Why You Should Consider Growing Soilless

All media is not the same. With the fast rise of hydroponic grow systems and precision growing methods, soilless mediums are becoming more prevalent and popular.

Hydroponic systems require a consistent flow of water through your plants. Soil-based mediums hold water longer than soilless mediums, which makes it difficult to have a consistent ebb and flow of water through your plants, as water hangs around longer.

Here’s a few reasons why you should consider growing in a soilless medium on your next run.

Better Drainage

If you’re growing with hydroponics, drainage is essential. Your standard fertilizers and soils are dense, and hold much more moisture. This is nice if you don’t want to feed that often.

However hydroponic systems are designed to feed your plants more. In a flowing hydroponic system, there is constantly water and nutrients flowing through your medium. If you’re using plain soil, this will inevitably result in overfeeding because the soil will hold onto moisture too long.

With soilless mediums, you get more porosity which allows your plants to drain faster, allowing you to feed them more, without the worry of overfeeding or overflowing your plants with water.

Precise Nutrient Control

Fertilizers and soils naturally have nutrients in them already. When using these types of mediums you need to account for the nutrients already in there before you throw in the recommended nutrient dose.

Soilless mediums like coco and rockwool are inert mediums, and have no natural nutrient content. This lets you be much more precise with your nutrient measurements, instead of having to account for what’s already in your media.

Less Bugs

A big problem for growers who use soil-based mediums is the bugs. Considering soil, otherwise known as dirt, is where most bugs live, it isn’t surprising that they would try to find a home in your soil.

With a soilless medium you are a lot less likely to encounter a bug problem in your grow. We all know that once a bug problem starts, it’s a pain to deal with, and sometimes results in the loss of plants. The likeliness of something similar happening with a soilless medium is so slim that there really isn’t any debate on which is better for preventing pests.

Is Soilless For You?

A lot of people are comfortable growing in soil. It definitely has it’s benefits, and for new growers, it’s a great starting point. But for the hydroponic grower out there, soil usually isn’t an option.

But even if you don’t have a full hydroponic system set up, you can still use a soilless medium to your advantage in the grow.