HYDROPONICS

Ray Bukowski Richard Jones Nick Harris P.O.T Mr.R 1st block

Introduction

The very earliest published work on growing terrestrial plants without soil was the 1627 book, Sylva Sylvarum by Francis Bacon, printed a year after his death. Water culture became a popular research technique after that. In 1699, John Woodward published his water culture experiments with spearmint. He found that plants in less-pure water sources grew better than plants in distilled water. By 1842, a list of nine elements believed to be essential to plant growth had been compiled, and the discoveries of the German botanists Julius von Sachs and Wilhelm Knop, in the years 1859-65, resulted in a development of the technique of soilless cultivation.

Research Pros Cheap and

inexpensive Easy to maintain

and operate Assembled with

household products and easier materials to find.

Cons This method doesn’t

have a very high success rate.

You still have to water it, so a little manual labor is needed to keep plants alive.

The buckets aren’t that big, so you don’t get a high yield rate.

Research

This is similar to the Ebb and Flow method, but we didn’t use a water pump to carry water through our system. Instead we used gravity to feed water through, and we could re use the water a bunch of times before switching it out. It was eco friendly.

Research

First we got on the internet and researched all the hydroponics systems to build out of house hold item. We didn’t want to spend a lot of money on materials and a water pump. So our basic construction worked well with what we had in mind.

Research

Then once we found the ideal system we got our materials and started building our system. At first we thought it would be a good idea because of how easy and simple it was to put together. We had a few problems with leaks, too much light, too much chemicals, and death with our plants.

Purpose

The purpose of us doing all of this is so that our school don’t have to spend money on food that we could just grow using hydroponics. It is also good so that people can grow in the winter time.

Procedure

1. we had to find what we wanted to do. 2. we got all the supplies together that

we needed. 3. We built it and had many errors.

Design

We got two buckets and put them together by using a hose. We then took a neither hose and hooked a neither bucket up and that bucket was used to hold the water in it.

Redesign

We have redesigned it and instead of having three buckets we switched it to a hose. When we hooked the hose up our plants didn’t die and they started growing. It would be nice to hook up a pump so that the water could be going at all times.

Prototype

EBB & FLOW SYSTEM(FLOOD AND DRAIN) This system uses two 5 gallon buckets or

equivalent. One is filled with growing medium and the other holds the nutrient solution.

The plants are watered by lifting the bucket containing the nutrient solution. This allows the solution to flow into the bucket containing the growing medium and Plant(s). To drain, simply lower the nutrient bucket and gravity drains the solution back into the reservoir (see drawing on left).

Data

plant length day

1 day 2 day 3 day4 day 5 day6 day 7 day 8 day9 day 10

1 2in 2.5in dead 3in 3.5in 4in 5in 5in 5in 7in

2 2in 2.5in 3in dead 3.5in 4in 5in 7in 8in 9in

Graph

day 1 day 2 day 3 day 4 day5 day 6 day 7 day 8 day 9 day 100

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

plant 1plant 2

Conclusion

Ours wasn’t that bad but when we got everything built there was many thing that we wanted to do to it. Towards the end of the semester we found that running fresh water through it everyday helped it grow way better then the same water all the time.

Error

1. We put way to much chemicals in it at first.

2. Going for the cheapest build isn't the best way to go.

3. We had a lot of leaks in our system.