Geelong Hydroponic Gardening
 

Conserve Water

A lot of people question the amount of water used by hydroponic growing. It has been a long known fact of anyone who has grown using this technique over the years of the water savings they have had.

We have been fortunate enough to have the contact and information made available to us to show people the difference in the usage of water in both hydroponic gardening and soil gardening.

Not only did this comparison give us the water usage comparison, it also gave us the usage comparison of nutrient/fertilizer as well.


Usage Comparison Chart



One Third WaterSo as you can see by the comparison chart above the water used in hydroponics is approximately one third of the water used in soil gardening.
Full Water
Not only is there a saving on water, but also a saving on nutrient/fertilizer that is used.

80 litres of nutrient roughly equates to 80 kg.

A good example with another saving of water is; by using the milk bottle idea as an experiment. (See the Home Innovations Page for how to do this).

This is also a good project for children to do.

It has a threefold benefit; teaching them about growing their herb or plants; recycling household items and water conservation.

The milk bottle acting as the reservoir for the water/nutrient solution, does not allow the solution to escape anywhere as it is closed in. On a hot day you will see droplets of water hanging from the top of the milkbottle. This water would normally be lost through evaporation. But having been stopped it is trapped by the top of the reservoir – when the day cools down, this trapped water then condenses back to the nutrient solution in the reservoir. Thus we have no loss of water/solution.

The only loss that is incurred is what little that evaporates from the top of the media within the small cup holding the plant; which is minimal.

The same saving of water happens with any reservoir with a lid used for water or solution.