Hydroponics Essay, Research Paper

Hydroponics

Introduction

NAME HERE and I became fascinated by hydroponics and the idea that one

doesn’t have to get their hands dirty to be a great gardener, and if your like

us that’s a good thing.

The idea of hydroponics has been around since the pyramids where build,

but in all these years it never seemed to catch on. It took about forty-six

hundred years before the first scientist took a look at hydroponics and adapted

it to grow crops, this was a professor at the University of California, and the

result was a 25 foot tomato plant that had to be harvest by a ladder. Thus

hydroponics was reborn and has been advancing ever since. Yet up to 5 years ago

the home grower and generally the public didn’t know about hydroponics. It was

only being used by commercial growers. But now it has caught on, and resulted in

this experiment.

When thinking about hydroponics one must think about the applications of

hydroponics. Not only dose hydroponics produce bigger, better, and more

healthier plants than the traditional dirt, but it can also be greatly

beneficial on things like submarines, space stations, off-shore oil rigs, or any

where else where dirt is hard to come by.

During this experiment we’ll be looking for which plant life well do

best with hydroponics, by measuring which plant has grown the highest or

bushiest. We also well be looking for green and healthy looking leaves on the

plants. We have no idea what the results might be, so this should be an exciting

experiment.

Problem

Which form of plant life will thrive the most in a hydroponics

enrichment. Will it be Tomatoes our fruit, Peas our vegetable, Tinkerbell

flowers, or Beans a legume?

First we selected a suitable PVC pipe and cut it into a 4 foot long

piece. Next we cut four holes into the pipe with a jigsaw. After that we

drilled two holes for the brass tee’s to fit into. Next we glued on the two caps.

After that we drilled two holes, one for the bucket to rest on, and the other

for the plastic hose to go into. Then we glued the 20mm pipe into one of the

holes. After that we cut our 4 inch PVC pipe and glued the cap to it. Then we

drilled two holes into the pipe, and inserted two brass nosles into the holes we

just drilled. Now take the plastic hose and cut it into 4 piece. One piece is

for draining, one is for sub reservoir, and two are to separate the sub

reservoir and feet the Rockwool cubes. If you would turn to the next page you

well find out we ended up with.

Limitations and Short Comings

The project in all was a success, but there were some things that we

would have done differently.

For one thing we started the project a little late. That probably

didn’t affect the results at all, but the conclusions my have been more

interesting if the plants were fully grown.

One thing we would have liked to have was some more places for plants to

go in. That way we could have more of the same variety of plant to work with and

experiment with. But unfortunly we did not have the materials to build such a

structure.

Implications

Possible implications of hydroponics may be in space stations, or

submarines where there are no gardens or if you build a garden it could get a

little messy.

Also who knows what the future holds, I mean if we start colonizing the

moon or other planets where there is no dirt hydroponics could be very useful in

the feeding of a city of people. And its not just the fact that there is no dirt

at these places, but because hydroponics produces bigger and better crops fast

its the ideal thing to use.

And now thanks to our experiment everyone knows which form of plant will

do the best, the legume. The legume can be used if you want the bestest fastest

growing plant hydroponicly. But I am not saying you should feed a whole space

colony with beans or anything, no it’s just something to think about.

Conclusions

Beans(The legume)results-This plant has seemed to the victor of the four

plants. Its length is 25cm which serpasts all the other plants by lots. This

plant has the greenest and the biggest leaves of the group.

Tomatoes (The fruit) results-This plant, in my opinion, came in second

to the beans, but it was close. This plant may have only grown 7cm but it has a

diameter of 6cm, which may be smaller than the peas but in my opinion the

tomatoes look way more healthier than the peas, because the leaves on the

tomatoes are bigger and have a nicer shade of green.

Peas(The vegetable)results-This plant came in at a close third. It has a

length of 13cm. Even though it has a longer stem than the tomatoes it was our

opinion that the peas weren’t as healthy looking as the tomatoes were. Some of

its leaves where green, but some had unhealthy looking spots on them.

Tinkerbell(The flower)results-The results of this plant wasn’t very good

at all. Not only did this plant come in dead last but it also looks almost dead.

It grow about 1cm in the first week and just kind of stopped there.

Summary

To summarize this project, I would have to say that it was a success.

Since we have answer the problem of which plant thrives the greatest. Obviously,

the bean, our legume is the best by far and the tomatoes our fruit is second the

peas our vegetable are third, and dwindling in last the last place the all non-

mighty flower the tinkerbell.

Bibliograghy

www.hygexpo.com/greenthumb/about.htm www.wolrd.net//hydroponics/

www.primenet.com/vantage/tips.htm

www.intercom.net/biz/aquaedu/hatech/pages/hydrois.html