Hydroponics - Indoor Horticulture

Hydroponics - Indoor Horticulture represents an educational, in-depth, up-to-date, indoor horticultural growers guide that covers all principles of indoor hydroponic horticulture and gardening. This book contains 110,000 words, with over 300 diagrams, pictures, illustrations, graphs, tables, 3 dimensional CAD renderings, and is printed in full colour.

Hydroponics - Indoor Horticulture examines, explores, dissects and presents a fully comprehensive step by step growers guide, relating to all and every aspect of indoor hydroponic horticulture, with complete chapters on plant biology, propagation, hydroponic systems, nutrients, oxygen, carbon dioxide enrichment, pH, biological pest control, fungi/disease, cuttings/clones, pruning/training, breeding, harvesting, equipment, grow rooms, a full history of hydroponics, and more.

This book goes further than any indoor growers guide has gone before, presented in full colour with 3 dimensional CAD renderings. Hydroponics - Indoor Horticulture quite simply outclasses any other book on the subject... In terms of literal content, quantity, quality and presentation, no other indoor horticulture growers guide can compete, let alone compare.

What follows next is a transcript taken from a presentation and demonstration on how to get started and how to maintain a particular hydroponics system. This information can be adapted and applied to any hydroponics system. It is advisable to read the whole transcript to get a basic overview of the complete process.

Guide to Propagation
and Nutrient Solutions

Presented by Jeffrey Winterborne

We’re here today to talk about jiffy pellets and rockwool for seed germination. [picking up rockwool and jiffy pellet] On my right (probably your left), jiffy pellets, compressed peat pellets, completely dry and on my left (probably your right), rockwool. Now rockwool is inert and sterile which means we have to supplement it with nutrient and also pH-adjusted water to compensate its own consistency. Now jiffy pellets, on the other hand, has got everything you could require for seed germination or for even taking cuttings, apart from the essential part which is obviously water. There’s enough nutrient in there, there’s enough compost in there to keep a cutting or a seedling going until it’s got a good healthy root system. Jiffy pellets are ideal for beginners, completely and utterly due to the fact that all you have to do, [drops jiffy pellet into container of water] is soak them in water.

Now the key to jiffy pellets is only to soak them for approximately five minutes. Now that is dependent on how hot or how cold the water is; if it’s very warm

water, it’ll take less time, if it’s very cold water it will take more time. Now what we’ll do is that as soon as that jiffy pellet has swollen to its potential, I’ll pull it out to show you exactly how swollen it should be. The key with jiffy pellets is DO NOT oversoak them, I cannot stress that more. If you oversoak a jiffy pellet, they end up waterlogged.

When they’re waterlogged, if you put a seedling in, the seedling will germinate, or the cutting will take, but because they’re so waterlogged, no air to the root system and the root system will starve resulting in possibly a dead plant. If not a dead plant, a very stressed plant.

Now we’ll let the jiffy go in the background while I talk you through rockwool. Now this is the more professional way to cultivate seedlings or cuttings, but it takes a few variables to iron out before you get it absolutely right. Now rockwool on its own with plain water wouldn’t be good enough, you have to supplement it with nutrient and then you have to pH-adjust the water and the nutrient solution to compensate its own consistency, which we’re going to do right now. Now, an ideal nutrient to use for seedlings or cuttings [picks up bottle of Formulex] is one called Formulex. Now Formulex is superb; it’s tailor-made for rockwool cultivation; however any Grow A and B nutrient will suffice as long as you make it up to a weak CF level. Now CF, TDS, PPM; they’re all measurements to verify the electrical conductivity of the nutrients in the water, in layman’s terms it means how strong the food is in the water.