There are different types of hydroponic systems. Deep water culture is one of those systems. In this system, plant roots are sunk in water and nutrient solution. I tis well oxygenated solution.
There are three components in the solution. They are oxygen, water and nutrients.
In this system, plant roots are not grown in soil and they are submerged in water. The water should oxygenate well. Air stone and air pump are accomplished with this. There is no need of water again and again because it is permanently watering. So, this system is so beneficial.
Macro nutrients and micro nutrients are necessary for growing plants. All nutrients contain in good quality soil. But in hydroponic there is no soil and farmer should supply all these nutrients. Because of this reason, nutrients and oxygen rich water should supply this hydroponics.
This hydroponic system is known as deep water culture due to two reasons. First reason is these plants grow in a water source which contain more water. It means this water contain all necessary nutrients. So, farmer don’t pay more attention and maintenance for these plants. Second reason is plant roots in this system submerge 24/7.
Benefits of Deep Water Culture
This system is one of the simplest types of hydroponic systems.
After set this system the maintenance requirement is very low. Compared to plants which grow in soil these plants are growing fast. The moving parts of this system are very little.
Down Sides of Deep Water Culture
There are some problems in this system. Nutrient concentration, PH and water level fluctuation in small systems is one problem. When this system is doing in small scale over calibration and under calibration can be happen very easily. If there is pump failure or outage of electricity, plant roots can be wilt due to decrease of oxygen level in nutrients solution. This system is difficult to maintain water temperature constantly.
Deep Water Culture Variations
The system which is easy to build is the traditional deep water culture system. There are several items to develop it. Air pump, air stone, five-gallon bucket, net pots, airline tubing, hydroponic nutrients, growing media, ppm meter, and PH control kit need to build this system. First air pump should connect to the airline tubing. Then airline tubing connects to the air stone. Bucket is used to place air stone. When bucket is filled with water and nutrient solution. PH should properly maintain. Then farmer can start seeding.
After seeds start to germinate and roots enter to the solution, plant start to grow. In here, harvest can obtain twice faster than soil grown plants due to the solution is highly oxygenated and richness of solution.
Recirculating Deep Water Culture
Traditional method is more suitable for beginners. But people who want upgrade their garden can turn to recirculating deep water culture system. In here, multiple buckets are connected together as a chain. Water is oxygenated by shuttled around spray nozzles when water moves from bucket to bucket