Strawberry Hydroponics

2024 Author: Gavin MacAdam | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:38

It's hard to find someone who doesn't like tasty, aromatic strawberries. And if they are grown with your own hands and collected directly from the garden - this is a real healthy delicacy! However, for those who want to get a large enough harvest of them, you should think about the feasibility of traditional cultivation. More recently, a new method has appeared, called hydroponics. In this case, strawberries do not grow in the soil, but in a special substrate, which allows you to harvest several times a year

Growing strawberries using hydroponics is a very difficult task and requires certain material costs. Therefore, you first need to weigh all the pros and cons, as well as study some of the features and nuances.

What is hydroponics?

The hydroponics method involves growing plants without using soil. All nutrients come to them from a specially made solution, the composition and proportions of which are easily regulated. That is why "hydroponics" is translated from Greek as "working solution".

It turns out that this method was well known to our distant ancestors. In some places, the soil was extremely unsuitable for growing vegetables, so people came up with the idea of planting them in rafts and putting them on the water. On the bottom of the raft, there was a silty cover that served as a soil substrate. The roots of plants made their way between the logs of the structure and fed on substances dissolved in water.

Modern hydroponics has changed significantly, but the principle has remained the same. Currently, the soil is being replaced by various substrates, which serve not so much as a nutrient medium, but as a support for the root system. It is noticed that due to its balanced composition, plants develop much faster than in soil.

The main advantages of the method

Hydroponic equipment can be made by yourself or purchased off-the-shelf. Growing plants in this way is greatly simplified, because with a minimum of costs, you can get a constant harvest. In addition, there is no need to:

- in soil aeration;

- in her feeding;

- in getting rid of pests and treatment of various diseases.

Strawberry hydroponics: basic subtleties

For cultivation in an apartment or a greenhouse, remontant varieties of strawberries are ideal: "Yellow Miracle", "Fresco", "Mount Everest". Also, in a closed room, the varieties "Olvia", "Vola" and "Generous" have proven themselves well.

It is customary to distinguish between several methods of growing strawberries using the hydroponic method. If you plan to plant a large volume of seedlings, use a system of periodic flooding. Thanks to the operation of the compressor, the nutrient solution enters the substrate, which then flows back into the tank. At the same time, the root system of plants is enriched with oxygen, which contributes to its better growth and development. The method of "deep sea culture" is sometimes used. It is believed that this method of growing is not very suitable for strawberries, due to the fact that this plant does not tolerate stagnant water. Its yield is not very high compared to other growing methods.

Most often, the method of "drip irrigation" is used to obtain good fruiting. Its essence lies in the fact that from the tank the nutrient solution is transferred by means of a pump through tubes to each of the plants. In this case, mineral wool or coconut flakes are used as a substrate. This method allows you to place strawberry bushes vertically, in several tiers, which significantly saves space. In addition, this method of growing allows you to get a fairly high yield of berries.

In addition to choosing a method, it is very important to comply with some growing rules:

-Avoid getting the nutrient on the plant.

- Usually a capacity of at least 3 liters is used for strawberries, the choice of which depends on the number of bushes planted.

- Expanded clay, river sand or coconut flakes are used as a substrate. In any case, the material must have good breathability.

Hydroponics is the method of the future. In many Western countries, it is used to grow a variety of plants, flowers and vegetables. Possessing many advantages, it is gradually replacing traditional methods, allowing significant cost savings and good yields.