Sustainable Agriculture through Small-Scale Hydroponics and Enhanced Nutrient Management

This study recognises hydroponics as a valuable commercial technique for enhancing vegetable plant traits and tackles the problem of decreasing tomato yields in conventional agriculture caused by factors like adverse climate change, soil contamination, and lack of nutrients, which ultimately decreases plant growth as well as development. In this research tomato plants cultivated in a hydroponic system using three different nutrient methods (F-1, F-2, and F-3). The results showed that the F-2 nutrient solution significantly improved growth such as shoot length, root length, leaf count, stem girth, and the number of flowers and fruits compared to the other treatments. From the perspective of growing tomatoes, the research indicates that the F-2 nutrient formulation is the most effective for achieving better agronomic outcomes in hydroponic settings. Additionally, the study noted that excessively concentrated nutrient solutions caused stunted growth and reduced flowering and fruiting. In contrast, a properly balanced nutrient solution enhanced these traits, emphasizing the significance of electrical conductivity (EC), which represents the concentration of dissolved solids, as changes in EC affected the plants' agronomic characteristics.