanced Nutrients has spent many thousands of man-hours developing a technology that automatically balances your pH for you — putting it in the “sweet spot” and holds it there for weeks.

And the technology is so “smart” it can account for many of the aforementioned variables in your grow room.

For example, they wanted to find pH stabilizers and buffers that would allow growers to use any source of low-mineralized water. The resulting proprietary pH buffering agents and stabilizing mechanisms became the foundation of a new system aptly called pH Perfect® Technology.

But developing a groundbreaking pH buffer and stabilizer wasn’t the whole answer. It required many years of field testing to determine the proper concentration for pH Perfect base nutrients.

How Does pH Perfect Technology Work?

The general answer is that pH Perfect Technology is a proprietary system, so the exact details cannot be shared with the public at this time.

However, Michael Straumietis, the founder and CEO of Advanced Nutrients has graciously shared detailed information about how the technology works …

First, the technology uses its proprietary and primary mechanism to quickly bring the nutrient solution into the “sweet spot” for growing–which is 5.5 to 6.3 pH (usually holding it at a rock-solid 5.6 pH). And it is able to do this across a wide range of pH ranges.

In addition to this main mechanism that quickly brings your pH into range, you have three chemicals that work synergistically to make sure the pH stays in that “sweet spot”. In lab experiments, Advanced Nutrients scientists have had pH Perfect Technology lock down the pH in this “sweet spot” for 10-14 days.

Then, there are a number of chelates used …

In particular, there is a type of chelate called “Zwitterionic” used — which simply means that this chelate can swing both towards more acidic or more base. That reinforces that stability of the pH column because it can go either way as needed to maintain the proper pH.

Then, heavy ‘cation’ elements are used that–after the plant takes them in–helps the plant to exude acid. This produces a more acidic growing medium.

So now your plants are working for you, not against you … But that’s still not enough …

Because the technology has a built-in “safety net” in the form of the chelates that are used. That’s because the extensive matrix of chelates that are utilized have a theoretical absorption range from pH 1 to pH 10.

Now, at pH 2.5 the plant’s roots are burning back faster than they can produce, and at pH 9.5 your plants are dying too. But the point is that … even if … the entire pH Perfect mechanism were to completely fail …we have this built-in “safety net” with the extensive amount of chelates used to protect the plant and make sure it feeds and stays healthy.

But Does Advanced Nutrients pH Perfect Work?

But the question is “Does it actually work?”

And the answer is a resounding yes!

Check out the YouTube video below for a demonstration of the pH Perfect Technology in action:

pH Perfect Technology VS The Competition

You can also visit the website pHShootout.com to see proof of the technology’s effectiveness. In short, they put pH Perfect Base Nutrients and supplements head-to-head against all the other top hydroponics brands and filmed it live for you.

They set up three diverse pH ranges of 4.5, 6.5, and 8.5 – then tested all the top brands against Advanced Nutrients to answer the ultimate question …

Does pH Perfect Technology really work? And how does it stack up against the competition? You can visit pHShootout.com to see the video results.

What’s the bottom line?

If you use any pH Perfect base nutrient as directed, you will never again have to monitor and adjust your pH. The pH Perfect Technology automatically brings the pH of the nutrient solution into the sweet spot for optimal growth and flowering—and keeps it there for at least one week.

You no longer have to hassle with pH meters and pens. Relax and rest assured that the pH of the nutrient solution and growing medium is right on target, providing optimal growing conditions and nutrient absorption for your plants. pH Perfect lives up to its name, making hydroponics easier and safer for any type of grower.

Here Are The Advanced Nutrients pH Perfect Nutrients lines

There are three main lines of Advanced Nutrients pH Perfect Base Nutrients.

* For 3-Part base nutrients, growers can use pH Perfect® Grow, Micro, Bloom.

* For 2-part base nutrients, growers can choose between The Sensi Series (pH Perfect® Sensi Grow Parts A & B and pH Perfect® Sensi Bloom Parts A & B) …

* Or Advanced Nutrients flagship 2-part base nutrient formulation pH Perfect® Connoisseur Grow Parts A & B and pH Perfect® Connoisseur Bloom Parts A & B.

* And for coco coir growers, Advanced Nutrients has separate Coco Base Nutrients formulations of their 2-part base nutrients made specifically for the challenges of growing with coco.

In short, it’s up to the individual grower as to whether they want to use a 2-part or 3-part base nutrient.

Many times, these days, it comes down to personal preference of the grower and making a fully informed choice is beyoned the scope of this article. Either way, choosing pH Perfect Base Nutrients ensures that you won’t have to worry about balancing and adjusting your pH throughout the process!

The Advanced Nutrients ph Perfect Feeding Chart

It’s important when using any 2 or 3-part base nutrient to follow the correct feeding chart.

If you are looking for the pH Perfect feeding chart then you are in luck because it can be found on this page here:

https://www.advancednutrients.com/nutrient-calculator/

On that page, you’ll find the official Advanced Nutrients ph Perfect Calculator and the official Advanced Nutrients ph Perfect Feeding Schedule can be found on every bottle of pH Perfect Nutrients.

References

Bar-Yosef, B., Ganmore-Neumann, R., Imas, P., and Kafkafi, U., 1997. Release of carboxylic anions and protons by tomato roots in response to ammonium nitrate ratio and pH in nutrient solution. Plant and Soil, 191 (1), pp. 27–34.

Nye, P.H., 1981. Changes of pH across the rhizosphere induced by roots. Plant and Soil,
61 (1–2), pp. 7–26.

Olsen, C., 1958. Iron uptake in different plant species as a function of the pH value of the nutrient solution. Physiologia Plantarum, 11 (4), pp. 889–905.

Perry, L., 2003. pH for the garden. University of Vermont Extension, Department of Plant and Soil Science, [online] available at: http://www.uvm.edu/pss/ppp/pubs/ oh34.htm [accessed 12 January 2012].

Ryan, P.R., and Delhaize, E., 2001. Function and mechanism of organic anion exudation from plant roots. Annual Review of Plant Physiology and Plant Molecular Biology, 52, pp. 527–560.

By Advanced Nutrients | December 2, 2016

How To Start Growing With Hydroponics For Beginners

If you’d like to know how to build your own hydroponic garden and get started with indoor growing then this article will show you how!

Think of this as the “ultimate” hydroponics guide for beginners because we’re not going to bog you down with too many details or confuse you with a ton of jargon …

On this page you’ll just find the simple, 30,000ft view of how it all works and how you can get started as quickly as possible growing your own hydroponic plants!

What Is Hydroponics?

Before we get started, let’s actually define what we are talking about here …

What is hydroponic farming anyways?

Wikipedia actually has the perfect definition because it’s so simple:

“Hydroponics is a subset of hydroculture and is a method of growing plants using mineral nutrient solutions, in water, without soil. Terrestrial plants may be grown with their roots in the mineral solution only, or in an inert medium, such as perlite or gravel. The nutrients in hydroponics can be from fish waste, normal nutrients, or duck manure.”

So basically, we’re looking to grow plants without actually having to plant them in the ground. That means we can grow them indoors if we choose!

Eljay from the YouTube series “How To Hydro” has a great explanation for why we want to do indoor gardening. He says, “Indoor growing is all about creating perfect Sundays, every day, for all your plants”:

Why Would You Want To Start Growing With Hydroponics?

A hydroponics vs. soil comparison for Holland Hybrid tomatoes showing taller plants from hydroponics.

There are many reasons why people want to get into hydro plant growing, but we’ll cover some of the most important and popular reasons here…

• Faster Growth! Plants grow faster with hydroponics because it’s a more efficient way to grow them. For example, most experts agree that plants will grow at least 20% faster with hydroponics vs soil. That’s a huge time saver!

• Bigger Yields! Scientists have lots of theories as to why this is the case, but the fact of the matter is that experts also agree you can expect at least 20-25% more yields with hydro as compared to growing in soil. That truly adds up!

• No soil! This can be a benefit because you may live in an area where there is no good soil to grow plants outside. Or perhaps you don’t have any outside area because you live in an urban area. With a hydro grow you can still grow plants, even if you don’t have soil!

• Space Saving! Because your plants don’t need to spread their roots out into lots of soil to get the nutrients they need (because they’re surrounded by oxygenated nutrient-rich water solution)–you can pack more plants closer together. This saves a TON of space and one of the amazing features about indoor grows is how many plants can be put together and grown in a small space. Again, this is perfect for urban dwellers who want to grow a lot of plants with little space.

• Water Saving! Because you are using reservoirs that are covered (to prevent evaporation) and no water seeps out of the bottom (because they’re sealed)–the plants take up the exact amount of water they need at any one time and the rest remains in the reservoir to be used later. Compare this to soil gardening where you have to water your plants daily and most of the water is wasted. It’s easy to see how the same amount of water used to water a plant in soil for a day can water a plant in a simple hydroponic system for multiple days or even a week at a time! In short, you can save about 90% of your water by switching to hydro growing.

• No Weeds! One of the most tedious, time-consuming and frustrating activities for many gardeners is cleaning their gardens and pulling out weeds. With hydroponics growing there are no weeds to pull!

• Less Diseases & Pests! Because you’re not using soil, you also get rid of a lot of soil-borne diseases and pests that can normally wreak havoc on your plants and make gardening a pain.

A graph showing bigger circumference (size) plants from hydroponics. From A hydroponics vs. soil comparison for Holland Hybrid tomatoes.

Why NOW Is A Great Time To Start Your Own Hydro Farm

The truth is that Hydroponics gardening has never been more popular than right now!

The Different Types of Hydroponics and How They Are Different

When it comes to hydroponics systems, there are six main types to choose from. These are:

1. Deep Water Culture (DWC)

2. Ebb and Flow (Flood and Drain)

3. Wicking

4. Drip

5. Aeroponic

6. Nutrient Film Technique (NFT)

Now, there are actually multiple variations of each of these different types of hydro systems, but these are the “high level” overviews and categories of basic designs.

Here’s the important thing to remember:

ALL these systems are hydroponics because they don’t use soil, and because you’re feeding the plants a nutrient-rich water solution instead of planting them in soil. The only difference between each type is HOW they deliver the water, oxygen and nutrients that you’re feeding the plants.



The EASIEST Type of Hydroponics System To Setup

 Without a doubt, most hydroponics experts would agree that a Deep Water Culture (DWC) hydroponics system is the easiest type of hydro system to use for indoor growing because it requires the LEAST amount of materials, supplies, and know-how to get started:

The Deep Water Culture (DWC) hydro system is the easiest for beginners to use.

In a DWC hydro system, you simply fill up a reservoir with your nutrient solution. You then suspend your plant’s roots in that solution so they receive the steady, continuous supply of water, oxygen, and nutrients.

Then a continuous oxygen supply is added to the water. The most common way that growers oxygenate the nutrient solution reservoir is with an air pump and airstone to pump bubbles into it. This keeps your plant’s roots from “drowning” which — while it sounds weird — is a real concern because your plants will suck the oxygen they need out of the water.

Using the DWC system, you’ll find it’s extremely simple to setup (once you understand how it all works) and extremely low-maintenance (again, once you understand how it works) making it perfect for hydroponics beginners.

What About Lighting For Your Plants?

 The fact is that your plants need light to grow.

The simple answer is that if you can locate your hydroponics system where your plants can get at least 6 hours of sunlight per day, that is the best. Sunlight provides all the lighting that your plants need to grow correctly.

If you can’t locate your plants in direct sunlight, then you will have to provide artificial lighting using your own indoor grow lights. The truth is that a complete discussion of the proper indoor grow lights is beyond the scope of this article, but you will need to select the proper lighting system with the correct spectrum of light, intensity, power and that covers enough “footprint” to work with your garden. For more information on choosing the right hydroponic grow lights, click here.

Big Tip: Start Your Plants From Clones

If you’re just getting started growing hydroponically, you want to make it easier on yourself. The best way to do that is to eliminate all the things that might go wrong.

That’s why we recommend starting from a live plant instead of trying to use seeds for your first grow. This is called “cloning” and more tips on how to do this can be found here.

To use herbs as an example, simply acquire an herb seedling and gently remove it from the soil and potting container it came in and wash away all the dirt from the roots of the plant. You don’t want to contaminate your water.

Once you have rinsed the plant’s roots with water, then you can simply add it into your net pot in the lid of your bucket. If the seedling already has roots that you can pull through the net pot into the water, that’s even better and going to make your job easier. Then you simply cover the root system with your growing media and let the system do the rest of the work!

How To Make Sure Your Water Doesn’t KILL Your Plants!

 If possible, you want to use Reverse Osmosis (RO) water for your nutrient solution because if you don’t you could seriously harm your plants. See our article “Why all hydroponics growers should use reverse osmosis water systems” for complete details.

Also, if you are using RO water and especially if you are using tap water, you need to know that pH is an important factor. Most tap water is in the 7.0-8.0 pH range. The recommended herbs in this guide thrive in water that’s a little lower pH than this, around the “sweet spot” of 5.5-6.3

How do you know? You’ll need to buy a pH testing kit to test your water. And if your pH is off then you will need to add pH-Up or pH-Down to adjust your pH levels.

Why is this so important? Because when the pH of your hydroponic system gets out of balance—which can happen quickly if some kind of stabilizing agent or mechanism is not put in place—the ability of your plants to absorb macro, secondary, and micronutrients, as well as vitamins, carbohydrates, and other beneficial sources, is limited.

The truth is that dealing with pH issues can be a real hassle. That’s the bad news. The good news is that, if you use the right products, you can completely eliminate all your pH issues and you will never have to worry about this!

The Best Nutrients For Beginners Are From Advanced Nutrients

 The fact of the matter is that, no matter what you’re growing, the nutrients from Advanced Nutrients are the best nutrients for beginners (They’re also the best nutrients for professional growers too, but for different reasons that are beyond the scope of this article!).

How can we make such a bold statement?

Quite simply, it’s because all of Advanced Nutrients products are specifically designed for hydroponics growing. And they are the only nutrients to utilize scientific breakthroughs like pH Perfect Technology.

The fact is that Advanced Nutrients has spent many thousands of man-hours developing a technology that automatically balances your pH for you — putting it in the “sweet spot” and holds it there for weeks.

You can see more about pH Perfect Technology when you click here but the point is that for a beginner, again, the less variables the better. And utilizing the best nutrients in the world will only make your job easier.

Specifically, for the types of herbs we’re recommending on this page for beginners, we recommend using pH Perfect Sensi Grow A & B because you don’t actually want the herbs to bloom (because that could make them bitter).

By Advanced Nutrients | December 15, 2016

Hydroponic Nutrient Solution Basics

All plants need fertilizer to live. In traditional gardening and farming, plants get their nutrients from soil and additive such as compost, manure, and chemical fertilizers. In hydroponics, plants are not grown in soil so nutrients must be delivered directly through the solution they are watered with.

These nutrients are divided into two categories: macronutrients and micronutrients. Macronutrients are those that plants need in large amounts, including carbon, phosphorous, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, sulfur, potassium, magnesium, and calcium. Micronutrients are needed in tiny amounts but are essential. These include zinc, nickel, boron, copper, iron, manganese, molybdenum, boron, and chlorine.

Without these essential elements, plants are unable to build molecules, undergo enzymatic reactions, and complete the life cycle. For hydroponic gardeners, this means that without proper nutrients they cannot produce fruit or vegetables or that what they do produce would be sub-par.

Plant Needs

PH is also an essential element to consider. The pH value of a nutrient solution has a huge impact on the amount of nutrition a plant can absorb. It is essential to check pH levels on a regular basis, preferably daily, even if you are careful about measuring and mixing your nutrient solution correctly.

Different plants have slightly different requirements for pH value and nutrient concentration. If you are going to be growing a large variety of plants in your system, make sure to research the requirements for each so that you can group them in terms of their needs.

Temperature

A single plant’s needs may also change under different environmental conditions, such as weather, season, and temperature. This isn’t an issue for indoor setups that have a controlled environment, but it is something to consider if your system is located outside.

The nutrient solution must be kept at a steady temperature. The ideal is at room temperature, between 70 to 78 F. This is more of a concern for outdoor systems that are exposed to the weather. For winter, you can buy miniature water heaters that go inside your reservoir to keep the nutrient solution warm. For summer, keeping the ​reservoir in a shaded area and periodically topping it off with cool water is generally sufficient to keep it from getting too hot.​​​

Pre-Made vs. Homemade

You can either buy a pre-made nutrient solution, or you can formulate your own. Small farms and hobbyists generally purchase pre-mixed liquid or powder concentrates that are added to water. Large-scale farms generally mix their own to the specific needs of whatever they are growing, using bulk concentrates of the individual chemical compounds.

Pre-mixed concentrates usually come in two separate bottles, one for macronutrients and one for micronutrients. They are separated because some elements are incompatible with each other when concentrated and cause precipitation when they are combined. Once diluted, they do not form precipitates and can be used together without issue. Some manufacturers have managed to hold the incompatible nutrients in a chemical complex so that they do not mix—these are sold in a single pack.

For hydroponics, twin or triple pack solutions are usually the best options. They are simple to mix and only require a few materials: a container to mix them in, a dedicated measuring cup, and a stirrer. If your mixing container has a lid, you don’t even need a stirrer, as you can just shake it up. The measurement is usually 3.5 mL of each concentrate per liter. Make sure to double-check the mixing instructions on the bottle, though.

Depending on the size of your system, for example, with a large scale Ebb and Flow setup, you may want to mix your nutrient solution in very large quantities. Drums that are 55 gallons make ideal mixing buckets for large systems and can store enough nutrient solution to replenish your reservoir for weeks. For smaller systems, or if you do not have space for a large mixing container, it is perfectly okay to mix your solution on an as-needed basis.

After mixing your solution, let it sit for a few minutes and settle, then check the pH and adjust as necessary. Starting off with a perfect pH will make it easier to maintain. You can even measure the number of drops of pH Up or pH Down needed every time you mix your solution, and just add that amount to the water before mixing in your concentrate.

By Christina D’Anna | the Spruce | Oct 14, 2019