Essay/Term paper: Hydroponics

Essay, term paper, research paper:  Society

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