Healthy hydroponically grown plants need a balanced diet of appropriate nutrients (food). However, plants can only access these nutrients when the nutrient solution is within a certain pH range.
All plants need access to the right amount of food (nutrients) so that they can grow and thrive. Over or under-feeding your plants can result in the waste of expensive nutrient resources. The great part of growing food hydroponically, is that is can be so closely monitored to be the right EC and temp for your specific plants you are growing. Plants can only access these nutrients when the nutrient solution is within a certain pH range.
The easiest way to keep track of the pH and the amount of nutrients in your solution is to regularly measure conductivity, which refers to the total ionic content (dissolved salts) in a solution as well as measuring the pH level of your water. These can both be achieved using a pH pen and an EC pen.
