Hydroponic Nutrients: Fertilizer for Your Hydroponic Garden

Image Gallery Cultivating hydroponic plants in a homemade solution of fertilizer salts and water ensures that your plants will have a proper supply of nutrients.

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Editor's Note: Hydroponics is the art of cultivating plants in a nutrient-water solution, while the plants' roots are supported by a substance other than soil. Although we have covered the basics (see Mother's Mini-Manual: Hydroponics and Hydroponic Greenhouse Gardening), readers continually ask for updated information. The article below focuses specifically on what to feed your plants (hydroponic fertilizer) and how to avoid nutrient deficiencies. Whether you are growing hydroponic plants or just thinking about growing them, it is essential to become familiar with nutrients and how they affect growth.

Nature does a lot of the work in soil gardening. Almost all types of soil have some nutrients, but when you are growing your plants hydroponically, you are taking the controls from Mother Nature. In many instances, this allows you the opportunity to improve upon the quality of nutrients supplied.

Homemade Hydroponic Nutrients (Hydroponic Fertilizer)

The most common type of homemade nutrient is one made from fertilizer salts. These are available in bulk from agricultural agencies, plant-food suppliers, some nurseries and gardening stores, and chemical suppliers. The only problem with this approach is that you usually have to buy some of these salts in 25 to 50 pound bags, and unless you are growing in extensive hydroponics gardens, such quantities make the whole thing rather cumbersome and expensive. Even so, the following information is for the ambitious as well as for the person who simply wants to be informed.

Some salts are best to work with, even though there are other similar salts available. The reason is that they have superior properties, such as better solubility, cost, storage life, and stability. Potassium chloride, for example, can be used rather than potassium sulphate; however, if applied for more than a few days, the chlorine in the mix may prove harmful to your plants. This is especially true since there is likely to be chlorine in your water in the first place. Magnesium nitrate can be substituted for magnesium sulphate, but it hardly seems worthwhile to use a more expensive material for the cheap and readily available magnesium sulphate (epsom salts). Ferric citrate has to be dissolved in hot water, as opposed to cold for ferrous sulphate.

Hydroponic Gardening: Key Nutrients and Trace Elements

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