Soilless Cultivation: Letting Green Agriculture Blossom in Cities

Soilless cultivation is a plant cultivation method without using soil. It utilizes nutrient solutions instead of soil to provide nutrients required by plants. The advantages of soilless cultivation include:

Improving resource utilization efficiency
Soilless cultivation can greatly reduce agricultural water usage. In soil cultivation, about 97% of water is used for evaporation and leakage, with only 3% absorbed by plants. In soilless cultivation, the utilization rate of nutrient solutions by plants can reach 95%. At the same time, soilless cultivation can also reduce fertilizer usage, because the composition and content of nutrients in the nutrient solutions can be precisely controlled and adjusted.

Reducing pest and disease occurrence
Soilless cultivation can effectively isolate pathogens and pests in the soil, greatly reducing the occurrence of pests and diseases, thereby reducing the use of pesticides. Plant roots are directly exposed to the nutrient solutions for more efficient absorption of nutrients.

Increasing yield and quality
In soilless cultivation, plants can obtain more balanced and sufficient nutrient supply, promoting growth and increasing yield. Meanwhile, the growth environment of each plant can be precisely controlled to make plant growth conditions more consistent, improving the quality of agricultural products.

More flexible land use
Soilless cultivation systems can be established in very small spaces like indoors, rooftops, and balconies, which greatly improves land use efficiency and allows more non-agricultural land to be used for farming. This is significant for the development of urban agriculture.

Common soilless cultivation methods include hydroponics, sand culture, and aeroponics. Hydroponics exposes plant roots directly to nutrient solutions; sand culture uses inorganic media like quartz sand as substrates, with periodic irrigation of nutrient solutions into the media; aeroponics adheres plant roots to porous media like foam rocks or sponges, and also periodically sprays nutrient solutions onto the plant roots. With the continuous development of soilless cultivation technologies, its application scope continues to expand, from vegetables to ornamental plants, which can all be cultivated through soilless methods. This is an important direction for the development of modern agriculture.