It’s not every day that we here at Urban Garden HQ come across somebody who has discovered a completely new way of growing plants.  However, that’s exactly what William Texier from GHE has achieved!  It’s called “bioponics” – a marriage of hydroponics and organics.

We asked William to share his personal story with us.  Here’s what he had to say …

“What do you do for a living?”
“I work in hydroponics.”
“Hydrophonics?”
“No, hydroponics…”

You don’t want to know how many times I’ve had this conversation with some random small talker.  I ran my first experiments in hydro about forty years ago in my backyard, but I’ve been working full time in the field since then for about 22 years. Over this time my explanation of hydroponics has slowly condensed into a single sentence:

“It’s the art / science of growing plants with their bare roots in a nutrient solution.”

But that just opened up a can of conversation worms, usually headed up by the inevitable question:

“Is it organic?”

[sigh]

Cue my explanation that no, hydroponics is not organic, but it is ecological.  Hydroponicists use purified mineral salts as a source of nutrition, the technology saves a lot of water, and the plant is happy and can express the full potential of its genetic material. We produce vegetables that have great taste and high nutritional value.  We also produce aromatics and medicinals with a high level of secondary metabolites (the active compounds).  I simplify here a long dialogue with questions and answers, only after which the other party thinks that maybe I am not some mad scientist intent on poisoning the planet!

After so many years, I grew fed up with that long explanation and this prompted me to think: people want “organic” so I’m going to give it to them!  After I had that epiphany, I soon realized that it was easier said than done!

Bioponically-grown basil.

Game On

Perhaps I had set myself “mission impossible.”  Could I really create an organic nutrient solution that truly performed in a hydroponic environment?  Firstly, a hydroponic nutrient needs to be liquid or, at the very least, fully soluble.  I quickly worked out that among the classic sources of nutrients used in organic farming, the liquid ones, such as fish extract or blood meal could not be used in water.  Either they would rot or give off a really nasty smell.  Other liquids such as seaweed extracts, worm casting extracts, nettle brews and the like certainly did a lot to improve the health of plants, the microbiological life in soil and give other benefits too … but their mineral content was quite poor. I was still finding myself miles away from the sheer potency and quantity of minerals that I could pack in a bottle with the mineral salts used for regular hydroponic nutrients.  And let me be clear, this was my goal: to create a bottle of organic nutrients that they could be used at a dilution rate of between 1.5 to 3 tsp / gallon – equal, or more concentrated, than most mineral nutrients on the market.  Finally, I found a byproduct of an agricultural process accepted by the organic regulation.  It was in a liquid form and I thought it could have been the backbone on which I could build my nutrient.  Its mineralization was also far superior to all the liquids mentioned above, but it was still not adequate.

Two elements are tricky when you follow organic rules: nitrogen and phosphorous.  Nitrogen is problematic because very few sources are accepted by organic regulations (in fact the level of nitrogen is one of the main differences between organic and mineral farming).  The second, phosphorus poses some difficulties because all the classic sources of organic phosphorus, such as rock phosphate, bat guano and the like, are highly insoluble!  I conducted many experiments in an effort towards resolving that problem but, for quite some time, all my ideas failed until I had the following revelation: instead of trying to dissolve what was not soluble, why not introduce them in a colloidal form?  A colloidal particle is one that is so minute that it will stay in suspension in a liquid but will not dissolve into it.  It took me another series of experiments and another year (three in total from the beginning of the process) to find the right sources.  After that, all I had to do was to add some amino acids, phytohormones, humic and fulvic acid (all of course from accepted sources) and I finally had it.  I called it “BioSevia.”

Now, for those of you who aren’t too clear on the difference between an organic nutrient and a mineral, here’s a quick explanation:

Amazingly healthy root structures are observed on plants grown in bioponic systems.

Plants absorb nutrients through their roots in an ionic form.  The mineral ions absorbed by the plant are exactly the same as those you’d find in a mineral based nutrient.  When a mineral salt is dissolved in water, it dissolves in the form of an ion (an element with an electrical charge) that is directly assimilable by the plant.  In an organic nutrient, the mineral ion is inside an organic molecule (one containing carbon and hydrogen).  In order to be released and made available to the plant, those organic molecules need to be broken down by the action of bacteria or fungi:  they feed on the carbon and, in the process, they free the mineral inside the molecule so that it is in the form of an ion.  Remember, nutrients need to be in ionic form before they can be up-taken by the plant. In soil this is achieved by numerous microorganisms. This recycling of the organic molecules is an ongoing process that forms the basis of life on earth. Plants complete their diet by absorbing minerals derived from the decomposition of rocks.  So, to use a true organic nutrient in hydroponics, you must reproduce the same process.  In other words you have to introduce living organisms into the system … and that was the next challenge!

Microorganisms in Hydroponics

Microorganisms are always present – even on us and inside us!  They are present in the air, water, everywhere.  This is why it is so difficult to make a sterile chamber.  If you have a highly oxygenated nutrient solution containing organic molecules, microorganisms will arrive sooner or later to feed on it and colonize the system.  I’ve tried to do it this way and it works, but the beginning of the process is slow.  I wanted the plants to have access to the food supply from the very beginning, when they need it most.  I then tried a variety of sources and different mixes.  Ideally I was looking for something that didn’t cost the earth and which was widely available.  Then the answer came (another year later, I might add!): Trichodermas.  They do the job very well, they are easy to source and they are not too expensive.  At that point, the development of the “bioponics technology” was more or less completed.

Bioponics and Hydroponics Go Head to Head.

The next experiments, done at General Hydroponics Europe, were a comparison between hydroponics (with Flora Series, a mineral-based nutrient) and bioponics (with BioSevia) cultivations.  The results were rather interesting! As I said before, one of the main differences in terms of composition between an organic nutrient and a mineral one is the level of available nitrogen.   Bioponics production is based on the idea of sustainable agriculture.  The goal is to give less nitrogen to the plant and shift the balance in favor of the flowering and fruiting stage, rather than vegetative growth, which may be bountiful but sometimes unnecessary. An interesting aspect of bioponics is the ratio between the biomass and the yield.  For instance, for the same harvest, say two pounds of tomatoes, the amount of stems and leaves will be far less in bioponics than the plant necessary to harvest the same two pounds with a mineral solution.  It

is a very economical way of cultivation since the consumption of water and (unfortunately for nutrient manufacturers!) nutrients, is a fraction of the one needed by any other type of cultivation.  Bioponics combines the advantages of hydroponics with conventional organic soil cultivation.

The tests were done on basil, where the yield in mineral-based nutrients was almost double, on chamomile, where we harvested slightly more flowers in bioponics, and on tomatoes where the yield was, on average, 15% higher with the mineral nutrition. Keep in mind that if organic growing methods were producing as much yield as mineral nutrition, I think everybody would be growing organically!

When it comes to taste and flavor, I was not expecting much difference since using our standard mineral nutrients we are used to growing the best of produce, often selected by chefs in the top restaurants around the world. But, to my genuine surprise, there was an enhancement in aroma, mostly noticeable in tomatoes were the level of sugar was much higher.  We did not run analysis for the level of active principals in chamomile.

Since then we have grown a wide variety of plants using bioponic technology and we are still exploring its potential.  The use of organic nutrients in hydroponics is slowly gaining acceptance but it is almost a new field for growers to explore.  However, BioSevia has gained a lot of its initial popularity among soil growers.  In fact, something that works well in hydro will do well in soil also, and we have a large base of customers, private as well as professionals, using it in soil.  One of its benefits for professionals is the fact that it can be dissolved into their irrigation waters.

So, it was a long struggle but I truly believe that my efforts have paid off.  Not least because, these days, when I use the word hydroponics and people ask me: “Is it organic?”, I can give them an even more succinct response: Yes!

For more information about the management of a bioponics system, visit the GHE web site at http://www.eurohydro.com/bioponics_about.php

Do you want to try growing plants bioponically?  Have you tried using organic nutrients in a hydroponic environment?  Tell us all about it below!