Hydroponic Plant Root System

As we all know, hydroponics is a system of growing plants in the absence of soil or dirt

. A hydroponic plant is typically grown in a nutrient solution of water and fertilizer. In a hydroponic system, plants are provided with mechanical support such as sand, gravel, vermiculite or sawdust to keep the plants roots intact.

A hydroponic plant is started from seedlings in a soilless mixture such as peat moss or rock wool blocks. Once the seedling emerges or germinates, the peat moss or rock wool blocks will be transferred to larger growing cubes. As the root system of a hydroponic plant develops, the growing cubes may be placed inside larger growing cubes in a pot-in-pot system. Also the roots of the plants are never confined and never allowed to touch one another because if the roots touch at all, the plant is considered to be overcrowded.

In cases when plants become leggy from being overcrowded, their growing blocks may be transplanted in a specific process. The process involves the turning of the growing blocks upside-down where in the plants stem is made to bend into a U-shape. This way, the plant will grow new roots from the parts of the stem that are underneath the peat while the plant becomes stronger and healthier. This process is commonly used in hydroponic plant such as tomato vines since it works well with it.

Hydroponic plant just like soil grown plant needs nutrients for them to grow and develop. Nutrients such as carbon and nitrogen are absorbed by the roots. The roots are simple axial organs that produce lateral roots, and sometimes buds, but bear neither leaves nor flowers. Elongation usually occurs in the root tip. For soil grown plants, their roots may be very long because roots eventually elongates or extends to where nutrients are highly available. But in the case of hydroponic plant where nutrients are already made available in significant quantity, there is no need for their roots to grow very long. The roots of a hydroponic plant are usually short and compact, because unlike soil grown plants, where their roots are the ones moving towards the nutrients, with hydroponic system it is the nutrients that are made to move towards the roots.

The spacing of hydroponic plants may be much denser than in soil. A space of two square feet is ideal for the root system of plants in order to avoid overcrowding. There is also a significant effect of sunlight to hydroponic plant spacing. The more sunlight a plant receives the more compact the root system will be. So there is a tendency for plants that are grown in low lighting conditions of having their root system spread out further thus causing overcrowding.

by: aprilrein20

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