HYDROPONICS - ONLINE CERTIFICATE
GAIN SKILLS AND KNOWLEDGE NECESSARY FOR PROFITABLE HYDROPONICS"
What one of our students said- "Having completed the Advanced Hydroponics Course, I have since gone on to open my own successful hydroponics retail shop, now in it's third year of trading"- Ted
This course provides an understanding of modern technology and its application to growing plants, with emphasis on hydroponic production. Learn about hydroponic systems (NFT, Rock wool, aeroponics, gravel culture); plant growth requirements, growing structures (greenhouses), nutrients, management of vegetables, cut flowers, herbs, berries, and more.
A great foundation for working in hydroponics (eg. a hydroponic shop, farm, consultant business, etc).
Study from home- Covers a wide variety of commercial applications
- Gain extensive understanding of hydroponics and skills necessary for employment
- Gain confidence in your knowledge.
General Objectives:
- To provide a sound basis of knowledge in horticultural principles as they apply to the culture, use and management of plants in various production situations.
- To provide new and existing employees who are unable to undertake on campus training with the opportunity to gain appropriate knowledge in the field of plant culture, use and management.
- To prepare employees for supervisory and managerial positions in the field of plant culture, use and management.
- To provide horticultural business owner/operators (or those contemplating ownership) with appropriate training to apply technical skills to the management of the physical, financial and human resources in which they have made, or will make, a substantial investment.
- To provide an understanding of modern technology and its application to growing plants, with emphasis being placed on hydroponics production of commercially valuable plants.
Course structure
This subject has 30 lessons, each requiring about 12 to 15 hours of study:
- Introduction to Hydroponic Technology, Why grow hydroponically? - Definition, history, resources, the industry.
- Plant Growth Requirements Light: artificial light, light balancers
- Plant Growth Requirements Nutrition: nutrient requirements, deficiencies, toxicities, pH, conductivity, salinity, growth regulators
- Plant Growth Requirements Temperature
- Hydroponic Growing Systems:basic concepts and designs, site considerations.
- Growing Media: types, properties, uses.
- Hydroponic Nutrient Solutions nutrient formulae, preparing solutions.
- Hydroponic Equipment components, nutrient delivery, pumping, testing and monitoring
- Growing Structures Design and Construction types (greenhouses, shade houses, cloches), materials, siting
- Environmental Control A Heating, Cooling
- Environmental Control B Lighting, Shading.
- Environmental Control C Carbon Dioxide Enrichment
- Plant Culture In Hydroponics A: trellising, pruning, pollination, transplanting. problem diagnosis
- Plant Culture In Hydroponics B
- Aggregate Culture
- Nutrient Film Technique (NFT) Culture
- Rockwool Culture
- Other Techniques: wick systems, flood & drain, bag culture, aeroponics, etc.
- Irrigation Soil Requirements
- Irrigation Systems
- Plant Propagation: seed & cutting propagation & tissue culture
- Market Gardening Cut Flowers
- Market Gardening Vegetables
- Other Plants In Hydroponics: herbs, grasses, indoor plants
- Pest and Diseases: identifying the problem, pests and diseases in hydroponics
- Weeds: identification and control
- Managing A Commercial Hydroponics Farm: crop scheduling & selection, standards, layout.
- Management Organisation and Supervision
- Marketing Promotion and Selling
Special Project: Prepare a detailed report of at least 2,000 words, plus photos or diagrams, on a particular
aspect of technology which you have studied that significantly assists growing.
PLUS 2 exams: one at the end of lesson 15, the other at the completion of lesson 30.
BEFORE INVESTING -DO YOUR HOMEWORK!
Hydroponic farming offers a fantastic opportunity for high tech and very profitable business. This form of farming does require a significant investment in materials and equipment though; and you can make a big loss just as easily as make a profit; if you do not prepare properly first.
There are two things you should do:
- Be sure you have a level of understanding about hydroponics that is needed to succeed. You may do this by studying, by reading books or by employing competent people (The best way forward is to do all three)
- Choose a profitable crop to grow. Even if you know how to grow plants well in soil, it is essential that you conduct a trial before investing on a large scale. Growing an experimental crop on a small scale will enable you to determine the problems you are likely to encounter, and be prepared with solutions before they become a bigger problem than you can handle.
Hydroponic grower trials attempt to simulate conditions under which a crop might be grown commercially, but on a much smaller, and less costly scale.
They often compare the success of growing a number of different plants, or groups of plants.
There are many different variables that can affect the success or failure of a hydroponic crop. These fall into different categories, including:
- Type of system
- Nutrition supplied
- Water supplied
- Plant cultivar being grown
- Environmental conditions (eg. Temperature, light, air quality)
- Exposure to pest and disease
- Cultural Management (eg. Pruning, spacing, harvest time, etc).
A useful trial is generally designed to compare one type of factor, and in order to do this effectively, all but that one type of factor must be kept the same.
For example:
Four different tomato varieties are all grown in the same system, each being exposed to identical growing conditions (ie. same nutrition, same hydroponic system, same nutrition, etc).
The same variety of tomato is grown in four different hydroponic systems, but using the same nutrient, pruned and trained the same way, fed the same nutrient at the same rate, etc).
What Can Be Grown?
Hydroponic culture is now so well advanced that almost any plant can be produced this way. It has many applications for indoor gardens in both large and confined spaces for maintaining interior landscapes. Commercial production of indoor and foliage plants can be very successful using hydroponic cultivation. Likewise, a wide range of herbs respond to hydroponics. Also, elaborate and technically complex environmentally controlled structures are being used to produce fodder hydroponically from sprouted grains for intensive animal production enterprises.
Many vegetables are today grown commercially in greenhouses to produce crops out of season. Hydroponics is a technique which is also widely in use today as a method of growing some vegetable crops more than others. Lettuce is the main vegetable crop grown hydroponically in Australia, though in other countries a range of crops are grown by hydroponic methods (including tomatoes, capsicum and cucumbers).
Some cut flower crops, including orchids, carnations and roses are widely cultivated in hydroponics. Many other flowers are grown commercially using hydroponic methods.
Even fish culture has been integrated into hydroponic systems (ie. creating aquaponic systems).
EXAMS
There are 2 exams: one at the end of lesson 15, the other at the completion of lesson 30. For more information regarding exams please visit http://www.acsedu.com/enrolment/exam-application.aspx
