Hydroponic Supplies 101

Hydroponic systems have a rather high cost in the long run and this is not always caused solely by power consumption. Hydroponic supplies have their part in this, so you will be better off know what exactly you’re spending your money on. Read on and hopefully it will give you a clue as to where your money should go.

Building a hydroponics system by yourself, or buying one from the store can take you through a range of costs, from plans, to components and power consumption in the long run. But there’s another factor that’s also long-run money churning and that’s hydroponic supplies. What are hydroponic supplies you ask? Easy, everything that needs to be replaced, including plant food, fertilizers, growth media, plant pests controls and everything in between. Let me give you a rundown on each, before you start your research and shopping for the best hydroponic supplies on the market.

Hydroponic Supplies – Plant Food

Not sure if plants ever have favorite dishes like we do, but if they do, they would definitely have them picked from the plant food supplies list. Plant foods include bat guanos, organic fertilizers, seaweed fertilizers, trace elements, turf food, humic acids and many other, depending on what you’re growing. Admittedly, some of this stuff comes from various dung sources, so calling them “food” might be weird for us, but plants sure love their dung.

Hydroponic Supplies – Fertilizers

Fertilizers include a wide range of products, ranging from organic worm soil (liquid earthworm castings), natural humates, marine extracts such as algae or kelp and many more. They are designed to simulate the benefic effects of the plants natural environment, but also boost them, so the plant develops more than it would in its natural environment. These hydroponic supplies are not necessary for a healthy growth and neither does their use guarantee one, but they do have a good chance of giving your plants a boost.

Hydroponic Supplies – Plant Pest Controls

Even when growing plants hydroponically and losing the soil pest problem, you still have to deal with insects and other airborne pests. These can fall into a wide array of methods, ranging from physical traps and barriers that stop insects, to using organic insect dusts that are not harmful to people and even the ingenious trick of using beneficial insects on the plants to stop the destructive ones. If you dig harder in some stores, you may even find greenhouse insect monitors and animal deterrents that can make your greenhouse a bunker against all insects.

Hydroponic Supplies – Growth Media

There are four types of growth media that you can use to raise your plants in:

• Nutrient media – this is the most general, all-purpose media you can get, as it contains elements that all benefic bacteria need
• Minimal media – this category of media offers the minimum nutrients that are required for growth, without any amino acids
• Selective media – this type of media is used, a the name suggests, for selective microorganisms that are useful in a particular situation, or for a particular plant
• Differential media – also called indicator media, this is generally used to spot a particular microorganism on a plant, or differentiate two that are active at the same time
  

If you want to go deeper into what each type of growth media offers, check out this link.

Conclusion

Now you know what hydroponic supplies are all about, but at shopping time, it will still likely be a difficult choice. Just make sure you know what you’re buying and pay attention to the quality of the products, not merely their costs (you get what you pay for in most cases and it’s not any different with hydroponic supplies).