Is hydroponics sustainable?
The hydroponic re-circulating system is cleaner than conventional agriculture because it requires only the amount of nutrients which will be taken up by the plants, and these remain contained in the system until they are completely used up. In general the main problem with using artificial nutrients in soil is not what the plants use but what they don’t use – as much as 90% of the more soluble nutrients can be leached out of the soil by rainfall or irrigation before the plants have a chance to use them. This leachate ends up in the ground water and contaminates rivers and lakes leading to algal blooms, deoxygenation and ultimately is fatal to fish and other animals. Also, salts can build up in ground water reserves making them too saline to use for drinking. In a closed recirculating system such as hydroponics, the nutrients are conserved in the tank and there are no losses to the environment. Virtually all the nutrients in the system get used up by the plants which also means that the
