Plants cannot spray themselves with neem.
Unnatural.
Plants most certainly cannot brew any teas.
Unnatural.
Artificial lighting is…“artificial”.
Unnatural.
Yes the sun is IMO 100% natural…any meddling by filthy humans is…
Unnatural.
I am just assuming the role of agent provocateur…devil’s advocate, if you will.
The word natural used to have a specific, precise meaning:
nat·u·ral
ˈnaCH(ə)rəl/Submit
adjective
1.
existing in or caused by nature; not made or caused by humankind.
“carrots contain a natural antiseptic that fights bacteria”
Doesn’t outcome of the discussion depends on defining “hydroponics” and “organics” first?
I mean I’ve been many times using term hydroponics for indication of way to create ideal root environment (air/water ratio) without any need for soil. So I take hydroponics as kind of equivalent to “soil less”. If you don’t put plants into nutrient rich soil, you just have to bring nutrients through the solution.
IMHO In this sense it is perfectly OK to kind of have mix of hydroponics and organics in one system and great example for that is aquaponics (bioponics).
But I know there are many other ways to view and label the same thing.
Maybe it is just matter of labels that we give to thinks to “separate” and “divide” them into categories. Categories that are not so isolated that we might think at first.
There is nice example here on OG - Dumme’s Aquaponics Adventure - how would you describe the system? There are many labels fitting…
I think you guys looking for aquaponics, it’s mixed aquacultur (growing fish) and hydroponics (growing plants on the water). I made 75m2 aquaponics system and i faild… i think everythink grow well but i don’t have heating system and thats problem becouse winter’s coming. But i am happy to start it and learn about it.
There are some gallery for easier imagen.
^^^ Yep yep yep. Absolutely true that. And why I do not grow “organic”. I grow biodynamic. Its a combination of organic and standard methods. Organic in chemistry is defined as anything with a carbon atom in it. Organic farming in the US is defined as a long list of methods and stuff that can and cannot be used. IMO many of the items allowed I do not consider as organic (like sulfur sprays) and many things that are actually organic (like abamectin, a compound derived from soil bacteria) is not allowed.
From my horticulture notes in college, plants take up nutrients the same way, regardless of the source, be they organic, inorganic, or synthetic. Like it or not. The science is there for those that care to look.
In the interest of full disclosure. although I find this topic to be quite interesting, I do not have any dog in this fight.
I do not grow hydroponically…I tried it many years ago and gave it up. Too labor intensive for me. It is also not portable. I have come to highly value ready portability.
I also have given organic gardening a few tries. Again, more labor than I care to expend.
My palate cannot detect any difference between synthetic and organic. Neither can my head.
I only grow to satisfy my palate and my head.
very relevant post! Interesting, a few points I wanted to add.
Organic may not be so healthy as people think, since manure and animal products that can be classified as “organic” may come from factory farms, where the animals are treated terribly, and given hormones/antibiotics. So not only can you be contributing to the cruel animal agriculture industry, but there can be toxics and hormones in the animal excrement that is considered “organic.” Even fish meal from the oceans are high in mercury, arsenic and cadmium, and these are all considered “organic” by OMRI.
So the term organic can be pretty misleading, currently people equate it with organic = highest quality. That is why supermarkets and Whole Foods can charge lots of extra money for “organic” produce. So, lets face it, there is a huge financial interests at play here, lots of money involved, and we might not get the most objective labeling rules.
Organic farming does have a lot of benefits, for example organic prohibits the use of a lot of toxic chemicals and pesticides use, which I think is great since these things can very possibly end up in the end product for consumption. Also, a good organic setup will have an extremely healthy soil with beneficial bacteria and mycorhizae, these are things you can’t get from a hydroponic nutrient (although you can buy them as supplemental products to start a culture in your soil and get the process started).
Scientifically, we look at the process of plant absorption of nutrients, Nitrogen, whether it comes from cow dung, fish emulsions, guano, or a hydroponic fertilizer such as Calcium Nitrate, is all Nitrogen. There are different types of N, Nitrate, Ammonical, and insoluble. On a cellular plant base level, the plant responds the same to the different types of N no matter what the source. In hydroponics, Nitrate and Ammonical Nitrogen are absorbed differently, Nitrate is better type and more suitable for hydroponics. Its hard to find high sources of Organic Nitrate sources, most are majority Ammonical, which is why organics perform poorly in pure Hydroponic grow situations.
Also, I wanted to add, probably the reason Hydroponic ingredients such as Calcium Nitrate are banned from Organics, is that they are produced in giant factories, which use petroleum products.
Also, oleskool830, you mentioned BRIX levels as a reason to go organic, but can’t you just supplement molasses or carbohydrate to boost BRIX ?
Absolutely @GreenleafNutrients. Thank you for the thought provoking post and for taking your time to do so. My thinking on the subject is evolving I must admit. My username indicates a slant on the subject I suspect. Peace…oleskool830
PS. I am using mega-crop on my current grow. (Just sprouted) High Hopes!
“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.
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.
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!
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.
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.
