History Forum / General / Ancient History / November 2007

We've turned over a rock and uncovered ANOTHER Ignorant Scot.

JAMES Sholto Douglas...

JAMES SHOLTO DOUGLAS  _Beginner's Guide to Hydroponics.  Soilless Gardening_

Vide infra pro sapienta.

DSH

Lux et Veritas et Libertas

"Bryn" <Scotland-the-Brave@finhall.GREMLINSdemon.co.uk> wrote in message
news:xmIbCGBr51PHFwqB@finhall.demon.co.uk...

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The term hydroponics is derived from the Greek words hydro (water) and ponos
(labour). Many people use the term hydroponics to describe any methods of
growing that does not use soil (although some scientists dispute this
definition) and in that sense ancient peoples such as the Babylonians and
Aztecs used hydroponics, as nutrients were obtained from other sources. The
mineral nutrient solutions used today for hydroponics were not developed
until the 1800s.

The earliest published work on growing terrestrial plants without soil was
the 1627 book, _Sylva Sylvarum_ by Sir Francis Bacon, although he died in
1626. Water culture became a popular research technique after that. In 1699,
John Woodward published his water culture experiments with spearmint. He
found that plants in less-pure water sources grew better than plants in
distilled water. Mineral nutrient solutions for soilless culture of plants
were first perfected in the 1860s by the German botanists, Julius von Sachs
and Wilhelm Knop. Growth of terrestrial plants without soil in mineral
nutrient solutions was called solution culture. It quickly became a standard
research and teaching technique and is still widely used today. Solution
culture is now considered a type of hydroponics where there is no inert
medium.

In 1929, Professor William Frederick Gericke of the University of California
at Berkeley began publicly promoting that solution culture be used for
agricultural crop production. He first termed it aquiculture but later found
that aquaculture was already applied to culture of aquatic organisms.

Gericke created a sensation by growing tomato and other plants to a
remarkable size in his backyard in mineral nutrient solutions rather than
soil. By analogy with the ancient Greek term for agriculture, geoponics, the
science of cultivating the earth, Gericke introduced the term hydroponics in
1937 (although he asserts that the term was suggested by Dr. W. A. Setchell,
of the University of California) for the culture of plants in water (from
the Greek hydros, water, and ponos, labor).

Reports of Gericke's work and his claims that hydroponics would
revolutionize plant agriculture prompted a huge number of requests for
further information. Gericke refused to reveal his secrets claiming he had
done the work at home on his own time. This refusal eventually resulted in
his leaving the University of California. In 1940, he wrote the book,
Complete Guide to Soilless Gardening.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydroponics>