Science Fair Project on Nutrients

by Shivani
(Dallas, TX)

I am a high school student in a suburb of Dallas, Texas, and one of the requirements for higher level classes is participation in the ISEF Science Fair. My brother and I want to do a project involving hydroponics, and found your website very useful in our search.

Our project needs different trials of tests, and our experiment requires that we change the content of the water. This probably means that we need three of the same rig to hold three plants each (for multiple trials), and our only variable would be different solutions in each growing system.

I wanted to ask you what type of system you would recommend to us for this project. I was thinking about the ebb/flow system, but I am concerned about the cost of the pumps. I also wanted to ask about which types of plants respond well to hydroponics.

Seeing as we do not have much time to grow a plant from scratch, our plan was to buy the plants and wash the soil from the roots to place in our system. Would this create problems for the system?