Page "Hydroponics" Paragraph 3

The very earliest published work on growing terrestrial plants without soil was the 1627 book Sylva Sylvarum by Francis Bacon, printed a year after his death.

Water culture became a popular research technique after that.

In 1699, John Woodward published his water culture experiments with spearmint.

He found that plants in less-pure water sources grew better than plants in distilled water.

By 1842, a list of nine elements believed to be essential to plant growth had been compiled, and the discoveries of the German botanists Julius von Sachs and Wilhelm Knop, in the years 1859-65, resulted in a development of the technique of soilless cultivation.

Growth of terrestrial plants without soil in mineral nutrient solutions was called solution culture.

It quickly became a standard research and teaching technique and is still widely used today.

Solution culture is now considered a type of hydroponics where there is no inert medium.