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Growing plants without soil and the sun

Bindu Shajan Perappadan

NEW DELHI: Little heard and hardly ever practised, this `soil free' option for growing plants has largely remained underground for most in this country. Except, if this brother-sister duo have their way, they would ensure a pot of "sun, soil, space and servant free'' fresh blooms in ever household here.

If you still haven't understood what the big fuss is all about, then you must meet the gardening miracles from the Nizammudin area here who have been listed among the handful in the country to practice the `art' of growing plants without the 4S' -- sun, soil, space and servant.

Called the science of hydroponics, the children along with help from their father have managed to produce a "solution'' which if added to the water in which the plants are growing, need no soil to draw nutrients from.

Well appreciated and encouraged to patent and market the product, Vidya Shankar Singh the father of the two talented children -- Sweta and Anand -- refuses to divulge the ingredients of the "natural tonic'' that he produces which allows plants to grow without any chemical pesticides. The only information he is ready to spill about the wonder solution is the fact that it is made from leaves extracts of some trees, which is later processed and added to the water in which the plants are grown.

The father-children team have successfully grown fruit bearing, flowering and non-flowering plants and even medicinal plants. And while the technique is no stranger in countries outside India, most enthusiasts there use chemical means to grow the plants. An improvement over this is the Indian "natural tonic'' which can even be used for bonsai creations.

Sweta, a first year student of Botony at Zakir Hussain College here confesses about being an ardent fan of foreign scientist W. J. Salto Douglas who 1936 started growing hyproponics at Kalimpong owing to favourable climatic condition there.

"I am fascinated by one of his landmark achievements where he managed to grow a 25-feet high tomato plant using hydroponics,'' says Sweta, who after her graduation course plans to go abroad for further studies on the subject.

The brother-sister team who have taken part is several gardening competitions and won several awards call their wonder bio-fertiliser `Vidya Shankar, Sweta Anand Growth Solution' and `Sweta Protonic for Plants' and hope to do some more work in the area before they go commercial with their "discovery''.

"I understand that living as we do with little space and in a highly polluted atmosphere, these little escape routes back to nature will ensure that we remain in balance with it. We have been working on these tonic extracts for nearly a decade now and it needs more time and effort to be put into it for it to be used on a mass scale. We are now trying it with fruit bearing and medicinal plants,'' says Vidya Shankar Singh, who first learned about this unique method from his uncle in Patna.

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