Optimizing Plant Growth and Crop Productivity through Hydroponics Technique for Sustainable Agriculture: A Review
Debashis Dutta, Vikas Sharma, Sibnarayan Guria, Subir Kumar Chakraborty, S. Sarveswaran, D. Harsha Vardhan, Parimal Roy, S. Nandi, Ankaj Thakur, Shantanu Kumar, Sudipta Sonar, Narayan Khadka, M. Bhagya Lakshmi, Md. N. S. Shah
Abstract
A promising, economically viable and profitable form of cultivation is hydroponics. The findings of the present study indicate that the productivity as well as quality of different leafy vegetables and high valuable fruit crops (litchi etc) was significantly improved by adopting hydroponic techniques. The pH and EC of nutrient solution play an important role in this technique which directly affects the plant response. Article discusses how hydroponics can produce sustainable food while addressing issues such as climate change, lack of arable land and poor soil quality. The article highlights several hydroponic growing media and the importance of pH and dissolved solids (TDS) in a hydroponic fertilizer solution. The potential of hydroponics for Indian farmers and the need for education to facilitate their adoption is discussed at the end of the article. Presently the different substances are used to support plants, aerate them, promote maximum root growth and implement various hydroponic cultivation techniques. This paper also describes the different hydroponic techniques like nutrient film technique (NFT), deep water culture (DWC) and Ebb and flow etc and their mechanisms, applicability and advantages. Along with different hydroponics techniques the effectiveness of hydroponic growing media has also been investigated, with the best results obtained from nutrient film technique along with coconut peat as a growing media.