Its a word you may have heard before: agriculture. Recently, to
distunguish soil CONTAINER growing from in-the-ground growing, the
following terms have surfaced: agriponics or agroponics (us)
terraponics (euro)
bio (euro) Funny thing is, the "experts" can't really agree what
the definitions of "hydroponics" and "aeroponics" are. For example,
a very popular definition of hydroponics is "a growing system in
which the plants receive all of their nutrition from the irrigation
solution, as opposed to the soil or potting medium." Notice no
mention is made of the substate (potting medium). This means that
growing plants in any commercial potting mix (which use peat,
coconut, vermiculite, perlite, compost, etc - none of which are
soil) with a nutrient solution is hydroponics... even if you only
water once a week or whatever. Aeroponics is even more wishy-washy.
My point is that there is not a clear line that distinguishes one
method from the other; most systems are really a fusion of two or
more methods.
The definition of hydroponics is literally working water...or as
used today the science of growing plants without soil. So growing
plants in a commercial potting mix containing peat, coconut,
vermiculite, perlite is considered hydroponics. As is growing
plants in sand or gravel or any inert media. Aeroponics is a form
of hydroponics, it refers to growing plants with their roots
suspended in the air and being misted, which is growing plants
without soil or hydroponics. In my opinion it is a term that was
coined to avoid the negative connotations associated with
hydroponics.
