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? Materials The materials needed in the construction of this unit are... 1- 4' of 6" PVC pipe 7- Three pounds of clay pebbles 2- Two PVC 6" caps 8- Three brass T's 3- Four 2.5" irrigation pots 9- Seven feet of plastic tubing 4- 1' of 4" PVC pipe 10- Tropical Green A 15-0-0 5- One 4" PCV cap 11- Tropical Green B 4-10-27 6- Four rockwool cubes 12- 3 feet of 20mm PVC pipe 13-3 brass nosles 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.