A non-recycling system. As the name suggests, this system allows a slow drip of nutrient to keep the growing medium damp and productive. It is a very simple and very effective system but also one that can be plagued by a lot of problems.
For a start, you tend to be generous with the drip rather than miserly. You use more nutrient than is really necessary, but that’s better than too little. You need a means of running off the excess. Outside, that’s usually not a problem. Inside, it becomes much more a consideration. Regulating the amount of drip is always a matter of trial and error, mostly error and by the time you have it just right, the temperature has risen or fallen and you need to start over. You need a large overhead reservoir or a pump primed header tank, and the drip at the end of a line is not always the same as the drip nearer the tank. But as a system, this is one that many people use to good effect. On a commercial scale, this system will require sophisticated computers to management the drip rate daily.
For a start, you tend to be generous with the drip rather than miserly. You use more nutrient than is really necessary, but that’s better than too little. You need a means of running off the excess. Outside, that’s usually not a problem. Inside, it becomes much more a consideration. Regulating the amount of drip is always a matter of trial and error, mostly error and by the time you have it just right, the temperature has risen or fallen and you need to start over. You need a large overhead reservoir or a pump primed header tank, and the drip at the end of a line is not always the same as the drip nearer the tank. But as a system, this is one that many people use to good effect. On a commercial scale, this system will require sophisticated computers to management the drip rate daily.
