The word "hydroponics" is thought to have been derived from the Latin "water working." Water is the basis for hydroponics. Stated plainly, hydroponics is the growth of plants without soil.
             Though often thought of as modern and experimental, hydroponics is an ancient practice. Though it wasn't known at the time, the Hanging Gardens of Babylon were hydroponic. Less famous, the Aztecs' Raft Gardens also were hydroponic. In the year 1699, scientist John Woodward presented a paper before the Royal Society of England. His paper concerned an experiment that he had performed involving plants grown in polluted river water versus plants grown in rainwater. This paper attacked the problem of whether or not the health of plants was determined by the dissolved solids of the water from which they were grown. In the years 1851-1855, Jean Baptiste Boussingault, French chemist, performed an experiment of plant growth in quartz and sand cultures with no soil. He used only water and chemical nutrients. In Germany in 1860, botanist Julius von Sachs published the first noted nutrient solution formula. In 1865, Wilhelm Knop, a German agricultural chemist, formed another nutrient solution. In the years 1900-1920, scientists extended the established number of elements that made a successful nutrient solution from six to ten. Hydroponic experiments were becoming more successful with these new elements. In the 1920s William F. Gericke termed this method "hydroponics." Researchers began to realize how this method of growth without soil could be useful. In the 1940s, mainly during World War II, the United States armed forces executed hydroponic operations in the South Pacific to cut down the cost of transportation of fresh fruits and vegetables to the troops stationed on the islands. In the 1970s, Dr. Alan Cooper developed the system called "Nutrient Film Technique" (defined on page 6). Today the use of hydrop...