Geekgardener's Weblog

I am talking about the article that was published last Saturday in Times of India Newspaper. Page 9. I didn’t read it at first but my friends told me about it. I spent sometime reading and decided to give out my opinion about a promotion advertisement in disguise of an article.

Now, grow your food outside the good earth

Hydroponics Is A Green Method Of Cultivation Without Soil

With a title like this, they ( Institute of Simplified Hydroponics ISH) were able to get every eye on their article. Most of the claims made by the article is questionable. In this post, I am going to dissect the article verbatim and bring out what is so wrong about it.

    Hydroponics is a cultivation system isolated from the soil. It is an amazing green technique of growing plants in virtually anything
(a coconut shell, an unwanted suitcase, a bottle, to anything) without soil, chemicals and pesticides.

Agreed. Hydroponics is a system of cultivation without using soil. What I dont understand is “Green technique”. What is so green about hydroponics? Also, Hydroponics doesn’t guarantee a pest free crop. Without chemicals? All the nutrients that ISH sell/sold are chemicals. Pests love healthy plants and it doesn’t matter we grow in soil or water or even air.

Cultivation requires no land, and very little water is lost to evaporation, therefore plants require only 25% of the water compared to the conventional soil. The yield is higher by 30%. Also, the crop is not affected by pests, weeds and diseases, as soil is the origin for most of the microbial attacks.

The above statement is not completely true. “Very little evaporation” depends on how your farm/garden is setup. If you are ready to setup a greenhouse/polyhouse/shadehouse then you can control water loss through evaporation but that setting up doesn’t come cheap.

30% more yield..? again subjective. Hydroponics is a art of growing plants in water/aggregate with a controlled environment where precision is everything.Without precision, you cannot get 30% more yield. WIthout proper supervision, it will become a flopshow.

Like I said before, the pests don’t know that we are growing in hydroponics, they will affect any plant. Soil is just one reason for pests.Its not the only cause.

Cdr (retd) C V Prakash, founder & CEO of the Institute of Simplified Hydroponics (ISH) in India, says it is a purely green technology, and no chemicals are used at any phase of growing vegetables. “We are talking about producing hygienic, safe food, not compromising its natural nutrients and vitamin properties, and without infusing contaminated elements, chemicals, toxins or lead. Today, in most cases, eating vegetables and leafy greens means stuffing a human body with explosives.’’

This is so not true. Also, I don’t understand the term purely green technology.It says, No chemicals are used at any phase of growing vegetables. This is absolutely false information. Hydroponics is all about using chemicals to provide what the plants need.Plants need Nitrogen, Phosphorus, Potassium, Calcium, Magnesium, Sulfur, Iron, Copper, Boron, Manganese, Molybdenum, Zinc etc. Atleast, the “Hydroponics” that ISH train people on use chemicals like Calcium Nitrate, Magnesium Sulfate, Potassium Nitrate, Mono-potassium Phosphate, Potassium Sulfate and much more.  Having bought nutrients from ISH I don’t agree with the fact that they don’t add chemicals.

Practicing hydroponics is expensive. If you want more yield than what you get from Land, then definitely you need spend a lot more. If you are practicing “Simplified Hydroponics”, your yield will also be simplified. It is definitely not an ideal weapon to fight poverty in countries like India.

gg