Hydroponics Academy

In October of last year we had the honour of installing a hydroponics system at one of London's leading University Academies, the University Academy of Engineering South Bank.

This was a fascinating project, particularly because it utilises a less commonly used gully system  and especially because we located it in a communal area of the school.

As well as being visible to all staff and students this also had the possibility of encountering problems and challenges that would be far less likely for such a system in a laboratory environment.

We published an article here that discusses the initial design from tutor Philipp Herzberg, the setup procedure by us at Emporium and the technical aspects of what is known scientifically as a Nutrient Film Technique or NFT for short.

The NFT gully system operates such that a nutrient solution is circulated around the gullies to feed and water the plants and the solution is consistently topped up so as to maintain the concentration of nutrients.

The roots of the plants are left to hang freely in the solution so as to absorb as much of the solution as they require.

The seeds initially need propagating to develop their roots and a Stewart Propagator was used to germinate many seeds including cucumbers, peppers, tomatoes and aubergines.

Once the roots are developed they were then transferred to the gullies and more can be read about it here.

Different seeds germinated at different rates. As mentioned earlier, the plants in this setting do have the possibility of encountering problems and the leaves have encountered some disease problems.

Philipp typically overcame this by clipping the affected leaves and shared with us this slideshow blog about the various stages within the first month.

The slideshow was also shared to a highly credible Science and Education blog at www.uptrain.net

After putting in the hard work, Philipp along with the staff and students at the academy began to see some beautiful results with, among many other plants, fruits and vegetables some aubergines began to break through.

In recent months things have continued to progress with the growth of tomatoes, peppers, aubergines along with some pretty flowers too!

This is generating a great interest with staff and students at the academy and the images taken by Philipp look great!

As well as the growing success of this project what we at Emporium love is how it is opening eyes as to how anybody can grow their own fruit and vegetables regardless of indoor or outdoor growing space. A gully system could potentially be set up in a small kitchen or even a hallway and with a little bit of imagination could also be quite ornamental too!

The students at the Academy have taken a genuine interest and there are also outdoor projects taking place now which gives them the opportunity to learn and understand the availability of cultivation techniques

Feel free to contact us for tips and suggestions!