Nutrient Dynamics for Hydroponic Production System
Pranjal Thakur, Hardik Wadhwa, Shilpa Kaushal, Shubham Shubham
Abstract
As our world has become more populated and cities have grown, the amount of land available for farming per person has gone down a lot. Back in 1960, when there were 3 billion people, each person had about half a hectare of land for farming. But now, with 6 billion people, it's down to just a quarter of a hectare, and it's expected to shrink even more to just a tiny 0.16 hectares by 2050. Several things are making this problem worse. Cities and industries are expanding, and climate change is causing icebergs to melt, which can flood and ruin farmland. Also, the soil that we grow crops in has reached a point where it can't get much more fertile, even if we use more and more fertilizers. Some areas have really poor soil, and the natural process of soil getting better with time is getting disrupted because we keep farming the same land over and over. On top of that, there are more droughts, unpredictable weather, higher temperatures, pollution in rivers, and wasteful water use. All these challenges are making it harder to grow enough food using traditional farming with soil. That's why soil-less farming, where plants grow without soil, is becoming more important. It's a way to produce food that uses less space and water, and it's showing some good results around the world.