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COMPARATIVE EFFICIENCIES OF HORIZONTAL VERSUS VERTICAL HYDROPONICS PLANT GROWTH SYSTEMS

My name is Charisma Jankee, currently a year 3 student at The University of the West Indies reading for BSc Mechanical Engineering with a Minor in Biosystems. The purpose of the blog is to document the economic productivity, quality, and efficiency of horizontal versus vertical hydroponic systems.

Wednesday 13th October, 2021

Each customer need requirements were assigned a need number and was rated of importance in a scale of 1-5 where 5 being the best and 1 being the least important.

Upon completing this, each metrics were assigned a metric number whist compared to the need number corresponding to the the metrics then ranked by importance.

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Monday 04th October, 2021

Today was hectic, so I decided to get some useful links for the project only. https://journals.utm.my/jurnalteknologi/article/view/13931 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/fes3.83 https://www.hortipower.com/blogs/news/home-hydroponics-for-beginners-how-to-get-started https://constantdelights.com/post/wick-system https://www.nosoilsolutions.com/6-different-types-hydroponic-systems/ https://books.google.tt/books?hl=en&lr=&id=rwlMDwAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PP1&dq=design+and+build+of+NFT+horizontal+system&ots=f8RjGmZx58&sig=xLplOWqzwMN9NfCZo94erfwROAg&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Dinkar-Gaikwad/publication/346953811_Hydroponics_Cultivation_of_Crops/links/5fd3971b92851c13fe7bd7ff/Hydroponics-Cultivation-of-Crops.pdf Hoagland, D.R. and Arnon, D.I. 1938. The water culture method for growing plants without soil. California Agricultural Experiment Station Circulars, 347: 1-39

Assessment

I have been assigned the project titled "Comparative Efficiencies of Horizontal versus Vertical Hydroponics Plant Growth Systems". This project was my first choice. I choose this project because of the unavailability of soil based area where I currently reside. For my family business (Indar's Fast Food), we require a lot of leafy green plants so initially I stated to plant in oil kegs on my roof. This became difficult to maintain due to heat, hydroponics was intriguing to me since it reduces the amount of work needed to caretake for these crops and the significant difference between soilless and soil grown planting. This being said hydroponics is a totally new hobby and very excited to study. For this project, the goal is to have a better understanding of both systems and be able to obtain their efficiencies by testing under the same conditions.

Thursday 23rd September, 2021 -Introduction

Upon doing research about hydroponics, nearly all journals their introduction has Dr. William Gerickle and his research was the first time the word "Hydroponics" was used. Numerous attempts were made to try an receive a soft copy of his book but it not available online. UWI library has access to the hard copy however, Ms. Bharat indicated that due to the pandemic no one can get access to the school. Draft Introduction: Hydroponic design techniques have been evolving for thousands of years. However, in the year 1940, Dr. William Gerickle was responsible for the creation of the Greek word “Hydroponics” by publication of his book, which translate to “working water”. There are six main minerals that are required for plant growth and metabolism. Nitrogen, Phosphorus, Potassium, Magnesium, Sulfur and Calcium. Besides nutrient solution, a steady supply of oxygen to the roots and sunlight exposure are vital for development...