Planting Tips

Chapter 43 What are the methods of soilless cultivation

Due to different environments and conditions, soilless culture can be adopted in various ways, but the key issue is: supplying plants with suitable nutrition and sufficient aeration conditions.Temperature, light, etc. are the same as soil cultivation.

At present, there are two methods commonly used in hydroponics and substrate culture.

(1) The hydroponic method makes the roots of the plants completely suspended in the matrix of the nutrient solution, and the branches and leaves above the root neck must be fixed with a layer of inert matrix or other methods.Note that there must be sufficient ventilation in the nutrient solution and it must be kept in the dark.Therefore, certain devices and equipment are required in application to meet the requirements of plants.This method is rarely used in family gardening.

(2) Substrate cultivation Plants are cultivated in various clean substrates, such as sand, gravel, perlite, vermiculite, peat, sawdust, slag, rock wool, etc., and local materials can be obtained according to local conditions.The above various substrates can be based on plant habits and physical properties of different substrates, and suitable substrates can be used to facilitate the growth of plants.

Home gardening can be done with substrate cultivation. Here are two simple and easy soilless cultivation substrates.

Sawdust medium: use 70% sawdust and 30% poultry manure, or broken cake fertilizer, mix and pile up evenly, add some human excrement and urine, and after full fermentation, it can be used to cultivate flowers.If some slag is added to it, the air permeability and water seepage performance will be better.

Vermiculite medium: mix vermiculite and fermented horse manure in a ratio of 4:1, and then use it as a medium for planting flowers.If 10% peat is added therein, it is more suitable for cultivating southern acid-loving soil flowers.

The above two mediums are very loose, breathable and water permeable, will not harden, and have strong fertilizer and water retention capacity, which is conducive to the development of flower roots.When transplanting into an inverted pot, it is easy to operate and will not damage the roots.It is easy to obtain materials and is very suitable for family potting.Substrate cultivation requires regular application of nutrient solution to supplement the lack of nutrients in the substrate.

(End of this chapter)