What is Aeroponics
Aeroponics is simply growing your plants in an environment where their roots are sprayed with a nutrient mix using nuzzles on pipes instead of submerging the roots in a solution of the nutrient mix.
The roots are suspended freely in the roots zone. The roots are exposed to a nutrient mix at certain intervals but not continuously. Water-drop sizes from the nuzzles are usually controlled.
The droplet size of the nutrient mix must be around 45 microns in size. In Aeroponics, the roots are not suspended is any medium like hydroton, soil, rockwool.
Aeroponics farming facilitates maximum oxygen intake since there isn’t any media to obstruct oxygen intake by the roots. The root zone of the plants cannot be in the nutrient reservoir.
How does it work?
The reservoir must be stored in some other place, and the nutrients mix pumped and passed to the plants with a pump and PVC pipes.
The presence of a reservoir having the roots of the plants submerged in it causes the roots to be exposed to diseases as the reservoir could be a place for harmful microbes like bacteria, algae, or pathogen to grow.
Aeroponics is conducted without a growing medium like soil because water is used to transport nutrients. In this system, the roots and stems of plants are suspended in a closed or semi-closed environment and sprayed with nutrient-rich solution.
The sprayed solution is collected and transported back to the reservoir. Aeroponics is water conservative. It requires less water compared to Hydroponics and Aquaponics. The canopy (leaves and crowns) of the plants are fixed in a netpot, and they extend above the closed/semi-closed medium where the roots are enclosed.
Aeroponics is conducted in the air combined with micro-droplets of water. For natural growth to occur, the plants need unhindered access to air.
In Aeroponics, the plants are usually well spaced. This limits the spread of diseases among plants. Since there is no growth media also, the likelihood of diseases is very minimal.
One major disadvantage of using Aeroponics is its dependence on an energy source for it to make the nutrient mix unavailable to the plants.
Without a power source to pump the nutrient mix to the pipes, the system is dead. If you do not fix the issues with your faulty power source in good time, it will definitely affect the yields of your plants, and you wouldn’t want that to happen.
Vertical Farming and Aeroponics in the Industry
Vertical Aeroponics involves mounting your PVC pipes vertically. A growth tower is needed here. The reservoir is fixed directly under the growth tower, but the plants do not get to direct access the nutrient mix in the reservoir.
Holes are bored round the large PVC pipes so that they can hold the netpots in which the plants will fit in.
A pump is fitted in a corner of the reservoir to provide the gravity that will push the nutrient-based solution to the top of the growth tower. Inside the growth tower, an irrigation pipe with nuzzles throughout its length is fixed vertically.
When the pump is on, the nutrient-based solution from the irrigation pipe is sprinkled to the roots of the plants. The excess water drips back into the reservoir.