Organic Hydroponics and bacteria growth

Bacteria growth runs rampant in an organic hydroponics system where organic fertilizer will provide the perfect breeding ground for billions of bacterial microorganisms in the plant's roots. So is this good or bad?

And the answer is, 'it depends'. It depends on how often you flush your system, what you use for fertilizer and the system type.

There will always be bacteria in your hydroponics garden the same as in any garden. Some bacteria is beneficial by providing increased disease resistance for your plant and some bacteria is not so good and will adversely affect plant processing.

If you have ever noticed mushrooms growing at the base of trees or near old tree stumps then you have seen bacteria in action. Mushrooms are merely gigantic bacterial colonies popping out of the ground near the root system of a tree or plant. Beneficial bacteria at work...

An organic system is more prone to pest and disease due to the organic breeding ground provided by the organic fertilizer.

Should you be worried?

Not really, as long as an organic system is completely flushed with plain water at least once or twice a month. This should reduce the active bacteria down to a manageable level. And, by the way, this is one purpose of rain; to flush bacteria that has been building up out from the roots.

You need to periodically flush away bacteria because the more bacteria you incubate, the more oxygen is used which could eventually suffocate the plant. This is especially true if your growing system is an NFT or Aeroponics design or some similar closed design.

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