How to Use Honey in Hydroponics

There are a lot of things that you can add to your hydroponics system, but honey?

Y-okay.

Of course, honey is natural and organic and all that stuff. But what does it do for your products? Here are some basic steps to understanding the use of honey and related materials in hydroponics.

Understand why people add honey or other ingredients

If you are thinking about using something like honey, it helps to know about why the other growers have used this in the past.

A basic reason is that they might believe it sweetens the flavors of the plants. Plants do ingest a lot of the flavors that are put in their feeding systems, but you're going to really have to try it out for yourself to figure out if honey or any other substance really does impart a sweeter flavor to your crops.

Other growers might believe that honey or molasses or some other similar material helps make plant fruits or buds bigger or stronger, or that it works with the bacterial makeup of the growing media. Some people equate some of these substances to the types of fungus that are popular for keeping plants protected from certain types of harmful bacteria.

Understand the range of products available

When it comes to adding thick, gooey sweeteners to reservoirs, it's not just honey that's on the table. Growers often use molasses. Or they use different types of refined cane sugar. Or they use manufactured products such as something that's called “Hydro Honey” (from Humboldt) but really is a makeup of molasses, yucca, kelp and ocean fish. Manufacturers are making these kinds of items that help provide easy ways to nourish different kinds of hydroponic plants, to make it easier for growers to innovate.

Add to water

This is an important step for implementation. When you actually decide you want to use honey or molasses, or anything else with similar stickiness and viscosity, add it to several gallons of water and mix before putting it into your hydroponics environment. One of the biggest drawbacks of these sticky materials is that they can easily clog up hydro systems. You don't want to start adding them raw without dilution. That's an easy way to really mess up your reservoir or your irrigation tubing or other parts of a system.

For more on the tough decisions that growers have to make about hydroponic management, keep an eye on Dealzer as we go through dozens of the most popular additions to hydroponic systems.