What is Soilless Agriculture? How? What are the Advantages?

Agricultural products have a very important place for people to continue their lives. For this reason, agricultural activities have been carried out with many techniques from the first ages to the present day. In the early ages, agriculture was carried out with primitive methods such as human labor and muscle power. But at the moment, agricultural activities benefit from technology instead of muscle power. The main purpose of benefiting from technology is to produce the produced product in the least costly and highest quality way.

One of these agricultural activities is soilless agriculture, which has become widespread in the world in recent years.

What is Soilless Agriculture?

Soilless agriculture was first started in 1930 by the British Professor William Gericke, but was later developed by the Netherlands. Our country started soilless agriculture in 1995 and came to the level of foreign trade and investment in a short time.

How is Soilless Agriculture Done?

In soilless agriculture, which is on the way to being used the most globally, the product is not put in the soil but in the containers produced for soilless agriculture where the product will be grown. Then the seedlings of the crop are planted in a substance called rock wool, which is obtained by mixing basalt rock, limestone and coke from Denmark. Rock wool material is used because it has the ability to retain water. In the container where soilless agriculture will be done, a substance called perlite, which has the ability to insulate heat together with rock wool, is placed. This substance greatly reduces the change in the temperature of the product to be produced. After the seedlings of the crop are planted, bumblebees come into play for the product to bear fruit. Since bumblebees have a sucking feature, they absorb the inner part of the flowers and pollinate the product and thus the fruit is formed.

To give an example, tomatoes produced by soilless agriculture are redder and healthier than soiled agriculture. If the product is placed in a healthy way, 70 days after the day the seedling is planted, the tomatoes are ripe and harvested.

What are the Advantages of Soilless Agriculture?

-Soilless agriculture guarantees to yield products every year.

It is not necessary to leave the soil fallow like soiled agriculture.

-Since a healthy environment is created in the greenhouse, there are no disease and insect problems.

-The biggest advantage of soilless agriculture is that healthy and high yield products can be obtained in the narrow area of production.