When removed from soil, root tissue is often mechanically sheared causing loss of tissue or damage. Hydroponics offers several advantages over soil-based systems. Hydroponic systems allow for easy separation of root tissue and precise control of nutrient availability Here, we outline the use of hydroponics in the context of research, possible variations in available methods, and finally present a system that can be easily scalable and useful for research laboratories interested in studying plant mineral nutrition.
Industrial applications of hydroponics have also been developed for crops such as tomato and lettuce 6. 2 used hydroponic systems and several plant species including tomato and tobacco, to generate sufficient plant biomass for mineral analysis 2-4. Hydroponic systems have been extensively used by scientists for exploring nutrient requirements and also the toxicity of some elements in Arabidopsis and other plant species 2-5. Hydroponics is a method of growing plants that takes advantage of this fact by providing all of the nutrients, in their inorganic form, in a liquid solution with or without solid media. Plants are among the few organisms that can synthesize all the required metabolites from inorganic ions, water and CO 2 using the energy captured from the sun 1. We also demonstrate how nutrient concentrations can be modified to induce plant responses to both essential nutrients and toxic non-essential elements. The use of a hydroponic growth system is most advantageous in situations where the nutrient media need to be well controlled and when intact roots need to be harvested for downstream applications. Most of the materials described in this protocol can be found outside scientific supply companies, making the set up for hydroponic experiments less expensive and convenient. This protocol describes the hydroponic system set up in detail and the preparation of plant material for successful experiments. Here we present a hydroponic protocol that can be easily implemented in laboratories interested in pursuing studies on plant mineral nutrition.
Within the plant research community, numerous hydroponic systems have been designed to study plant responses to biotic and abiotic stresses.
Hydroponic systems have been utilized as one of the standard methods for plant biology research and are also used in commercial production for several crops, including lettuce and tomato.
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