A Day in the Life of a Hydroponic Grower

What does a hydroponic grower’s average day look like?

If you've never cultivated plants this way, you probably don't know. Beginners may be wondering how much time the average person spends maintaining a garden, and what he or she would be doing the most of while watching over plant cycles.

Well, first of all, there's the basic necessity of observation. Growers will spend a lot of time looking at plants each day, to make sure that nothing weird is happening to them. They’ll be looking for signs of bacterial infiltration, nutrient burn, inadequate climate or anything else that can make plant leaves wither or cause dangerous-looking symptoms like yellowing.

At the same time, growers will be doing some other kinds of routine maintenance, regardless of what they have observed in plants. One example is pH value. Lots of growers will check pH value daily and adjust it accordingly, because they know the having just the right level of acidity in the reservoir water is going to support plants better. This doesn't take a lot of time, but it's something that you'll probably be doing a lot of.

As for lighting, that might not play as big of a role as it used to, mostly because so many grow kits come with convenient automated timers that set light and dark cycles for growers. That means you won't be having to manually go in and turn lights on and off, unless there’s some kind of a problem.

In general, growers will also be checking to make sure that air and water handling gear work properly. Again, this isn't something that you would do every day. But it's imperative that water is getting to where it should be to provide plants with what they need for photosynthesis. That means if there is a draining system where a pump pumps water several times a day, growers might have to observe the system just to make sure that it's working.

There's a lot more that goes into the average grower’s day. He or she probably has a full-time job or is raising a family or doing other things. The garden work will probably go on early in the morning, late in the afternoon, or at some convenient time of the day. But regardless, growers are usually actively watching over plants and doing routine maintenance on a regular basis.

For more on the details of hydroponics, check out Dealzer’s web site, with over 1500 pieces of equipment and a lot of informative resources about how to get started with hydroponic gardening.