Hydroponic Distance Education Certificate

• Learn to apply horticultural knowledge to hydroponic culture
• Discover opportunities for business and employment; building contacts within industry
• Self paced, 600 hour course, guided by an international team of expert tutors

What Skills and Knowledge are Needed for Success in Hydroponics? Industry experts often quote the 20/80 rule : 20% hydroponic skill, 80% general horticulture skill. A common reason for failure is not knowing enough basic horticulture!

“A great course for those with some general horticultural knowledge – all aspects of hydroponics are covered in this well-rounded course from growing to marketing!” - Adriana Fraser Cert.Hort., Cert.Child Care, Adv.Cert.App.Mgt., Cert 1V Assessment and Training, Adv.Dip.Hort, ACS Tutor.

Course structure

This subject has 30 lessons, each requiring about 12‑15 hours of study:

1.  Introduction to Hydroponic Technology

2.  Plant Growth Requirements – Light , artificial light, light balancers

3.  Plant Growth Requirements ‑ Nutrition‑ nutrient requirements, deficiencies, toxicities, pH, conductivity, salinity, growth regulators

4.  Plant Growth Requirements ‑ Temperature

5.  Hydroponic Growing Systems  ‑ basic concepts and designs, site considerations.

6.  Growing Media ‑ types, properties, uses.

7.  Hydroponic Nutrient Solutions ‑ nutrient formulae, preparing solutions.

8.  Hydroponic Equipment ‑ componentry, nutrient delivery, pumping, testing

9.  Growing Structures ‑ Design and Construction ‑ types

10. Environmental Control A ‑ Heating, Cooling

11. Environmental Control B ‑ Lighting, Shading.

12. Environmental Control C ‑ Carbon Dioxide Enrichment

13. Plant Culture In Hydroponics A ‑ trellising, pruning, pollination, transplanting.

14. Plant Culture In Hydroponics B

15. Aggregate Culture

16. Nutrient Film Technique (NFT) Culture

17. Rockwool Culture

18. Other Techniques ‑ wick systems, flood & drain, bag culture, aeroponics, etc.

19. Irrigation ‑ Soil Requirements

20. Irrigation Systems

21. Plant Propagation ‑ seed & cutting propagation & tissue culture

22. Market Gardening ‑ Cut Flowers

23. Market Gardening ‑ Vegetables

24. Other Plants In Hydroponics ‑ herbs, grasses, indoor plants

25. Pest and Diseases - dentifying the problem, pests and diseases in hydroponics

26. Weeds ‑ identification and control

27. Managing A Commercial Hydroponics Farm ‑ crop scheduling & selection standards

28. Management ‑ Organisation and Supervision

29. Marketing ‑ Promotion and Selling

30. 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.

General Course Objectives:

1. 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.

2. 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.

3. To prepare employees for supervisory and managerial positions in the field of plant culture, use and management.

4. 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.

5. To provide an understanding of modern technology and its application to growing plants, with emphasis being placed on hydroponics production of commercially valuable plants.

What Can Be Grown?

Just about anything can be grown in hydroponics, from fruit and vegetables to herbs and indoor plants. Even animal feed can be produced hydroponically.

Certain Crops are more widely grown hydroponically though. These include:

• Lettuce
• Cucumber
• Tomato
• Capsicum
• Carnation
• Rose
• Orchids

This course is relevant to it all these, and a lot more.

Tips for Growing Hydroponic Fodder

Fodder crops have been successfully grown under intense cultivation using hydroponics. Hydroponic fodder may have some advantages:

• It can be produced under controlled conditions (eg. inside a greenhouse) all year round, and during abnormal conditions such as drought or extreme cold.
• It makes more efficient use of water supplies.
• Protein content of hydroponic food may be significantly higher than the same plants grown in paddocks.
• Plants may be grown in tiers (with artificial lighting), allowing much greater production per unit area.
• Growth rates can be accelerated, allowing greater production per unit area, per year.
• Hydroponic production can be designed to need less manpower.

The main disadvantage of hydroponic fodder cropping is that the establishment costs can be relatively high. Though hydroponic fodder production is not yet widely practiced, it has been used successfully for growing a variety of fodder plants including oats, wheat, rye, barley and sorghum.

Exams: There are four exams for the course; one after lesson 7, another after lesson 15; a third after lesson 22 and the final at the conclusion of the course

If you are interested in learning more about hydroponics

• Study one of our courses
• Read "Commercial Hydroponics" a book by our principal, by John Mason, published by Kangaroo Press (available through our school -email admin@acs.edu.au for details).