Abstract

SOILLESS CULTIVATION, ITS VARIOUS TYPES AND APPLICATIONS IN AGRICULTURAL AND PHARMACEUTICAL SECTOR

Khushwant Singh, Gunjan Gupta and Rajesh Ghangal*

Abstract

Soil a natural resource, has been facing the burnt of human civilization. Due to rapid explosion of human population, the agricultural land has shrank and the per capita land availability for agricultural purposes have decreased. Less rainfall due to change in climatic conditions and over utilization of under-ground water has further escalated this problem. Soil also poses serious limitations in plant growth as many nematodes, disease causing organisms, poor drainage and degradation due to erosion reduces the crop productivity. Therefore, soilless cultivation of plants seems to be a good alternative to overcome these challenges. To meet the demands of growing population, soilless cultivation is being considered to be the major thrust area in agriculture sciences. Growing of medicinal plants in soilless culture system will allow growers to market very high quality products (high purity and bioactivity), year around, in a pesticide free environment thereby paving the way for pharmaceutical industry. Looking at the initial cost for setting up soilless culture system, under developed countries are not able to harness the benefits of this technique. Moreover the skilled manpower is also lacking due to poor dissemination of knowledge. There is a lot of scope to project soilless culture system at world level by conducting workshops, seminars and training to the farmers and gardeners.

Keywords: Soilless culture system, Hydroponics, Aeroponics, Agriculture, Floriculture, Medicinal plants.