This is one company that has commercialised organic hydroponic production >http://www.gogreenagriculture.com/Technology/index.php
Here is an article from 2015, talking about how they are one of the largest Hydroponic Organic Grower’s in the USA. Considering hydroponic growing was only recently approved as organic a few months ago, there seems to be something missing with this story.
http://seedstock.com/2015/10/20/go-green-agriculture-pioneers-large-scale-organic-hydroponics/
“Organic” is a tricky word indeed. There are already lots of “organic” nutrients out there, mostly from fermented plants. One thing that is missing from these bottled nutrients are the plants secondary metabolites. Things like terpenes, flavonoids, ketones, etc. A lot of these provide pest and pathogen resistance as well as stimulating the plants systemic acquired response.
For me, the most important thing is limiting the use of toxic sprays than dictating the grow medium or method. Other things to consider, especially for large scale, is environmental impact.
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Just found this thread researching hydro organics.
Lots of good back and forth so I figured I’d bump and weigh in my two cents.
For me organic is growing without chemically engineered products.
In my scope of definition using stuff like pumice or dolomite lime are still organic because it was made through natural earth processes and not cooked up in a chemistry lab.
In short, for me organic is earth made and nature made.
The natural plant process is meaningless imho.
The point of it all is I’m ingesting a natural product.
Maybe natural growing can be an alternative to organic in process similar to the difference in vegan and vegetarianism.
Either way in my book if you are using natural ingredients you are doing it right!
So can anybody point me to an organic/natural hydroponics thread? This bears thinking of getting his paws wet after some inspiration from MadScientist.
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That @MadScientist is quite inspiring with his no fear approach to new methods and cannaventures. My one experience with growing in coco was eye opening to say the least. After I stack some stash I’ll try hydro again with some good old @MadScientist sized balls! 
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Of course, my pleasure.
EDIT i think i misunderstood, haven’t found one myself actually.
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You can buy Maldon Salt, which is certified organic because even though they draw water from the north sea between dover and felixtowe, one of the dirtiest and busy shipping channels in the world, the process they use to turn it into salt does not use any pesticides or other chemicals which would cause it to not be certified organic.
From their website : “Certainly the ‘process’, if you can call it that, is about as natural as these things can be. Seawater is filtered and boiled which, reassuringly, removes any impurities, and then heated until the salt crystallises.”
Now to my mind, salt is as far as you can get from a product I would associate with the word ‘organic’ because it is not grown at all. They contend (and the certifying body agrees) that their process means the end result is free from ‘impurities’ which warrants organic certification.
If we accept their reasoning then I would say that if you use a process devoid of pesticides, or other non-organic nutrients/additives then you can grow organically in a hydro system.
Whether the end result would have all the benefits and characteristics of a plant grown in actual organic soil is another question.
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I think someone waaaaay back on this thread disputed use of tea’s as being organic, stating that a tea wouldn’t be reproduced in nature.
Id say anyone with outdoor experience has seen the occasional springtime stream during a rain shower take a tint of brown from the decaying leaf matter
Every plant down stream green and vibrant.
Tea was inspired by natural processes id venture to bet.
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If it has never been alive, it can’t be organic by definition.
a (1) : of, relating to, or derived from living organisms
organic evolution
(2) : of, relating to, yielding, or involving the use of food produced with the use of feed or fertilizer of plant or animal origin without employment of chemically formulated fertilizers, growth stimulants, antibiotics, or pesticides
organic farming
organic produce
b (1) : of, relating to, or containing carbon compounds
organic solvents
(2) : relating to, being, or dealt with by a branch of chemistry concerned with the carbon compounds of living beings and most other carbon compounds
studied organic chemistry in college
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This has always been my opinion but it seems some regulating bodies also accepts organic production methods for non-living things and certifies them organic. It seems they accept one way of an organic production method is not using certain pesticides or chemicals and being careful about contamination.
The word ‘organic’ has an actual meaning for people who know the meanings of word, and you are right when you say it cannot be applied to something which has never lived.
The organic certification though, which applies more accurately to the subject of the thread, can be applied to products which meet certain standards, even if those products were never alive.
Not, it seems, in the USA though. Also the soil association in the UK will only hand out an organic compliant certification. New Zealand and France though will give salt a fully organic certificate.
Just by being alive, plants in a hydro system are organic (meaning they are organic life) under the first definition. By using the right feed and being careful about what you use you could have organic hydro under the second.
But like I say I reckon you would not get as good a result as proper organic even though it is technically possible. I also personally do not regard it as organically grown.
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I think changing a definition instead of using a different or new word for a process is just a way to justify a wrong action. The word organic sells so change the definition so we can apply it to more goods so we can sell more products. The correct terminology is not important, what is important is selling as much product as possible without being sued for fraud.
My opinion anyway.
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Sounds right.
The linked article in the OP says as much.
Hydro growers want more money for their product so they are going to shoe-horn into organic certification by having a process which cannot be excluded from it.
I grow hydro and do not use pesticides and I am very careful about what gets fed to the plants as far as additives goes but would never dream of calling it organic.
EDIT : Just noticed the guy who wrote that is called James Brown.
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I think I’m going to dump the whole organic hype and just go with natural.
There are just too many naturally occurring amendments that are perfectly healthy to use.
If I’m selective about the process in which those amendments are resourced, then at least I know I’m not smoking poison.
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that about as a good of a way of looking at it as I can think of im growing in tupur & use megacrop in one tent & floranova bloom in the other I don’t use hormone to promote root growth & for 3 rounds now no spray organic or otherwise as I consume my product not organic by any means but I try to keep it wholesome
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i believe megacrop is technically organic
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I know this ios an older thread, but I was reading through it and something caught my eye. I really could give a damn about organic or non-organic since I just grow for me, but the topic interests me.
It was my understanding that, in order to get an OMRI certification, your manure and animal products COULDN’T come from places that used hormones and antibiotics and fish meal had to come from farmed fish, devoid of such toxins. Am I wrong?
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Here is what I found. I actually wasn’t 100% sure, so looked it up. There are extremely low requirements for manure sources, and do not mention anything about antibiotics or hormones.
Sources of manures shall meet the requirements in par. 5.5.1 of CAN/CGSB 32.310 Organic Pro-
duction Systems – General Principles and Management Standards.
If anyone can post more info about this, please let me know would look it over.
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I can’t remember where I saw it, as I was doing a bunch of research for my garden (food). Back in TX I used to go to a small poultry farm near me that didn’t use any kind of hormones or antibiotics and “Free Ranged” their chickens, to get composted manure. It was cheap and really good. Now in SoCal, no farms like that here, so started doing a load of searches and reading.
It seems like, to be honest, there is no real standard as everyone seems to say something different. Or maybe they just ignore any standards that are out there. Would really love to get this pinned down, though the back problems make gardening tough, if not impossible, I would love to get it back going if I can get it under control.
The question would also be, is the Canuck standards and the US the same? Similar?
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He’s a Sex Machine!
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Hey OG, I know this thread is older, but I did read through it first, and I hope I’m NOT posting incorrectly, I seem to not really understand when I can post and when I’m going to get the nasty gram of start your own thread so I just prefer to not post.
But this thread idea has interested me for a few years now after I found this:
http://precedings.nature.com/documents/2494/version/1/html
I found it very interesting, maybe someone else will also. Sorry if I broke the rules again.
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