This is a history of notable

hydroculture Hydroponics is a type of horticulture and a subset of hydroculture which involves growing plants, usually crops or medicinal plants, without soil, by using water-based mineral nutrient solutions in aqueous solvents. Terrestrial or aquatic plant ...

phenomena. Ancient hydroculture proposed sites and modern revolutionary works are mentioned. Included in this history are all forms of aquatic and semi-aquatic based horticulture that focus on flora: aquatic gardening, semi-aquatic crop farming,

hydroponics Hydroponics is a type of horticulture and a subset of hydroculture which involves growing plants, usually crops or medicinal plants, without soil, by using water-based mineral nutrient solutions in aqueous solvents. Terrestrial or aquatic plant ...

aquaponics Aquaponics is a food production system that couples aquaculture (raising aquatic animals such as fish, crayfish, snails or prawns in tanks) with hydroponics (cultivating plants in water) whereby the nutrient-rich aquaculture water is fed to hydr ...

, passive hydroponics, and modern

aeroponics Aeroponics is the process of growing plants in the air or mist environment without soil or an aggregate medium. The word "aeroponic" is derived from the Greek meanings of ''aer'' ("air") and ''ponos'' ("labour"). It is a subset of hydroponic ...

Hanging Gardens of Babylon

BasoliAntonio StageSet1 Meyerbeer Semiramide

One of the wonders of the ancient world was irrigated by the Euphrates River. It is uncertain if Sammu-ramat or

Nebuchadnezzar II Nebuchadnezzar II (Babylonian cuneiform: ''Nabû-kudurri-uṣur'', meaning "Nabu, watch over my heir"; Biblical Hebrew: ''Nəḇūḵaḏneʾṣṣar''), also spelled Nebuchadrezzar II, was the second king of the Neo-Babylonian Empire, ruling ...

ordered them to be built between 8th and 7th century BC Babylonia. The gardens were built partially on top of

ziggurat A ziggurat (; Cuneiform: 𒅆𒂍𒉪, Akkadian: ', D-stem of ' 'to protrude, to build high', cognate with other Semitic languages like Hebrew ''zaqar'' (זָקַר) 'protrude') is a type of massive structure built in ancient Mesopotamia. It has ...

s, and plants were irrigated on channels. No direct evidence of the

Hanging Gardens of Babylon The Hanging Gardens of Babylon were one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World listed by Hellenic culture. They were described as a remarkable feat of engineering with an ascending series of tiered gardens containing a wide variety of tre ...

exists. However, there is archeological evidence, uncovered by Robert Koldewey, that ancient structures exist to support the technology used for these gardens. Ancient Greeks

Diodorus Siculus Diodorus Siculus, or Diodorus of Sicily ( grc-gre, Διόδωρος ; 1st century BC), was an ancient Greek historian. He is known for writing the monumental universal history '' Bibliotheca historica'', in forty books, fifteen of which ...

and

Strabo Strabo''Strabo'' (meaning "squinty", as in strabismus) was a term employed by the Romans for anyone whose eyes were distorted or deformed. The father of Pompey was called " Pompeius Strabo". A native of Sicily so clear-sighted that he could s ...

have noted the Hanging Babylonian Gardens.

Precolonial America

chinampa Chinampa ( nah, chināmitl ) is a technique used in Mesoamerican agriculture which relies on small, rectangular areas of fertile arable land to grow crops on the shallow lake beds in the Valley of Mexico. They are built up on wetlands of a lake o ...

is a floating garden armada in a lake from the Xochimilco region, once Chinampan, of Mexico. This floating garden, still in use, can have an area of up to 10 meters by 200 meters. The agricultural output of the chinampa allowed the postclassic Aztec civilization to flourish.

Historical Orient

Historically, fish have been raised within flooded rice fields in Indochina and China.McMurtry, M. R., Nelson, P.V., & Sanders, D.C. (1988)
Aqua-vegeculture systems
International Ag-Sieve, 1(3), article 7.

Living root bridges

There are 500-year-old bridges made by living roots in India, sculpted by the War-Khasis. These trees span rivers, and may be limited in connectivity to hydroculture.

Modern

Hydroculture found in nature

Ōhi'a Lehua,

Metrosideros polymorpha ''Metrosideros polymorpha'', the ''ōhia lehua'', is a species of flowering evergreen tree in the myrtle family, Myrtaceae, that is endemic to the six largest islands of Hawaii. It is a highly variable tree, being tall in favorable situations ...

, is a Hawaiian plant with roots that can grow suspended in extinct lava tubes. The roots of this plant are able to penetrate deep into the volcanic rock, to reach these hollow tubes, where they can collect moisture.

References

{{Hydroculture Hydroculture Horticulture History of agriculture