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Demystifying Lumens, Lux and PAR LED lights require new thinking about the way we measure light for use by plants. The typical rating most growers are familiar with is the “lumen.” The definition of the lumen is the total light produced within the range of the human visual response. It tells us nothing about the distribution of that light energy over the spectrum, and most importantly, it doesn’t tell us how much is useful for plants. The problem with lumens is especially pronounced when measuring light at the far ends of the human visual response curve. Consider three lamps—red, green...

DIY Home Hydroponics Are you excited about what you've read so far about hydroponic gardening? Ready to start you own hydroponic garden and put theory into practice? Here, we'll compare the benefits and drawbacks to the different types of hydroponics system, and we'll discuss what kinds of plants can be grown at home using these systems. When designing a home hydroponics system, it's generally recommended that a medium be used. This tends to support the use of either a flood and rain or wick system. While a wick system is incredibly cheap and simple to use, it's hard to modify...

Why Use a Hydroponic System? So why go through all the trouble of setting up a hydroponic system? After all, people have been growing food just fine for thousands, if not millions of years using good old-fashioned dirt. Hydroponics offers some significant benefits over traditional farming, and as word about these benefits spreads, more people will turn to hydroponics for their agricultural needs. First, hydroponics offers people the ability to grow food in places where traditional agriculture simply isn't possible. In areas with arid climates, like Arizona and Israel, hydroponics has been in use for decades. This science allows the people of these areas...

What is hydroponics?   If you've ever placed a plant clipping into a glass of water in the hopes that it will develop roots, you've practiced in a form of hydroponics. Hydroponics is a branch of agriculture where plants are grown without the use of soil. The nutrients that the plants normally derive from the soil are simply dissolved into water instead, and depending on the type of hydroponic system used, the plant's roots are suspended in, flooded with or misted with the nutrient solution so that the plant can derive the elements it needs for growth. The term hydroponics originates from...