IMPROVEMENT OF HYDROPON INSTALLATIONS

Abstract

Hydroponics is a promising area of development of modern agriculture, which provides long-term cultivation of basic vegetables and greenery in small areas with minimal consumption of water and fertilizers. This technology allows you to get a fairly large harvest of fresh vegetables within large cities, including office and residential premises. Entrepreneurs and researchers are paying close attention to developing more efficient hydroponics methods and equipment to implement them in order to reduce usable space, save water, nutrients and increase air supply and plant capacity. Several hydroponics systems are known: static solution culture, continuous flow solution (NFT) culture, deep water culture, passive irrigation, underwater and drainage irrigation systems, wastewater drainage system, deep-water fertilized culture, rotary system, aeroponics, wick system. The first three of the above methods were used commercially and industrially. The system of static culture solution does not provide the necessary saturation of plant roots with air. With the implementation of the method of continuous solution culture, minor buffering is possible due to interruptions in the flow (power outage), flooding of water in some canals, in addition, there are restrictions on the maximum length of canals (12 - 15 m). The system of deep-water culture on an industrial scale is used mainly for growing lettuce. Other mentioned systems are not efficient enough in terms of commercial use. The improved hydroponic installations presented in the article were developed taking into account the following requirements: universality of use (possibility of growing different types of plants); harmonization of optimal supply of crops with water, nutrients, light and air; maximum use of space; increasing the area for each plant and maintaining its stems and shoots. Also in the article the equation for definition of the basic parameters of the developed installations is given.