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If you ever considered growing your own coffee plant, hydroponic coffee could be one of the ways of doing this in your own home.
Hydroponic growing refers to growing plants in nutrient-rich water without any soil. Other materials are used to hold the roots, giving them the support soil normally does.
When you grow coffee hydroponically, you’re tweaking the environment it grows in. Which means you can grow it anywhere in the world.
Let me warn that it is a long process, so do not expect to have your coffee beans ready for roasting quickly. But if you are interested in DIY and wish to put the efforts, you should give it a try.
It sounds simple doesn’t it? But hydroponic farming is a bit more complicated than placing some coffee plants into a tub of nutrient-rich water.
Hydroponics means “growing plants in water”. Plants grow through photosynthesis, a process using sunlight and a chemical called chlorophyll found in their leaves. For this process to work, plants need water, oxygen and nutrients. Who says these nutrients can’t be found in water instead of soil?
By maximizing exposure to nutrients and water plus controlling the environmental conditions and pH, you’re creating a customizable environment for plants to grow.
To have a complete set up ready for hydroponic growing, some of the following fundamental components need to be included.
While water is the key component of hydroponics, you can’t use any water. It needs to be filtered and have a balanced pH level of 6 to 6.5. If your water levels are acidic, you can adjust with products sourced from your local hardware.
Your plants need oxygen to grow. Placing them directly in water will eventually starve them of air and they’ll drown. With conventional growing methods in the soil, air pockets in the ground gives the plant the oxygen it needs. When growing hydroponically, the plants need to either have a space between their base and the water reservoir. Or you can oxygenate the water with an air pump.
Materials such as vermiculite, coconut fiber, peat moss and perlite work well for holding roots. They’re porous and help to retain the nutrients circulated through by the water.
Plants take in nutrients from the soil to grow. With hydroponics, you’re not using soil as the substrate. So, to ensure your plants are getting the food they need to flourish, nutrients need to be added to the water. This includes magnesium, calcium and phosphorus. You can either experiment with the right quantities or get a pre-mix from a store specializing in these mixes.
Whether you’re growing your coffee indoors in your home or in a greenhouse, you’ll need special lighting. Not only will you need special light bulbs but the placement is crucial too. You’re aiming to achieve the correct Daily Light Integral required for coffee plants.
The most common types of hydroponic methods include the following:
Why would you want to consider growing your coffee hydroponically? When you understand the basics of hydroponics, the benefits could outweigh growing plants using the traditional methods.
If you look at how coffee is grown traditionally various factors will stand out. These include the type of soil the coffee plant grows in, the altitude of the area it’s grown in, the temperature and moisture conditions and the nutrients required, as we have seen for Kona or Jamaican Blue Coffee just to mention a couple of popular beans.
A coffee plant’s natural environment is hot and humid. It likes to grow in shade but needs sufficient sunlight. The ideal temperature for growing coffee is between 60⁰F and 70⁰F. Coffee plants don’t like to be exposed to windy conditions. It takes up to 4 years for a coffee plant to start flowering. It will start producing cherries in its fifth year. And they like high altitudes.
When you grow coffee hydroponically you want to try mimic most of the typical growing conditions of a coffee plant.
Very few people have succeeded at growing hydroponic coffee. But, if you want to have a coffee plant in your home, you can use a simple hydroponic method.
Use the following steps to grow your own coffee plant at home.
Some home DIY hydroponic coffee growers report good growth and reaping a few cherries 5 years into the growing period.
Watch this video to witness the very initial phases of Aquaponic Coffee planting.
The idea of growing coffee hydroponically not only sounds exciting but sustainable too. But a lot more research is needed to turn this method into a lucrative production. In the meantime, have fun experimenting with hydroponics at home. You never know, you may be reaping your own coffee beans five years down the line!
Have you ever grown hydroponic coffee? I would love to hear your comments so please feel free to submit comments and suggestions in our comments section below.