Managing Pests & Diseases

July 18, 2008

you caught me off guard
As with soil-based gardens, hydroponic plants require good pest and disease maintenance controls. Failure to do so creates the same results as with ‘ordinary’ gardens i.e. spindly or dead plants. Since the majority of hydroponic plants are fruits and vegetables, that means the plants are not worth eating.

However, managing the hydroponic garden is even trickier, since disease and pests have it much easier in this setting. Plants are continuously kept wet, either immersed in water (‘true’ hydroponics) or continually sprayed (aeroponics) or reside in a permanently wet medium such as perlite or sand. Fortunately, as with soil-based gardens, there is an large array of available methods to manage the problem.

Using beneficial life forms is one popular way to control unwanted pests, including certain types of bacteria and fungi. These can help to control spider mites and other invaders by crowding them out, eating them or releasing compounds toxic to the pest. They’re known as beneficial organisms because they do all that without damaging the plants themselves.

Different types of pesticides are available, too.
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Written by admin · Filed Under Pest Control