Ok but the selling point generally seems to involve how you will have fresh vegetables/fruits year round, or in a place where you cannot have your own garden. So you are saying that the selling point these products always make is false, I think that requires some citation/argument as to why it should be so - not just a flat statement.
> I think that requires some citation/argument as to why it should be so - not just a flat statement.
Just plant a tomato in a pot, put it by the window and wait. I could find you citation about the "freshness" of your garden products, but nothing beat experiencing it for yourself.
Hydroponics and LEDs are good for mass-producing a bit of basil and a lot of tomatoes, but the taste is just not there. They're bland, and unsavory.
The "food" you give to the plants is in the water, including oxygen. They get everything they need from it, the taste is identical, and I have no doubt that a double-blind study would show that if it hasn't already. There is no "magic" inside soil other than its a media that happens to allow nutrients to exist next to the roots that absorb them, while allowing the plant to support its own weight and stay fixed.
You can grow using media such as sand, rocks, water, air, sponge, even packing peanuts. And in terms of fertilizer, it's the same as traditional farming except they have to be water-soluble. I spent a lot of time researching hydroponics, and once you peel back the layers, it really is simple with no magic involved.
Edit. Obviously this might be different for root vegetables like potatoes (they don't do well sitting in water). Though I've seen some articles with NASA attempting them with some luck in soil-less media.
Identical to what? Strawberries grown in boron deficient soil taste worse than strawberries grown in soil with adequate boron. There is no yield difference, the plant does not die from the low boron. But it is unable to make large enough quantities of certain flavonoids that contribute to the flavor of the berries. We do not know how to synthetically feed plants in hydroponic situations well enough to even get optimal yield, much less optimal flavor or nutrition. Maximum yields from healthy soil still exceed maximum yields from synthetic fertilization.
>There is no "magic" inside soil other than its a media that happens to allow nutrients to exist next to the roots that absorb them, while allowing the plant to support its own weight and stay fixed.
That is a really unfortunate misconception. The difference is very real, but it is science not magic. Soil is not an inert media, it is a massive and complex ecosystem with an entire food web. Fungi actually penetrate the roots of plants and directly exchange nutrients and energy with them. Microbes can create entire amino acids, and directly give them to plants in exchange for glucose. This is very different from an inert medium that simply holds ions in water for plants to absorb. Hormones released by the plant roots appear to change the organic acid production of certain fungi, which affects how much of which minerals are solublized from the mineral component of the soil (dirt). Millions of years of co-evolution have created a system where plants are able to direct microbes to meet their specific nutritional needs at any particular time. In the process, these microbes defend the plants they have formed these symbiotic relationships with from other microbes, such as those that cause fungal diseases like blight.
>it's the same as traditional farming except they have to be water-soluble
They have to be water-soluble with conventional farming too. This is the big problem with conventional agriculture, it is really just industrial scale hydroponics done using the ground as a cheap medium. Traditional farming predates synthetic fertilizer and relied on soil.
