The Past Shaping the Present – A History of Hydroponics

Hydroponics - Indoor Horticulture

Hydroponics - Indoor Horticulture represents an educational, in-depth, up-to-date, indoor horticultural growers guide that covers all principles of indoor Hydroponics Indoor Horticulture by Jeffrey Winterborne hydroponic horticulture and gardening. This book contains 110,000 words, with over 300 diagrams, pictures, illustrations, graphs, tables, 3 dimensional CAD renderings, and is printed in full colour.

Hydroponics - Indoor Horticulture examines, explores, dissects and presents a fully comprehensive step by step growers guide, relating to all and every aspect of indoor hydroponic horticulture, with complete chapters on plant biology, propagation, hydroponic systems, nutrients, oxygen, carbon dioxide enrichment, pH, biological pest control, fungi/disease, cuttings/clones, pruning/training, breeding, harvesting, equipment, grow rooms, a full history of hydroponics, and more.

This book goes further than any indoor growers guide has gone before, presented in full colour with 3 dimensional CAD renderings. Hydroponics - Indoor Horticulture quite simply outclasses any other book on the subject... In terms of literal content, quantity, quality and presentation, no other indoor horticulture growers guide can compete, let alone compare.

The Past

The roots of hydroponics are as old, as deep, and as strong as the understanding of the plants that grow in them. The term “Hydroponics” was first coined by Dr W E Gericke around the 1920s and 30s to define his work with plants. The word is an amalgam of the two Greek words “hudor” meaning water and “ponos” meaning labour which literally translates as “water labouring”, or more generally “water works”. Whilst the latter half of the 20th century saw the largest leaps in technology, instrumentation and the use of the science, the earliest recorded instance of hydroponics is possibly the almost mythical story of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon.

This wonder of the Ancient world is regarded as one of the first documented, working, hydroponic gardens but the science and development of the idea of hydroponics has been around in one form or another since or before the building of the Egyptian Sphinx and Pyramids. Some researchers have concluded that the Hanging Gardens of Babylon were a very large and elaborate hydroponic system, continually pumping fresh water, rich in oxygen and nutrients, to support its thriving plant life. This is still only supposition however, and the debate continues and no doubt will do so for a long time.

In some of its earliest incarnations, hydroponics followed the general rule of thumb for most scientific advances and breakthroughs which is that the problem forces a solution and the solution becomes an evolution. An example of this is that of the Aztec tribes of Central America.

They were forced to feed their increasing population living on the agriculturally void and marshy shores of Lake Texcoco which later became the foundation of their capital city – Tenochtitlan. As a burgeoning nation, they were forced to derive a living from this inhospitable land by their hostile neighbours. Any option of moving to a friendlier climate and neighbourhood was not available to them. Ingenuity and necessity forced them to get creative and invent a whole series of floating gardens. They fashioned small rafts from reeds and rushes lashed together with tough roots; these rafts were called chinampas. They covered these floating planters with soil dredged up from the shallow lake bottom which was rich in a variety of organic debris and decomposing material that over time released large amounts of nutrients. The roots of these plants pushed down towards the source of water, growing through the floor of the rafts and down into the water. They would then plant vegetables, herbs, flowers and even trees on these small floating rafts. As their endeavours grew, so did their gardens and their ambitions. They would then fasten these floating planters together to create huge artificial floating islands of produce; at times these islands reached sizes greater than 200 feet in diameter. Some chinampas even had a purpose-built dwelling for the resident gardener and on market days these gardeners would pole and pitch their chinampas close to the market, harvesting and selling the vegetables and flowers directly to the customers. The ingenuity, creativeness, motivation and hardiness of the Aztec people eventually allowed them to create a great and powerful nation which then went forth and pushed back their hostile neighbours, which allowed them to rule in dominance.


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(Below follows a one page sample taken from the book) Chapter 17 The Past Shaping the Present – A History of Hydroponics
The Past The roots of hydroponics are as old, as deep, and as strong as the understanding of the plants that grow in them. The term “Hydroponics” was first coined by Dr W E Gericke around the 1920s and 30s to define his work with plants. The word is an amalgam of the two Greek words “hudor” meaning water and “ponos” meaning labour which literally translates as “water labouring”, or more generally “water works”. Whilst the latter half of the 20th century saw the largest leaps in technology, instrumentation and the use of the science, the earliest recorded instance of hydroponics is possibly the almost mythical story of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon. This wonder of the Ancient world is regarded as one of the first documented, working, hydroponic gardens but the science and development of the idea of hydroponics has been around in one form or another since or before the building of the Egyptian Sphinx and Pyramids. Some researchers have concluded that the Hanging Gardens of Babylon were a very large and elaborate hydroponic system, continually pumping fresh water, rich in oxygen and nutrients, to support its thriving plant life. This is still only supposition however, and the debate continues and no doubt will do so for a long time. In some of its earliest incarnations, hydroponics followed the general rule of thumb for most scientific advances and breakthroughs which is that the problem forces a solution and the solution becomes an evolution. An example of this is that of the Aztec tribes of Central America.		They were forced to feed their increasing population living on the agriculturally void and marshy shores of Lake Texcoco which later became the foundation of their capital city – Tenochtitlan. As a burgeoning nation, they were forced to derive a living from this inhospitable land by their hostile neighbours. Any option of moving to a friendlier climate and neighbourhood was not available to them. Ingenuity and necessity forced them to get creative and invent a whole series of floating gardens. They fashioned small rafts from reeds and rushes lashed together with tough roots; these rafts were called chinampas. They covered these floating planters with soil dredged up from the shallow lake bottom which was rich in a variety of organic debris and decomposing material that over time released large amounts of nutrients. The roots of these plants pushed down towards the source of water, growing through the floor of the rafts and down into the water. They would then plant vegetables, herbs, flowers and even trees on these small floating rafts. As their endeavours grew, so did their gardens and their ambitions. They would then fasten these floating planters together to create huge artificial floating islands of produce; at times these islands reached sizes greater than 200 feet in diameter. Some chinampas even had a purpose-built dwelling for the resident gardener and on market days these gardeners would pole and pitch their chinampas close to the market, harvesting and selling the vegetables and flowers directly to the customers. The ingenuity, creativeness, motivation and hardiness of the Aztec people eventually allowed them to create a great and powerful nation which then went forth and pushed back their hostile neighbours, which allowed them to rule in dominance.