Recent Advancements in Prevalent Practices for Plant Cultivation by Hydroponics

Utkarsha Srivastava; Ashwani Mathur

doi:10.14429/dlsj.8.18781

Utkarsha Srivastava Jaypee University of Information Technology, Waknaghat, Solan, Himachal Pradesh-173234 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1009-3338
Ashwani Mathur Jaypee Institute of Information Technology https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3858-8271

DOI: https://doi.org/10.14429/dlsj.8.18781

Keywords: Plant cultivation,, Hydroponics, Tissue culture,, Computational techniques

Abstract

Many plant-derived products are well known to possess therapeutic properties along with minimum side effects
and relatively competitive efficacies as compared to other chemical counterparts/analogs. Herbal drugs are therefore now widely accepted owing to their long-lasting impact. However, the role of cultivation conditions and associated biotic and abiotic parameters are paramount in affecting the yield of phytocompounds among cultivated plants. Moreover, with the increasing burden on cultivable land available for the production of cash crops, medicinal plants require alternative techniques of propagation for meeting commercial demands without adversely affecting their yield of phytocompounds and their therapeutic potential. Regulating the biotic and abiotic parameters using several methods of propagation (viz. vegetative and plant tissue culture) is instrumental in attaining the desired yield in the harvest. The major drawbacks of these techniques are lack of skilled labour and high monetary expense. Alternative techniques, such as hydroponics and aeroponics are pivotal to overcoming these disadvantages. The ‘Hydroponics’ technique involves plant cultivation in a soil-less nutrient medium. This method offers major advantages over the conventional techniques being more economical and independent of seasonal variations besides eliminating the influence of soil-microbe interactions on the development of plants. This technique is under continuous investigation and improvement with recent advances being made in the inter-disciplinary approaches for improving the technique by the addition of IoT and cloud computing along with other conventional techniques such as vertical farming for
hydroponic systems and the development of hybrid models.

Author Biographies

Utkarsha Srivastava, Jaypee University of Information Technology, Waknaghat, Solan, Himachal Pradesh-173234

I am currently a research shcolar at Jaypee University of Information Technology, Waknaghat, Solan, India. I have completed my Master's of Science (M.Sc) in Biotechnology from Jaypee Unversity of Information Technology while my Bachelor's of Science (B.Sc Honors) is from Amity University, Noida. My research interest is largely focused on medicinal plant biotechnology with an integrated approach. I also take keen interest in microbiology, molecular biology and bioinformatics, besides working on the different aspect of botechnology in general.

Ashwani Mathur, Jaypee Institute of Information Technology

Dr. Ashwani Mathur is Associate Professor and Associate Dean (Policy Interfaces and Accreditation). He has been working at Department of Biotechnology, JIIT since December 2010. Before joining JIIT, Dr. Ashwani Mathur worked for 18 months as Senior Lecturer at Department of Biotechnology and Bioinformatics at JUIT, Waknaghat, Dist. Solan, Himachal Pradesh. He has done his masters (M.Sc) in Biotechnology from Panjab University, Chandigarh in 2002, and was university rank holder. He completed his PhD from Department of Biochemical Engineering and Biotechnology, IIT Delhi in 2009. He had qualified CSIR JRF and GATE exams in 2002 and availed CSIR fellowship from MHRD during his PhD. He has also done post graduate diploma in business administration (PGDBA) from IMT Ghaziabad.

In past, Dr. Ashwani Mathur had worked as Scientist for Panacea Biotec Ltd., Delhi and Avesthagen Ltd., Bangalore. He has been associated with academia as a faculty for NSIT (formerly DIT, Delhi University), Dwarka and Manav Rachana International University (Formerly CITM), Faridabad. His core area of research includes process optimization for production of different primary and secondary metabolites. He has prior experience of handling microbial, algal, plant and mammalian cells in bioreactor.