The room was filled with table frames with long pipes lined up on them. From within the pipes, sprouted green and red shoots that looked fresh and filled with nutrients. The room is also full of sunlight coming in from all sides of the room. The room is only grounded and uses walls and a roof that is visible with a water tank embedded in the ground.
The room is a room where plants are cultivated with a hydroponic system. More precisely, the room is the Ecofarm Hydroponic House owned by Semarang State University (UNNES). The hydroponic house is one of the many facilities and innovations owned by UNNES. The Ecofarm Hydroponic House was initiated and managed by the UNNES Conservation Development Unit (Bangvasi).
At UNNES, there are two Ecofarm Hydroponic House buildings which consist of dozens of pipe sets with holes filled with planting media and plant seeds inside. In the series of pipes water is flowed complete with various nutrient solutions for plants that come from the holding tanks below.
“Hydroponics is the art and creativity of planting to produce higher quality vegetables and clean roots.”
The above statement is the reason why hydroponics was chosen to be developed by UPT Bangvasi.
In the Ecofarm Hydroponic Home, there are hundreds (maybe thousands) of seeds of various types of vegetables. Vegetables were chosen to be developed with hydroponics because vegetables are one of the staple food sources needed by humans and will continue to be in demand by the community. Vegetables grown using the hydroponic method are also healthier and of higher quality because they are free of pesticides, their nutritional needs are met, and their roots are clean because they do not use soil as a medium.
There are various types of vegetables grown at the Ecofarm UNNES Hydroponic House, including kale, green spinach, red spinach, and pakcoy. This vegetable was chosen because it is a type of vegetable that is weather resistant, easy to care for, and most in demand by the public. The results of this hydroponic vegetable crop also have a higher economic value than conventionally grown vegetables.
This Ecofarm Hydroponic House uses Rockwool as its planting medium. Rockwool that has been cut according to the size of the netpot is then given vegetable seeds which are then placed in the netpot one by one. The netpots are then placed in the holes in the long pipes. The pipes have been drained by water that already contains nutrients for the seeds. After that, the seeds are checked regularly whether they are growing well or dead.
Within a certain period of time, usually in about one month, these vegetables can be harvested and sold to the public. How to harvest hydroponic vegetables is also quite easy and the same as how to harvest vegetables normally. The only difference is that the roots are much cleaner because they don’t contain soil, making them easier to pack without needing to be cleaned first. Voila, the vegetables from the UNNES Ecofarm Hydroponic House are ready to be distributed to the community.
