Comparative study of Hydroponic and Geoponic Systems

Abstract

There is a rising attraction in hydroponics because it can be used in nonconventional locations like inside warehouses, marginal lands and water scarce areas. The water use of hydroponic production has been collated with of geoponic production with the example of tomato production in the northern part of Pakistan.The geoponic data are obtained from the field adjacent to the hydroponic farm house Abbottabad.The geoponic data has been equated with hydroponic data of tomato production obtainedby adopting the engineering equations and compared with literature values. Yields of tomato in a greenhouse unit with size of (2950 ± 100sqm) having 7500 plants of 12.5 ± 0.5 kg/sqm/crop have water demands of 5.41 ± 0.55 L/kg/crop (±S.D). When compared with geoponic production,the yieldobserved1.04 ± 0.06 kg/sqm/cropfor water demands of 449.48 ± 89.89 L/kg/y. Hydroponics offered 83.08 ± 8.25 L/Kg/crop times less water requirement with 11.80 ± 0.26 kg/sqm/crop times higher yields compared to geoponically produced tomato. To the authors’ apprehension, it is the first quantifiable comparison of geoponic and hydroponic production with the example of tomato grown in northern Pakistan. The construction of hydroponicsheds system requires hard work, and care and initial investments.It is recommended that this system can be selected as a step to produce the food crops to meet the exhaustive demands and to handle the water scarcity particularly in attractive regions for hydroponic farming.