Starting a Hydroponic Growing System

[Dylan]

I am a gardener who would like to start a hydroponic greenhouse. I
have reasearched it some and this is my understanding of a common
system: You have a resivor tank filled with nutriants that are pumped
up to the growing tray. The plants take what ever they need and then
the nutriants flow back into the resivor to be renutrialized. Repeats.
Is my understanding correct or am I totaly wrong?

Thanks,
Dylan

[derek zeanah]

Mostly, yeah.  With hydroponics, what you're doing is growing plants in an inert media (gravel, LECA stones, rock fibers spun like wool, styrofoam peanuts, or whatever) and you're providing the nutrients they need manually.  Sometimes that's an ebb and flow system (where a bucket of gravel gets flooded with a nutrient solution periodically), and other times it's a drip system (where you drip the solution on the inert media, and the plant either uses it all or the system recycles excess, depending on design), and other times you'll choose to mist the roots with the nutrient solution directly.  There are also more passive systems, where the solution is wicked into the media, or is triggered based on wetness.

So your method works and is a good example hydroponic system, but there are many other ways to go.  The point, though, is that the plants have 100% of what they need in the nutrient solution *and* in access to air that the roots receive.  You're basically trying to get the plants to grow at 100% of their genetic potential by removing most of the roadblocks.

[Dylan]

Thanks!