Word: nutrients
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...fact that vegetables and flowers will grow in water if nutrient salts are added has been known for nearly a century. At the University of California ten years ago, however, William Frederick Gericke, who has the big, gnarled, capable hands of a born farmer (he was born on a farm in Nebraska), got the idea that not only experimental plants but commercial crops might be grown in water. So successful were his experiments that last summer the National Resources Committee listed "tray agriculture"-along with air conditioning, synthetic rubber, television, mechanical cotton pickers et al.- as one of the things...
...shallow tanks of nutrient solution, Dr. Gericke has grown tomatoes, potatoes, corn, beans, gladioli, begonias, dozens of other plants and vegetables-free from drought, disease, insects, floods, erosion (TIME, March 1). In a tank of 1,100 of an acre area he grew 1,226 Ib. of lush red tomatoes. His giant tobacco plants are especially impressive (see cut). From 25 sq. ft. of water he got 100 cantaloupes, declared this to be 20 times the yield expected from soil. Pushing against the roof of his greenhouse, with its massive roots in water, is an 18-ft. banana plant...
...objects to the fact that a dozen or more small chemical companies have sprouted up to sell nutrient salts to amateurs or professionals experimenting with hydroponics. These have names like Chemi-Grow, Chemi-Crop Co., Shur-Gro Fertilizer Corp. They are legally within their rights, since hydroponics cannot be patented. The only patent which Dr. Gericke holds is for a container to diffuse the chemicals through the solution. But he argues, against the companies, that no formula works well for all plants, all climates, all conditions: and that even if they made a great variety of formulae there are other...
...business of growing plants in water is centuries old. Long before the Christian era it was believed that plants got all their sustenance from water. In 1699 a natural historian named John Woodward grew spearmint, potatoes and vetch in water from springs and rivers. First experiments which involved adding nutrient chemicals to the water are credited to a German named Knop (1859). Growing commercial crops in water is another matter. At Berkeley, Dr. Gericke aimed at producing tank crops which would economically compete with or surpass soil-grown crops. So successful was he that several California vegetable and flower growers...
...stalks after the plants are grown. Each tank has an area of .01 acre. In one of these Dr. Gericke grew 1,224 lb. of tomatoes, in another 26 bushels of potatoes along with a small stand of corn and beans. Corn and other grains will grow in nutrient solution but not in significantly heavier stands than in soil. Tomatoes are Dr. Gericke's joy. When the tanks are sheltered in greenhouses and the water electrically warmed, his tomato plants bear for eight or nine months a year...