What Is Hydroponics?

Hi, this is Yolanda Vanveen and in this segment we're going to talk about, what is hydroponics. Now, hydroponics is growing any type of plant in water and it can be tomato plants, strawberry plants, there's all types of flowers that are grown hydroponically, such as tulips. And basically they're just bulbs or plants, the roots are growing right in to the water. And then it produces gorgeous flowers and gorgeous vegetables. So hydroponics is a combination of having water, some type of a growing medium whether, sometimes they use sponges or nothing at all, and some type of a container to contain your plant. And then the lighting and the lighting is the most important part. So when you're first growing your plant and when it's first coming out from seed, you want to start them with a blue light. So you want to use a nice low temperature halide And you want to use a metal halide blue light and because that's a cool light. As soon as you have good growth on the roots and you've got a good plant forming, you want to switch from the blue to some high pressure red sodium light. Because that red light is what makes the flowers. Because you want to recreate your plants nature. And in nature, in the spring, it's a lighter light a cooler light, the plants start growing. By summer it's a hot light, it's a red light, they can get the summer light. And so that is going to spark your plant in to growing and budding out and making flowers. So you need the high pressure sodium red light to get blooms. So by just having the right light, and a plant and water and the growing medium, you can grow hydroponics. It's really as easy as that.