Growing Soilless Crops Without Nitrates: Practical Options When Nitrate Salts Are Unavailable
For growers in regions where geopolitical conflicts or economic constraints limit access to nitrate fertilizers like calcium nitrate and potassium nitrate, the question arises: can you grow hydroponic or soilless…
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Comparing Nutrient Solutions for Hydroponic Strawberry Production
Getting the right nutrient solution for strawberries in hydroponics can feel like trying to solve a puzzle where every piece matters. Unlike many crops where you can get away with…
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Comparing Nutrient Solutions for Hydroponic Tomatoes
When growing tomatoes hydroponically, one of the most critical decisions you’ll make is choosing the right nutrient solution. The composition of your nutrient solution can dramatically affect both the quantity…
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pH vs Nutrient Availability: Rethinking the Classic Charts
If you’ve been around hydroponics long enough, you’ve probably seen the ubiquitous “pH vs nutrient availability” chart. It usually looks like a series of colored bars, each showing how available…
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Can you manage downy mildew in hydroponic basil with organic foliar sprays?
Basil downy mildew, caused by the obligate oomycete Peronospora belbahrii, has become one of the most serious diseases affecting hydroponic and greenhouse basil production globally. The pathogen, first documented in Europe…
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Calcium silicate (wollastonite) in soilless crops
Silicon in media is not a magic switch. In soilless systems it can help, it can do nothing, and at the wrong rate or pH it can hurt. Calcium silicate…
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A low cost DIY oil IPM for your crops
An emulsified vegetable oil spray can smother mites and soft-bodied insects and can suppress powdery mildew if you actually coat the target. Soybean oil has the strongest evidence. Corn oil…
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Recent advances in hydroponic cucumber cultivation: media, irrigation, nutrition and biostimulants
Cucumber has become a model crop for testing new soilless technologies, with greenhouses adopting alternative substrates, precision fertigation and biostimulants. Over the last decade a series of peer-reviewed studies have…
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Moringa extract as a biostimulant in hydroponics
Moringa leaf extract (MLE) is a rather recent addition to the biostimulant market. Below I focus on peer-reviewed work in hydroponic or soilless systems, with attention to yield, quality, toxicity,…
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Exogenous Root Applications of Wetting Agents in Soilless Media
Introduction Dry peat, coir, rockwool or bark mixes can become water repellent, which creates uneven moisture and nutrient delivery around roots. Wetting agents reduce surface tension and restore wettability by…
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