The difference between 'organic' and 'hydroponics'

'Organic' and 'Hydroponics' are similar but not the same much like the two baloons pictured below. In common literature they are often confused. I was just speaking with a friend of mine and the subject of this website came up. He asked a question that many people take for granted.

Since he knew my website concerns hydroponics, he asked if there were many people interested in this type of organic gardening. Somehow, 'hydroponics' has come to mean 'organic' to many people even though they are two completely different topics.

I explained that 'organic gardening' is a method of growing vegetables using materials that have not been processed and changed from their original natural state into something chemically produced and that 'hydroponics' was a type of gardening involving no soil and nutrients mixed with water.

As a method, organic gardening can be practiced with hydroponics or with conventional dirt gardening. Therefore, hydroponics systems using chemically produced nutrient fertilizer is still hydroponic gardening but not organic.

So organic hydroponics is not really which hydroponic system you use it concerns the use of organic nutrients and organic pest and disease control.

Organic hydroponics relies on the development of a thriving bacterial colony around the plant root system to help regulate plant processes and to impart increased plant disease resistance. Organic nutrients help build and replenish these bacterial colonies.

And don't forget that a complete flushing of the organic system is needed every 2 weeks to a month to cut down these ever-expanding colonies or your plants may smother (bacterial growth eats up oxygen so too much bacteria can literally take all available oxygen away from plant roots).

These thriving bacterial colonies should be a mixture of anerobic and aerobic type bacteria. Anerobic bacteria thrives in places with little to no oxygen and can give rise to some unpleasant organisms. Aerobic bacteria needs oxygen and this is the bacteria beneficial to your plant.

As aerobic bacteria multiply, oxygen is consumed which causes a decrease in aerobic bacteria and an increase in the 'not so desirable' anerobic bacteria. To keep up these high levels of aerobic bacteria is another reason to flush your system periodically with plain water. The flushing will wash away most of the bacterial colonies and suck oxygen down to the plant roots allowing aerobic bacteria to thrive.

I hope this small discussion has cleared up some misconceptions...

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