What is Aeroponics?

Aeroponics is an amazing alternative for people with limited spaces to grow plants. You might be wondering “what is Aeroponics? “. Aeroponics is one of the soilless agriculture techniques, very similar to hydroponics in that both the techniques don’t use soil to grow plants. Hydroponics uses water to grow plants. Whereas, Aeroponics is a technique of growing plants without any rooting medium. There is no soil or water used to support the plants’ roots.  The plant roots are suspended in a dark chamber and nutrient-rich water is sprayed onto the roots at constant intervals.

How Aeroponics Works

Aeroponics uses small microjets to spray the plants’ roots with a fine, high-pressure mist that contains nutrient-rich solutions.

A chamber containing the water-based solutions is used to promote healthy growth in the plants. Water is pumped from the reservoir into the micro-jet nozzles which distribute the nutrient solution to the roots at programmable intervals. This is an enclosed system, meaning whatever doesn’t get absorbed by the roots falls back down into the solution chamber and gets cycled through again.

A hydro-atomized spray provides the roots with the right amount of moisture to stimulate the plant growth. The pump pushes the solution through a pipe that atomizes the solution and sprays a fine fog directly onto the roots. The pump is set to an automatic timer and delivers this high-powered nutrient solution at regular intervals.

Aeroponics uses a sprinkler system to spray oxygen and nutrient-rich solution on the plant roots. Aeroponics systems comprise of growing chamber with a lid. The plants are placed in a net pot into the holes with their roots suspended inside the dark chamber. A programmable cyclic timer is used to trigger the high-pressure aeroponics pump to go on and it causes the nutrient solution from the nutrient reservoir to be sprayed as a fine mist in the rooting chamber. Fine root hairs develop that are capable of absorbing nutrients from the moisture. The oxygen intake is also increased as the chamber is filled with oxygen-rich-nutrient solution mist. Because of the very small size of the spray particle, the wastage of nutrient solution is greatly reduced and root rot is completely avoided due to supply of well oxygenated solution.

Aeroponics Facts

• The absence of soil made the aeroponics crops easier to harvest.
• Plants can be grown more densely because roots are not fighting for the same nutrients as they would be in soil.

Aeroponics as an Urban Farming Solution

For urban farmers, urban dwellers, restaurants, grocery stores, businesses, and even offices, aeroponics makes sense. Aeroponics uses the minimum amount of input to gain the maximum output. Using no soil and little water there are many advantages and benefits to aeroponics systems. As a zero-waste system, aeroponics answers many of the concerns growers have regarding lost resources. It’s clear that aeroponics is becoming the solution to filling the growing need to conserve water and energy, as well as healthy food systems especially in the city and high-density populations.

Aeroponics systems

An Aeroponics system is a simple construction that has the following features

• Growing chamber with holes for plants to be suspended with a dark chamber below for roots
• High pressure/Low pressure Aeroponic misting system
• Cyclic timer to periodically switch on and off the high-pressure aeroponic pump.
• Nutrient Solution

Aeroponics is incredibly efficient due to its precise nature and controlled environment. Some studies have shown increased yields of hundreds of percentages over traditional farming.

Plants grown this way are less susceptible to disease because they are grown in a closed environment, and when they do get diseases they are much easier to eradicate because the plants do not share substrate or nutrient solution. This lack of risk and competition for nutrients allows growers to plant far more seedlings per square foot, thus increasing their total yield.

One of the biggest benefits of Aeroponics when compared to other hydro techniques is increased exposure of the roots to oxygen. In traditional gardening as well as hydroponics, the plants must be given a chance to oxygenate their roots after each watering.

The most important, and expensive, feature of an Aeroponics system is the atomizing sprayer, mister or fogger. The size of the water droplets sprayed onto the roots is very important to plant development. Droplets that are too large mean that less oxygen is available to the roots, while too fine of a droplet can cause the plant to grow excessive root hair without developing a large enough root system for long-term growth.

Aeroponics systems can be either horizontal, with a flat plane that looks much like a Depp Water Culture system from the outside or an A-Frame, a cone-shaped structure. A-Frames have the advantage of taking up less space for greater plant density.

There are three main types of Aeroponics systems

Commercial

Commercial systems are high-pressure systems on a larger scale. They incorporate large-scale technologies for sterilization, optimum water droplet size calculation, complete control over the environment and temperature, advanced pH monitoring systems, data collection and data analysis.

Some of the key benefits of aeroponics:

• Fast plant growth – The chief feature of aeroponics. Plants grow fast because their roots have access to a lot of oxygen 24/7.
• Easy system maintenance – In aeroponics, all you need to maintain is the root chamber (the container housing the roots) which needs regular disinfecting, and periodically, the reservoir and irrigation channels. The constant semi-moist environment of the root chamber which invites bacterial growth is the only main drawback of all aeroponic system maintenance.
• Less need for nutrients and water – Aeroponic plants need less nutrients and water on average, because the nutrient absorption rate is higher, and plants usually respond to aeroponic systems by growing even more roots.
• Requires little space – You don’t need much space to start an aeroponics garden. Depending on the system, plants can be stacked up one on top of each other. Aeroponics is basically a modular system, which is perfect for maxing out limited space.
• Aeroponics is essentially the process of cultivating plants without the use of soil; instead the plants are thriving in an air environment. When comparing hydroponics and aeroponics, some of the basic principles are similar but one thing is distinctive, aeroponics does not use a growing medium. This is mainly due to the fact that an aeroponics system uses water to distribute the nutrients. This method of growing usually consists of a type of hydroponics, and in some ways, it is.
• The main principle behind how aeroponics works is that it grows plants which are suspended in a partly closed/fully enclosed system. With the roots being suspended, a nutrient-rich water solution is sprayed or misted onto the roots. This kind of nutrient delivery is 60% more efficient than standard hydroponics systems as it allows for optimal oxygen saturation in the roots as well as receiving an abundant supply of nutrients. For any plant to grow to its full potential, it is absolutely imperative that the root system receives a well-balanced amount of oxygen and water/nutrient solution. The reason why aeroponics and hydroponic systems work so well over soil-based systems is that the water is allowed to sit in the soil for a while before drying up and receiving oxygen to the roots. With aeroponics and hydroponics, the watering that is distributed is precisely how much the plant needs and an abundance of oxygen is supplied. This kind of water/nutrient and oxygen plant feeding is far superior to growing with soil as you can see.
• Generally, when growing with aeroponics, your garden will be free of pests and harmful diseases which are often present in a traditional garden. However, depending on the location of your aeroponics system, pests and diseases may still pose a threat – it is -very important to do a thorough spot inspection of your system just to make sure. The roots systems in these systems are often very delicate, and could be fatal to your plants if something were to go wrong with your system. It is suggested to always have a backup hydroponic system just in case something goes wrong. When growing with aeroponics, you need to have everything down to a “T”, one of two miscalculations can stunt your plant growth, so it is critical to know your system, all of it components and to know what to do in case of an emergency.
• What makes this type of growing system so amazing, though, is the method of oxygen delivery and nutrients. The combination of air circulation in the roots as well as receiving mini droplets of water will grow any plant to levels most people wouldn’t think possible with a growing system. It is no surprise that many growers are now switching to aeroponics due to the unique ability to saturate and aerate the roots thereby promoting amazing growth rate and yields.
• Aeroponics is an amazing method of cultivation and is scientifically proven to get better results than any other method of growing.