The term hydroponics was created in the USA in the early 1930's to describe the practice of raising plants with their roots hanging in water or flowing water containing fertilizers. Resulting from the Ancient Greel terms for 'water' - hydro and 'to work' - ponos, hydroponics basically means 'working with water'. The meaning has progressively become used to explain all types of farming without soil.
Hydroponic gardening in history goes back to the Hanging Gardens of Babylon. The Aztec Indians had a method of raising plants on rafts in ponds, you can still see some of these floating gardens near Mexico City. The science did not begin to evolve in European nations until 1699 when Woodward found that he could grow plants in a solution of water mixed with small amounts of organic material. Liebig, a German researcher, started using nutrient solution to study the health influencing factors of plants in the 1850's and was followed by Sachs in 1860 and Knop in 1861 who researched of the content of plant nutrients in water. They were able to produce various plants in nutrient solutions made up from mineral salts effectively replacing soil with inert media such as coconut husks.
Research on the factors influencing plant growth was ongoing through into the 1870's. By 1925 viable programs of hydroponics were being created in greenhouses. The next several years was to see comprehensive growth of the field as scientists became aware of the potential of growing plants hydroponically. In 1930 Gericke created the first commercially viable hydroponic device in the USA. Later during Globe War II the United states military in the Pacific grew vegetables hydroponically. AS things continued to develop and the use of hydroponics spread across the globe, it was the creation of a technique known as N.F.T. by Dr Mike Cooper in the seventies, along with enhanced nutrient solutions that the use of hydroponic growing of a variety of plants became realistic as a commercial undertaking. Since then automated control systems have become available as well as digital testing equipment which has allowed the field of hydroponics to become more accessible to the home grower.
Hydroponics has come a long way since the Aztecs. It has become an essential method of growing crops in areas of the globe where water is scarce and soil quality is poor. Water and land management are now legal, political, and economic considerations in many nations across the planet, so with sensible, well maintained hydroponic programs we can keep generating top quality crops which are eco-friendly and sustainable for the future.