How to minimize water borne disease in hydroponics.

How to minimize water borne disease in hydroponics. Although using a hydroponics system may eliminate soil borne pests, there are pests and fungi that spread through water, which means cleaning equipment and using an additional filtration system can drastically help reduce the occurrence of disease spreading. Heat and moisture in an irrigation system left untreated can create an optimal atmosphere for the development of water molds, like Pythium and Phytophthora. These molds can be brought into contact with plants through growing media, which in the case of hydroponics means through recirculating water. These molds can also be transferred from dirty plant trays and plugs or dirty greenhouse surfaces. The microflora in a hydroponics system can develop very quickly, within 20 hours of planting infected plants, bacteria can be traced throughout a system. Symptoms of Pythium present themselves as it eats away at the plant root and attacks the root, which results in stunted growth and plant death. Growers often refer to this mold as root rot. Phytophthora comes in two major varieties that are known to attack floriculture crops, causing root, crown and foliar blight. Essentially, both varieties of this bacterial disease can decimate a crop very easily if using hydroponics systems without an additional filtering system. Some systems come with screen or paper filters to filter out large-sized particles and debris, but often more is needed to combat water borne diseases effectively. For this reason, it is recommended to add or combine a number of additional filtering systems. more