The hydroponic Dutch bucket system has been used for many years for the production of vegetables both in large commercial greenhouses and for domestic use. A hydroponic system with Dutch vases lends itself particularly well to customizations and can be adapted to any type of environment. Plants grown with this system grow with roots in a substrate consisting mainly of expanded clay or perlite or a mixture of the two. The Dutch pot is a plastic pot, available in volumes of 10 or 12 liters, with a particular shape that allows it to be positioned along a 50mm PVC drain pipe which collects the drainage of the solution and conveys it to the collection tank of the solution. A pump will push the nutrient solution from the tank or reservoir, this will be distributed through a drop system directly into the respective vessels, bringing water and nourishment to the roots of the plants. The excess solution will be drained along the drain hose back to the main tank. For indoor farmers, a hydroponic Dutch bucket system gives growers a way to grow crops separately. Fruiting crops and large-statured crops tend to use more (and a different ratio of) nutrients than greens. This means that when both greens and fruiting crops are run on the same system, either the EC is too high for the greens, or too low for the fruiting crops. As you can imagine, this hurts production levels.
Tomatoes have traditionally been the most popular crop for Dutch buckets, and in fact, most commercial hydroponic tomatoes are produced this way. Dutch buckets allow tomato farmers to grow large vining varieties and train them up from the bucket. This can be a fairly efficient use of space since the tomatoes are using a large portion of the lower growing space.
