What are the Pros and Cons of Hydroponic Over Traditional Growing Methods?
The pros and cons of hydroponic gardening are numerous and in most professional opinions, outweigh the cons.
Pros of Hydroponics
- Grow anywhere
- Grow year-round
- Portability (Take your garden with you if you move)
- Reuse water (Use at least 20x less water than the conventional garden)
- Reduces nutrient runoff into the environment and water systems
- No pesticides (or fewer pesticides)
- Need Less space to grow
- Less manual labor
- Plants grow faster
- Depending on the system design, Can be easier to harvest
- No critters
Hydroponic growing isn’t for everyone as it has its fair share of drawbacks and disadvantages. Having a hydroponic gardening system isn’t a set-and-forget type of system, you will still be required to be the gardener and do the work.
Cons of Hydroponics
- More expensive initial set up than conventional farming
- Requires constant power and power back up
- Need high-quality filtered water.
- Diseases have the potential to spread quickly to other plants in the same system.
- Mistakes in pH or Nutrient can be costly and deadly to your plants
- Requires more attention to pH and Nutrient balance.
Conclusion
From the list of pros and cons, you should be able to make an informed decision if hydroponics gardening is right for you. Not so sure just yet? Need a little more info? Overall, hydroponics seems like it has more pros than cons and a clear advantage over traditional gardening. There are many different types of hydroponic systems available which may skew this pros and cons list a bit and make it seem even more intimidating or complicated than it really is but you’ll never know until you try. Perhaps start small with a simple Kratky or Deepwater culture system with one of your favorite plants to see if it’s for you.
