Easy Hydroponics

Learn to make your own homemade hydroponics system to grow virtually any plant, vegetable and fruit without soil.

General Hydroponics:

• History of Hydroponics Growing
• Introduction to Hydroponic Farming
• Hydroponic Supplies 101
• Effects of Hydroponics on Vegetables
• Overview of Six Growth Systems
• Common Hydroponic Nutrients
• Types of Hydroponic Growth Media

Hydroponic Systems:

• Basic Concepts of Home Hydroponics
• Advantages of Major Growing Systems
• Finding the Best Hydroponic Systems
• Are Cheap Systems Worth It?
• Hydroponic System Buyer's Guide
• How to Save Money on Systems
• Pros & Cons of Ebb and Flow
• Hydroponics Drip Versus Ebb and Flow
• Advantages of Vertical Systems
• Lunar and Mars Hydroponic Systems

Hydroponics Growing:

• Hydroponic Tomatoes
• Hydroponic Lettuce
• Hydroponic Strawberries
• The Hydroponic Strawberry Revolution
• Pros & Cons of Strawberry Systems
• How to Build a System for Strawberries
• More Tips for Strawberries
• Using Hydroponics Year-Round?
• Florida's Hydroponic Strawberries
• How to Clone Plants with Hydroponics

Homemade Hydroponics:

• Why Homemade Hydroponics?
• Pros and Cons of Home Systems
• Making A Simple Hydroponics System
• 5 Free Hydroponic System Plans
• Building A Bottle Hydroponics System
• Make a 5 Gal Pail Hydroponic System
• A Build Using Hydroponic Planters
• 5 Steps to Building from Scratch
• What is The Cheapest System?
• 3 More Tips To Building Your System
• Building a Raft Hydroponic System
• The Beauty of DIY Hydroponics
• How to Build an Aeroponic System

Hydroponic Lights:

• Introduction to Grow Lights
• Types of Hydroponic Lighting
• Choosing the Right Hydroponic Lights
• Assessing Minimum Amounts of Light
• How to Maximize Light Efficiency
• Metal Halide Hydroponics Lighting
• Fluorescent versus HID Systems
• 5 Types of HID Hydroponic Lights
• Hydroponic LED Lighting
• Hydro Farm Hydroponics Grow Lights
• Importance of Color Temperatures
• Setting Light Timing Schedules
• Hydroponic Grow Lights Safety

PVC Hydroponics:

• PVC Hydroponics FAQ
• Hydroponics and PVC Pipe Tubes
• Advantages of Using PVC
• Using PVC in a Dutch Pot System
• How to Build PVC Pipe Hydroponics
• How to Build a PVC Hydroponic Tree

Advantages and Disadvantages of Strawberry Hydroponics

Find out all about the pros and cons of strawberry hydroponics from this article, which tries to present them in a detailed manner.

If you're even slightly interested in gardening and hydroponics, there's almost no chance you missed reading or hearing about one of the hottest subjects in the field: strawberry hydroponics. As with all matters that are discussed and over discussed, strawberry hydroponics come with a lot of confusing and misleading information attached. If you surfed the Internet and came across people discussing the disadvantages and advantages of growing hydroponic strawberries and were left clueless, have no fear. The following article will try to shed some light for you, given that you have 3-4 minutes to spare.

Advantages of Using Strawberry Hydroponics

Before going into the actual details, let's see what causes strawberries to be hard to grow in the other popular environment, namely soil. For starters, you have the soil itself…which is often ridden with all sorts of pests, mites, parasites and so forth and all of these have a negative effect on the growing strawberry, either sipping away its much needed juices, or simply eating away on the fruit or its roots. Using strawberry hydroponics, you eliminate all of these destructive factors with one swing, since you lose the environment that also grew the pests: soil.

Another major advantage that comes with growing hydroponic strawberries is related to the above mentioned one, namely the fact that they don't require pesticide solutions. On soil grown strawberries, in order to get rid of the parasites and pests chewing away nutrients from your fruits, you would have to sprinkle them with methyl bromide, which kills the evil doers, but is also toxic to humans. So with strawberry hydroponics, you get to keep all the fruit you grow, since there's no loss from soil pests AND you don't need to fumigate them with all sorts of poisons.

Strawberry hydroponics have another major advantage in that they're very cost effective.The initial investment will be higher than if you would use soil to grow them in, since hydroponic devices, nutrient solutions and other related factors can amount to a hefty sum at first. But after breaking the bank that one time, you won't really have to worry about costly additions to your strawberry hydroponics system anymore. If you're marketing the fruit, then the cost efficiency goes sky high, since hydroponic strawberries can be grown and harvested off season and they can be picked several times during a year. If you want to cut down costs even further, you can get a hydroponic gardening system that recycles the nutrient solution and reuses it automatically (such as drip-based, aeroponic or flood and drain systems).

Disadvantages of Using Strawberry Hydroponics

Like all good things, growing strawberries using hydroponics has a few downsides. Remember how I mentioned that you automatically get rid of soil pests by taking the soil away from your strawberries? Well that only works with soil pests, since foliage pests will still be a problem. These include spiders, insects and powdery mildew that can attack your strawberries and cause some serious damage. Most of them can be fought by altering the humidity and temperature levels of the hydroponics environment, but that isn't guaranteed 100%.

Another disadvantage is the strawberry's delicate nature. Unlike many other fruits grown in hydroponic environments, strawberries require a lot more attention and environmental factors need to be tweaked down to perfection if you want the best crops. This is especially annoying for newcomers, but then again it's advisable that you start out with another type of fruit or vegetable if you're fresh to hydroponics.