The successful cultivation of plants relies on how your aeroponic system is operated.
An aeroponic system works by providing nutrients in a different way.
Small nozzles, similar to miniature sprinkler heads, can be placed to automatically create a nutrient mist for a few seconds every 10-15 minutes for 24 hours.
This nutrient mist is forced onto the plant’s developing root area, where it will remain until the roots have absorbed some of the nutrients. As soon as the nutrient mist drips from the roots, the roots will absorb oxygen from the air.
Roots need oxygen for healthy growth as much as nutrients until it’s time to spray the nutrient mist again.
Setting Up Your Aeroponics System
Setting up an aeroponics system is a fairly simple process, which means that you can do it all on your own with a few elements such as:
- Reservoir to hold the nutrient solution
- Nutrient pump
- Nozzles for mister
- Tubing to get nutrient solution from the pump to the heads in the grow chamber
- Baskets to hold plants
- Growing chamber for roots
- Watertight container for grow chamber
- Timer to turn the pump on and off
Nutritional management of plants is complicated without developing roots in a soil medium but is often very beneficial.
When you manage plants in a soil medium, the nutrients for plant growth development are residing in the soil, which often makes it more forgiving.
Soil gardeners can often get away with merely adding potassium, nitrogen, and phosphorous to their plants, and still achieve acceptable or positive results.
A well-managed indoor aeroponic system does not require as much water and nutrients because you are spraying on the root system at desired times based upon the needs of the plants.
The action of spraying the nutrients on the root system is accomplished using a very fine mist of droplets that can then be easily taken up by the roots for nourishment by the process of osmosis.
The best part about this type of growing:
- Because there’s no substrate to hold onto nutrients, unlike soil gardening, nutrient loss to runoff or evaporation is less of an issue.
- When it comes to feeding plants grown in aeroponics, you have to be more careful and exact with the nutrients you use. If plants are deficient in nutrients, yield can suffer or, in extreme cases, result in diseased plants.
Proper Nutrient Formulation for Aeroponics Plants
When utilizing the aeroponic method for growing plants, you will want to take every possible step to ensure the plants have everything they need to grow healthily.
You should be taking the time to research, and fully understand everything your plants will need.
Your plants should be receiving adequate quantities of these primary nutrients:
- Nitrogen
- Potassium
- Phosphorous
In addition, they should also be getting significant amounts of the following secondary nutrients:
- Magnesium
- Sulfur
- Calcium
Finally, you should make sure that your plants are receiving small amounts of the following micro-nutrients:
- Chloride
- Zinc
- Copper
- Manganese
- Boron
- Molybdenum
- Iron
- Others
As for this mixture of nutrients, there is no “one size fits all” mixture.
Plants have different needs, so you will need to research to determine what each plant needs and mix the nutrient solution accordingly.
Plants Require the Proper Concentration
As previously discussed, it is important to note that different plants have specific needs.
In aeroponic growing, plants absorb the nutrients using a process called osmosis, and there is a limit as to how much the plant can actually take in.
This means that you have to really be diligent about mixing the right concentration of nutrients (PPM) for whatever species of plant you are growing.
There are a multiple of ways to measure the concentration of the nutrients in the solution, and the most common is to measure the EC (Electrical Conductivity) using an electrical meter.
Each plant species has a certain “nutrient strength” that is the most ideal industry standard. For example, lettuce prefer an electrical conductivity of 1.6 for growth.
Remember: In order for your aeroponic growing system to properly function, you must regularly test your nutrient solution.
Maintain Proper pH Balance
If you were not aware, pH is used to measure a solution’s hydrogen ion concentration.
If the concentration of hydrogen ions is high, the pH will be lower, if the concentration is lower, the pH will be higher.
The pH of the nutrient solution tells you what the acidity level is, which is an essential component of healthy plants.
After all, each plant must have a different level of pH to ensure their proper and healthy growth.
This is the same principle for traditional soil gardening, of you were to have a different acidity level, this will affect root system distribution of nutrients and their availability.
Any imbalance will affect a plant’s intake of what it needs.
So when you are setting up your aeroponic system:
- You will need to recalibrate the pH level of the solution when you are using nutrients based on the needs of the plants you are growing. Most plants will do best if the pH is slightly acidic. Usually, a ready-to-use aeroponic solution will lower the pH. The nutrients are assuming you are beginning with water that is neutral with a pH of 7.0.
- Then, when you add the nutrients, it brings the pH down to 6.0. Before you add your nutrient solution to the pump to be delivered to the plants, you will need to measure the pH level of the solution with a pH meter and do what you need to bring it to the certain range it should be in.
Conclusion
Cultivating plants using aeroponics can be difficult – but makes up for it if you can get your system dialed in.
All that is required of you is to do the proper research to know what each type of plant will require, then work to get your nutrient solution to the perfect pH.