The Helpful Hydroponics Handbook

Disclaimer: At the time of writing, all information in this book is correct. However, over time, the information may become out of date.

This book is not yet complete! More information will be introduced as we get it. We apologize for the inconvenience.

Introduction

Hello! Do you have QUESTIONS about PROBLEMS? Are those problems of a gardening and plants nature? Well boy howdy is this the book for you! It's time to put an end to those plant woes!

The Target Demographic

Obviously, this book is targeted mainly at Botanists, Gardeners and other plant-growing folks.

Of course if you are not one of these people there's no reason you can't try your hand anyway! Gardening is awesome, easy and fun! I hope you like the smell of dirt!

If you're already an experienced gardener, keep an eye out for advanced tips, which look like this:

• This is a tip! Get the hint?

Chapter 1: Basic Gardening

So, you've got an empty Hydroponics tray, some seeds and a burning desire to grow some goddamn plants. The next step should be obvious: Plant that seed in the tray!

If you're using one of the standard issue Hydroponics growing trays, the plant should begin to grow almost immediatley. Most issues with the plant will be taken care of automatically by the tray.

However, you will need to ensure that the tray is kept filled with water - but not too much! Apart from this, simply tend to the plant until it becomes ready to harvest, as will be indicated by a green light.

Now, I know what you're thinking. "It can't be that simple, surely!" Well you're wrong! If all you want to do is simply plant, grow and harvest, this is literally all you need to do. Even a prehistoric hunter-gatherer can do it!

However, there are other things you can do to ensure a much better harvest and gardening experience. For example, you can add compost and other nutrients to the plant's solution to ensure the plant becomes and stays very healthy.

A healthy plant is a happy plant, and a happy plant will grow more viable produce!

Also, consider regularly checking the plant by hand - this will alert you to any issues with the tray or the plant that require correction.

• Keep an eye on the LED displays on your Hydroponics tray. Green means a harvest is ready, Red means the plant is in poor condition. The bar on the side shows you how much water you have - aim for green!

Chapter 2: Nutrient Solutions

So, now we know the basics of plant maintenance, growing, and harvesting. What can we do to become better at our craft?

As was mentioned before, adding nutrients and other additives to the soil is a good idea - they encourage growth and good health in your plants, which is better for your harvests.

However, there are many different kinds of additives, some good and some bad. Obviously adding bad things like toxins or chlorine to the soil won't do you much good at all!

So what can we add? Most Botanists are equipped by standard with compost bags and weedkiller bottles. Weedkiller is harmless to normal plants, but will destroy undesirable plants such as Creepers or Lashers.

Compost is a very basic additive which will slowly make a plant healthier as it absorbs the nutrients. There are no drawbacks - however, it is not very quick or efficient! Ammonia, if available, will have a similar effect to compost.

Phosphorus and Diethylamine, if available, will encourage the plant to grow quicker by offering more stimulating nutrients. Again however, they are not the most efficient of additives.

If you have access to Compost, Nitrogen and Phosphorous, you are in luck! Mixing these three chemicals together will result in an industry standard plant nutrient solution which is known to be very enriching to plants, encouraging both growth and health.

There exist other additive solutions - they are very efficient, but often come with drawbacks. Unfortunately, the recipes for these are closely guarded formulas. All we can tell you is that they all use plant nutrients as a base!

Due to the high availability of these additives however, Botanists are often supplied with one or two bottles of each. After that, it is up to the botanist to experiment with chemistry and see if they can find how to make more!

• Mutriant Formula encourages the plant to mutate wildly. However, it does cause some damage to the plant as well as stunted growth.
• Gro-Boost is a formula that encourages very rapid plant growth, but will cause the tray to dry out much faster than usual.
• Top Crop stimulates the yield gene of a plant to encourage large harvests. However, it has been known to shorten the plant's lifespan.
• Powerplant is useful for herbs - it causes chemicals found within the herbs to become much more potent. This will unfortunately result in smaller crop yields.
• Fruitful Farming is a healthy plant solution that aims to rectify genetic problems. Sadly, plant growth will be slowed to near-zero while it is present in the solution.