Abstract
In this study, two different types of substrate hydroponics systems have been designed and evaluated for growing greenhouse tomatoes. The first system is wick type self-operating hydroponic system which does not require any external energy for supplying water and nutrients to the potted plants. The other system is re-circulation type hydroponic system which uses pump energy to supply water and nutrient to the potted plants. A 1.5 m × 1 m angle iron frame was fabricated with a provision of holding 05 pots each in two rows at 30 cm above the ground. All 10 pots were filled with soilless porous root media consisting of cocopeat, vermiculite and perlite in 3:1:1 ratio respectively. Sufficiently thick cotton wicks (four in numbers) were inserted in each pot of first row. These wicks were long enough to protrude through the bottom of each pot and reached up to the bottom of the nutrient rich water container placed below the pot for direct absorption through capillary action. The other row of pots was fixed with PVC flexible pipe having drippers fitted at the top of each pot for supply of nutrient rich water solution. A re-circulation pump was immersed in a 20 liter size bucket to supply water and nutrients to the plants with a timer controlled operation. Provision was made in such a way that excess solution comes back to the same bucket in a recirculation mode and excessive percolated nutrient rich solution through each pot was collected in a container placed below each pot and reused. Water consumed by wick type plants and pump type plants was very less compared to plants grown under conventional soil system. It was observed that on an average 30 times more quantity of water was used by soil type plants as compared to other two methods. The total cumulative yield from the wick type plants was 1905 grams per plant, 2095 grams from plants grown under pumping system and 1250 grams from plants grown under soil conditions.
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