ISSUE: #01 DECEMBER 2020
- This is Soccer
- Interstellar dead end
- Hiding From Us
- A Scaly Ancestor
- The Lost Vostok
- The Petri Dish and It’s Story
- Geological Periods
- A Vegetable Garden without Soil
- Parkinson’s Disease: A 200-year struggle
- Fractals
- Soap and Other Surfactants
- Underwater Web
- Containers
- How to Be a Friend to Someone with Special Needs
The History of Hydroponics
The idea of growing plants without soil is not new. Back in 1699, the English naturalist John Woodward described his experiments growing peppermint in a soilless environment. The plant died in desalinated, distilled water, but it continued to grow in untreated water. Probably, Woodward reasoned, the mint extracts something from the water that is necessary for growth.
Now we know that the plant needs many mineral substances for normal growth and development, including calcium (Ca), iron (Fe), potassium (K), magnesium (Mg), phosphorus (P), and sulfur (S). Plants take them from the soil (some predators, like Venus flytraps, get them from the bodies of their victims), but for this, there must be water in the soil to dissolve the mineral substances, making them accessible to the roots. Plants don’t need the soil itself, they just require mineral substances from it. Woodward’s experiments gave rise to much reflection, but, until the beginning of the 20th century, the cultivation of plants without soil remained an area of exclusively scientific interest.
