Soil - No Soil - Nutrient dense food ?

Anthony Saber wrote: my questions –

If you are growing in pots or containers the above scenario is finite as resources will run out. Constantly need to top up. I am not sure what is happening with the soil life as their living area is also finite?
I’d like to compare a Brix reading of the produce grown in containers and in open soil. I would think, at the start, they would be similar but as time goes on the crops in containers would deteriorate even if it’s feed?

Now to hydroponics No soil, No soil life? All feeding is chemical. Here, in theory, should always be in balance if nutrients and minerals are been monitored regularly. Again I’d like to compare a Brix reading of hydroponics and healthy soil.
How nutrient dense is the produce grown in hydroponics?

Thanks for taking the time to read and comment
Cheers Tony

Anthony Saber wrote:Well, that’s interesting and makes sense to me, as the fish waste is feeding the plants and you said the Brix readings were high which is what we are after.

My presumptions were that food grown in –

A well-balanced soil (Mineral and soil biology rich) would produce the best results.

Pot/Container would initially be the same but would deteriorate as the soil biology had a set area to live in. Would have to be constantly topped up to be kept at its peak.

Hydroponics was all chemicals and was the same as growing with synthetic fertiliser but Bryant has said that this may be overcome with some more work to improving the biology.

My method will be to grow in a well-balanced gound soil but I do see that other methods can provide benefits.

Our mission is to grow nutrient dense food by repairing the soil and improving the health of the population.

Cheers
Anthony

Bryant RedHawk wrote:To all that are using Brix.
Brix measures the simple sugar content only, nothing else.

Bryant RedHawk wrote:
Brix measures the simple sugar content only, nothing else. Using Brix will only tell you how much sugar is in the substance you are testing with your brix meter.
Redhawk

Bryant RedHawk wrote:I have used a Brix meter for the last 30 years, I have never been able to get a separated reading for minerals (which would be those dissolved solids).
Since the refractometer was originally developed to read sugar content for the Brewing industry that's it's best, most reliable use.
If you want to try and read other things into that reading, be my guest, everyone's opinion has merit.
I use a spectrometer for determining most things, or a Gas Chromatograph, I do understand that very few people even have access to this sort of equipment.

Bryant RedHawk wrote:

Anthony Saber wrote: my questions –


His assessment of hydroponics is in my opinion superior, as he mentions, there are now available the microorganisms that are needed by plants for use in hydroponics.
(Kudos James, super information kola)

There is a catch 22 when attempting to use the microorganisms in a manner that allows them to work and that is that there has to be a substrate for the microorganisms to use for housing.
In soil there are houses for the microbiota to use literally everywhere, in hydroponics they are usually doomed to free floating or attaching to the roots themselves.
This works nicely once there are enough roots to house the quantity of needed bacteria etal. but there are rarely enough roots grown in the hydroponic situation for this to occur and you end up with only the endo-type mycorrhizae being where they need to be for proper nutrient up take by the plants being grown.
This means that even though the grower has included the quantities of organisms needed they have no way to stay in place to benefit the plants when the plants need them, the exudates tend to be swept away from the root zone and that leads to a confusing series of signals for the bacteria leading to inefficiency of nutrient uptake, thus less nutrient density than being grown in really good soil.  The whole acceleration towards vertical farming and hydroponics has been to gain growing space and season lengthening so that fresh produce is always available from a more local source. Nutritional Value is still not near the top of the reasoning on these farms. They will most likely get to the point where they start worrying about nutritional values but currently it is all about production.

Redhawk

What I don't get about this is why wouldn't the grow media - gro-rocks, rockwool, coir mats, etc. - form a substrate for microbiota just as filter media do for fish tanks? I get the point about the lack of a fungal network limiting the usefulness of that biota, but must exist or plants would be able to take up nutrients, right? Especially in systems fed by organic nutrients only. We use a small ebb and flow system in the winter and have been looking to - affordably - convert it to organic nutrients, which seem to be effective.

Melody KirkWagner wrote:I don't know anything about these people and I'm not sure if it's a good source, but I thought it was interesting:

https://zipgrow.com/7-facts-that-will-make-you-rethink-the-sterility-of-hydroponics/

Gurkan Yeniceri wrote:

Melody KirkWagner wrote:I don't know anything about these people and I'm not sure if it's a good source, but I thought it was interesting:

https://zipgrow.com/7-facts-that-will-make-you-rethink-the-sterility-of-hydroponics/

There is no link to the research. I've found Sarah Taber on twitter and even her entry has a broken link. It seems like Bright Agro Tech funded the research judging by her twitter entry. Google does not return anything either.