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Hazaras

The Hazaras are an ethnic group and a principal component of the population of Afghanistan. They are one of the largest ethnic groups in Afghanistan and primarily residing in the Hazaristan (Hazarajat) region in central Afghanistan. Hazaras are also as significant minority groups in Pakistan mainly in Quetta and Iran mainly in Mashhad. They speak the Dari and Hazaragi dialects of Persian. Dari, also known as Dari Persian, is one of two official languages of Afghanistan.

Hazaras are one of the most persecuted groups in Afghanistan. More than half of the Hazara population was massacred by the Emirate of Afghanistan between 1888 and 1893, and their persecution has occurred various times across previous decades. Widespread ethnic discrimination,  religious persecution,  organized attacks by terrorist groups,  harassment and arbitrary arrest of Hazaras due to various reasons,  numerous cases of rape and torture of Hazara women,   seizure of lands and homes,   imposition of deliberate economic restrictions and creating economic backwardness of Hazara region,   grabbing agricultural fields and pastures of Hazara areas,     and numerous other cases of human rights violations have caused many Hazaras to be displaced and gradually forced to migrate or flee from Afghanistan.

Etymology
The etymology of the word "Hazara" remains disputed, but some have differing opinions on the term.

 * Historian Abdul Hai Habibi considers the word "Hazara" ( هزاره) to be very old, and it is derived from "Hazala" ( هزاله), which has changed to "Hazara" over time and has meant "good-hearted".
 * Some believe that in ancient times, because of the Hazara people's high population, they were called "Hazara" ( هزاره), which the name "Hazara" derives from the Persian word "Hazar" ( هزار) meaning "thousand" and it is a metaphor for a population of over thousand.
 * [[File:Daykundi province a model for peace, reintegration program 121210-A-PI315-504.jpg|thumb|Hazara boy and [[Australia|Australian soldier]] in Daykundi 2012]]It is said that the name "Hazara" ( هزاره) derives from the Persian word "Hazar" ( هزار) meaning "thousand". It may be the translation of the Mongolic word, a military unit of 1,000 soldiers at the time of Genghis Khan.  The term could have been substituted for the Mongolic word and stands for the group of people, while the Hazara people in their native language call themselves "Azra" ( آزره) or ( ازره).

Origin
Despite being one of the principal population elements of Afghanistan, the origins of the Hazara people have not been fully reconstructed. However, due to genetic and linguistic analysis, Hazaras are described as an ethnically mixed ethnic group with Hazaras sharing varying degrees of ancestry with contemporary Mongolic, Turkic     and Iranic populations. The external characteristics of some Hazaras and Char Aimaks are Mongolian, and they are probably a relic of the Mongol invasion. Additionally, overall Hazaras share a common racial structure and physical appearance with the Turkic people of Central Asia. Babur, the founder of the Mughal Empire in the early 16th century, recorded the name "Hazara" in the Baburnama and several times referred to a group of Hazaras as "Turkoman Hazaras".

Over the course of centuries, invading Mongol (Turco-Mongol) and Turkic invaders, notably, the Qara'unas, the Chagatai Turco-Mongols, the Ilkhanate, and the Timurids, merged with the local indigenous Turkic and Iranic populations. Academics agree that Hazaras are ultimately the result of a combination of several Turkic, Mongolic, and Iranic tribes.

Despite being a mix of multiple distinct ethnicities, a number of researchers in their works write focusing on the Mongolic component. Authors, along with the term Hazaras, use the name Hazara Mongols: such as Elizabeth Emaline Bacon, Barbara A. West, Yuri Averyanov, Elbrus Sattsayev and other. According to historian Lutfi Temirkhanov, the Mongolian detachments left in Afghanistan by Genghis Khan or his successors became the starting layer, the basis of the Hazara ethnogenesis. According to him, the Turkic elements compared to the Mongolian ones played a secondary role. The Hazaras in the Ghilji neighborhood are called Mongols. The participation of the Mongols in the ethnogenesis of the Hazaras is evidenced by linguistic data, historical sources, data on toponymy, as well as works on population genetics. Such scholars as Vasily Bartold, Ármin Vámbéry, Vadim Masson, Vadim Romodin, Ilya Petrushevsky, Allah Rakha, Fatima, Min-Sheng Peng, Atif Adan, Rui Bi, Memona Yasmin, Yong-Gang Yao wrote about the historical use of the Mongolian language by the Hazaras.

Genetics
Genetically, the Hazara combine varying amounts of West Eurasian and East Eurasian derived components. Genetic data shows that the Hazaras of Afghanistan cluster closely with the Uzbek population of the country, while both groups are at a notable distance from Afghanistan's Tajik and Pashtun populations. There is evidence for both paternal and maternal relations to Turkic peoples, Mongolic peoples and Iranic peoples. The frequency of ancestry components among the Hazaras vary according to tribal affiliation. They display high genetic affinity to present-day Turkic populations of Central Asia and East Asia, as well as Mongolic populations. In terms of their overall genetic makeup, around 49% of the Hazaras average gene pool is derived from East Asian-like sources, around 48% is derived from European-like sources, and around 0.17%, 0.47%, and 2.30% is derived from African, Oceanian, and Amerindian-like sources respectively. The Hazaras genetic makeup is similar to Uzbek, Uyghur, Kazakh, Kyrgyz and Mongol populations.

Some analysis argues that the Hazaras are closely related to the Turkic populations of Central Asia, rather than Mongolians and East Asians or Indo-Iranians.

In other study the results from pairwise genetic distances, MDS, PCA, and phylogenetic relationship reconstruction demonstrate that present-day Hazaras are genetically closer to the Turkic-speaking populations (Uyghur, Kazakh, and Kyrgyz) residing in northwest China than with other Central/South Asian populations and Mongolian. Outgroup and admixture f3, f4, f4-ratio, qpWave, and qpAdm results further demonstrate that Hazara shares more alleles with East Asians than with other Central Asians and carries 57.8% Mongolian-related ancestry. Hazaras have experienced genetic admixture with the local or neighboring populations and formed the current East-West Eurasian admixed genetic profile after their separation from the Mongolians.

Paternal haplogroups
The most common paternal DNA haplogroups of Hazaras from Afghanistan are the East Eurasian C-M217 (33,33%) and West Eurasian R1a1a-M17 (6.67%) clades, followed by West Eurasian J2-M172 and L-M20. Some Hazaras were also found to belong to the haplogroup E1b1b1-M35, L-M20 and H-M69, which are shared with Tajiks, Pashtuns as well as Indian populations. One individual with haplogroup B-M60, normally found in Eastern Africa, was found as well.

C2 (previously known as C3-Star cluster) was the most frequent haplogroup in Pakistani and Afghan Hazaras. Pakistani Hazara harbored high frequency of haplogroup C-M217 at c. 40% (10/25) and Haplogroup R1b at c. 32% (8/25). A relatively high frequency of R1b was also found in Eastern Russian Tatars and Bashkirs. All three groups are thought to be associated with the Golden Horde. Haplogroup C-M217, also known as C2, is the most frequent haplogroup in Mongol and Kazakh populations. According to studies, Y-DNA haplogroup C2 among Hazaras is associated with the expansion of the Mongols and with the Mongolian origin of the Hazaras.

Maternal haplogroups
The Hazara share c. 35% maternal haplogroups with contemporary East Asian populations, while c. 65% is shared with West Eurasian populations. The Hazaras as a whole have mostly West Eurasian mtDNA.

History
The first mention of Hazaras is made by Babur in Baburnama in the early 16th century, especially such tribes of Hazaras as Sultan Masaudi Hazaras, Turkoman Hazaras. and Kedi Hazaras. Later, Hazaras were mentioned by the court historians of Shah Abbas of the Safavid dynasty.

It is reported that Hazaras embraced Shia Islam between the end of the 16th and the beginning of the 17th century, during the Safavid periods. Hazara men, along with those of other ethnic groups, were recruited to the army of Ahmad Shah Durrani in the 18th century.

19th century
During the second reign of Dost Mohammad Khan in the 19th century, Hazaras from Hazarajat began to be taxed for the first time. However, for the most part, they still managed to keep their regional autonomy until the 1892 Battle of Uruzgan and subsequent subjugation of Abdur Rahman began in the late 19th century.

When the Treaty of Gandomak was signed and the Second Anglo-Afghan War ended in 1880, Abdur Rahman set out a goal to bring Hazaristan, Turkistan, and Kafiristan under his control. He launched several campaigns in Hazaristan due to resistance from the Hazaras in which his forces committed atrocities. The southern part of Hazaristan was spared as they accepted his rule, while the other parts of Hazaristan rejected Abdur Rahman and instead supported his uncle, Sher Ali Khan. In response to this Abdur Rahman waged a war against tribal leaders who rejected his policies and rule. This is known as the Hazara Uprisings.

These campaigns had a catastrophic impact on the demographics of Hazaras causing over sixty percent of the total Hazara population to be massacred with some being displaced and exiled from their own lands. The Hazara lands was distributed among loyalist villagers of nearby non-Hazaras. The repression after the uprising has been called genocide or ethnic cleansing in the history of modern Afghanistan.

After these massacres, Abdul Rahman forced many Hazara families from the Hazara areas of Uruzgan and other parts of Hazaristan to leave their hometowns and ancestral lands. causing some many Hazaras fled to neighboring countries such as Central Asia, Iran, British India, Iraq, and Syria. Those Hazaras living in the northern Hindu Kush went to Tsarist Russia, mostly in the southern cities of Russia, and some of them went to Iran. Many Hazaras living in the Tsarist Russian regions lost their language, culture, and ethnic identity over time due to the similarities between the racial building and the physical appearance of the people of those regions, and they settled and gravitated among them. These fleeing Hazaras settled in previous Tsarist Russia regions, including Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, and Dagestan. But the Hazaras in northwestern Afghanistan migrated to Iran and settled in neighborhoods in and around Mashhad. These Hazaras later became known as Khawari or Barbari. Another part of Hazaras from the southeast of the Hazara regions of Afghanistan has moved to British India, which resides in Quetta, present-day Pakistan and present-day India. Another group has settled in Syria and Iraq. These Hazara people who migrated to Pakistan, India, Iran, Syria, and Iraq were unable to settle with the people of these areas because of the differences in physical appearance, so they have not lost their language, culture, and ethnic identity.

20th and 21st century
In 1901, Habibullah Khan, Abdur Rahman's eldest son and successor granted amnesty to Hazaras and asked them to return who were exiled by his predecessor. But few of them returned and settled in Turkistan and Balkh province because they had lost their previous lands. Hazara continued to face social, economic and political discrimination through most of the 20th century. In 1933 Muhammad Nadir Shah the King of Afghanistan was assassinated by Abdul Khaliq Hazara, a school student. The Afghan government captured and executed him later, along with several of his family members.

Mistrust of the central government by the Hazaras and local uprisings continued. In particular, from 1945 to 1946, during Zahir Shah's rule, a revolt took place by the leadership of Ibrahim Khan most known as "Ibrahim Gawsawar" against new taxes that were exclusively imposed on Hazaras. The Kuchis meanwhile not only were exempted from taxes but also received allowances from the Afghan government. The angry rebels began capturing and killing government officials. In response, the central government sent a force to subdue the region and later removed the taxes.

The repressive policies of the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) after the Saur Revolution in 1978 caused uprisings throughout the country. Fearing Iranian influence, the Hazaras were particularly persecuted. President Hafizullah Amin published in October 1979 a list of 12,000 victims of the Taraki government. Among them were 7,000 Hazaras who were shot in the notorious Pul-e-Charkhi prison.

During the Soviet-Afghan War, the Hazarajat region did not see as much heavy fighting as other regions of Afghanistan. Most of the Hazara mujahideen fought the Soviets in the regions which were on the periphery of the Hazarajat region. There was a division between the Tanzeem Nasle Nau Hazara, a party based in Quetta, of Hazara nationalists and secular intellectuals, and the Islamist parties in Hazarajat. By 1979, the Hazara-Islamist groups had already liberated Hazarajat from the central Soviet-backed Afghan government and later took entire control of Hazarajat away from the secularists. By 1984, the Islamist dominance of Hazarajat was complete. As the Soviets withdrew in 1989, the Islamist groups felt the need to broaden their political appeal and turned their focus to Hazara nationalism. This led to the establishment of the Hizbe-Wahdat, an alliance of all the Hazara resistance groups (except the Harakat-e Islami). In 1992 with the fall of Kabul, the Harakat-e Islami took sides with Burhanuddin Rabbani's government while the Hizbe-Wahdat took sides with the opposition. The Hizbe-Wahdat was eventually forced out of Kabul in 1995 when the Taliban movement captured and killed their leader Abdul Ali Mazari. With the Taliban's capture of Kabul in 1996, all the Hazara groups united with the new Northern Alliance against the common new enemy. However, despite fierce resistance Hazarajat fell to the Taliban in 1998. The Taliban had Hazarajat isolated from the rest of the world going as far as not allowing the United Nations to deliver food to the provinces of Bamyan, Ghor, Maidan Wardak and Daykundi.

In 1997, a revolt broke out among Hazaras in Mazar-e Sharif when they refused to be disarmed by the Taliban; 600 Taliban were killed in subsequent fighting. In retaliation, the genocidal policies of Abdur Rahman Khan's era was adopted by the Taliban. In 1998, six thousand Hazaras were killed in the north; the intention was ethnic cleansing of Hazaras. In March 2001, the two giant Buddhas of Bamiyan, were also destroyed even though there was a lot of condemnation.

Hazaras have also played a significant role in the creation of Pakistan. One such Hazara was Qazi Muhammad Isa of the Sheikh Ali tribe, who had been close friends with Muhammad Ali Jinnah, having met each other for the first time while they were studying in London. He had been the first from his native province of Balochistan to obtain a Bar-at-Law degree and had helped set up the All-India Muslim League in Balochistan.

Though Hazaras played a role in the anti-Soviet movement, other Hazaras participated in the new communist government, which actively courted Afghan minorities. Sultan Ali Kishtmand, a Hazara, served as prime minister of Afghanistan from 1981 to 1990 (with one brief interruption in 1988). The Ismaili Hazara of Baghlan Province likewise supported the communists, and their pir (religious leader) Jaffar Naderi led a pro-Communist militia in the region.

During the years that followed, Hazara suffered severe oppression, and many ethnic massacres, genocides, and pogroms were carried out by the predominantly ethnic Pashtun Taliban and are documented by such groups as the Human Rights Watch.

Following the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States, American and Coalition forces invaded Afghanistan. After the fall of the Taliban many Hazaras became important figures in Afghanistan. Hazara have also pursued higher education, enrolled in the army, and many have top government positions. For example, Some Vice Presidents, ministers and governors were Hazara, including Karim Khalili, Sarwar Danish, Sima Samar, Muhammad Mohaqiq, Habiba Sarābi, Abdul Haq Shafaq, Sayed Anwar Rahmati, Qurban Ali Urozgani, Muhammad Arif Shah Jahan, Mahmoud Baligh, Mohammad Eqbal Munib and Mohammad Asim Asim. The mayor of Nili, Daykundi was Azra Jafari, who became the first female mayor in Afghanistan. Some other notable Hazaras include Sultan Ali Keshtmand, Abdul Wahed Sarābi, Akram Yari, Ghulam Ali Wahdat, Sayed Mustafa Kazemi, Ghulam Husain Naseri, Abbas Noyan, Daoud Naji, Abbas Ibrahim Zada, Ramazan Bashardost, Ahmad Shah Ramazan, Ahmad Behzad, Nasrullah Sadiqi Zada Nili, Fahim Hashimy, Maryam Monsef and others.

Although Afghanistan has been historically one of the poorest countries in the world, the Hazarajat region has been kept less developed by past governments. Since the ousting of the Taliban in late 2001, billions of dollars poured into Afghanistan for reconstruction and several large-scale reconstruction projects took place in Afghanistan from August 2012. For example, there have been more than 5000 kilometers of road pavement completed across Afghanistan, of which little was done in central Afghanistan (Hazarajat). On the other hand, the Band-e Amir in Bamyan Province became the first national park in Afghanistan. A road from Kabul to Bamyan was also built, along with new police stations, government institutions, hospitals and schools in the provinces of Bamyan, Daykundi and others mostly Hazara-populated provinces. The first ski resort in Afghanistan was also established in Bamyan Province.

Discrimination indicates that Kuchis (Pashtun nomads who have historically been migrating from region to region depending on the season) are allowed to use Hazarajat pastures during the summer season. It is believed that allowing the Kuchis to use some of the grazing lands in Hazarajat began during the rule of Abdur Rahman Khan. Living in mountainous Hazarajat, where little farmland exists, Hazara people rely on these pasture lands for their livelihood during the long and harsh winters. In 2007 some Kuchi nomads entered into parts of Hazarajat to graze their livestock, and when the local Hazara resisted, a clash took place and several people on both sides died using assault rifles. Such events continue to occur, even after the central government was forced to intervene, including President Hamid Karzai. In late July 2012, a Hazara police commander in Uruzgan province reportedly rounded up and killed 9 Pashtun civilians in revenge for the death of two local Hazara. The matter is being investigated by the Afghan government.

The drive by President Hamid Karzai after the Peace Jirga to strike a deal with Taliban leaders caused deep unease in Afghanistan's minority communities, who fought the Taliban the longest and suffered the most during their rule. The leaders of the Tajik, Uzbek and Hazara communities, vowed to resist any return of the Taliban to power, referring to the large-scale massacres of Hazara civilians during the Taliban period.

Following the fall of Kabul to the Taliban in 2021, which ended the war in Afghanistan, concerns were raised as to whether the Taliban would reimpose the persecution of Hazaras as in the 1990s. An academic at Melbourne's La Trobe University said that "The Hazaras are very fearful that the Taliban will likely be reinstating the policies of the 1990s" despite Taliban reassurances that they will not revert to the bad old ways of the 1990s.

Demographics
Some sources claim that Hazaras comprise about 20 to 30 percent of the total population of Afghanistan. They were by far the largest ethnic group in the past, in 1888–1893 Uprisings of Hazaras over sixty percent of them were massacred with some being displaced and meanwhile, they also lost a large part of their territory to non-Hazaras that could double their land size today.

Afghanistan
The Hazaras are one of the largest ethnic groups in Afghanistan, primarily residing in the Hazaristan region in central Afghanistan and generally scattered throughout Afghanistan.

Until the 1880s, the Hazaras were completely autonomous and controlled the entire Hazaristan region. Nowadays, the vast majority of Hazaras reside in Hazaristan and many others reside in the cities of the country.

Central Asia
After the massacre and genocide of the Hazaras by Abdur Rahman in 1888–1893, many Hazaras migrated to Central Asia regions under the occupation of Tsarist Russia, such as Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Kazakhstan, and some of them settled mostly in Samarkand and Bukhara. Over time, a large number of Hazaras living in the regions of Tsarist Russia lost their accent, language and ethnic identity due to the similarities of their racial structure and appearance with the people of those regions and were assimilated among them.

Pakistan

During the period of British colonial rule on the Indian subcontinent in the 19th century, Hazaras worked during the winter months in coal mines, road construction, and other working-class jobs in some cities of what is now Pakistan. The earliest record of Hazara in the areas of Pakistan is found in Broadfoot's Sappers company from 1835 in Quetta. This company had also participated in the First Anglo-Afghan War. Some Hazara also worked on the agriculture farms in Sindh and the construction of the Sukkur barrage. In 1962, the government of Pakistan recognized the Hazaras as one of the ethnic groups of Pakistan.

Most Pakistani Hazaras are native to Balochistan, Pakistan. Localities in the city of Quetta with prominent Hazara populations include Hazara Town and Mariabad. The literacy level among the Hazara community in Pakistan is relatively high compared to the Hazaras of Afghanistan, and they have integrated well into the social dynamics of the local society. Saira Batool, a Hazara woman, was one of the first female pilots in the Pakistan Air Force. Other notable Hazaras include Qazi Muhammad Isa, General Musa Khan, who served as the 4th Commander-in-Chief of the Pakistan Army from 1958 to 1968, Air Marshal Sharbat Ali Changezi, whose years of service in the Pakistan Air Force were from 1949 to 1987, Hussain Ali Yousafi, the slain chairman of the Hazara Democratic Party, Sayed Nasir Ali Shah, MNA from Quetta and his father Haji Sayed Hussain Hazara who was a senator and member of Pakistan Parliament during the Zia-ul-Haq era.

Despite all of this, Hazaras are often targeted by militant groups such as the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi and others. "Activists say at least 800-1,000 Hazaras have been killed since 1999 and the pace is quickening. More than one hundred have been murdered in and around Quetta since January, according to Human Rights Watch." The political representation of the community is served by Hazara Democratic Party, a secular liberal democratic party, headed by Abdul Khaliq Hazara.

Iran

The Hazara people in Iran are also referred to as Barbari, or Khāwari (خاوری). Over many years as a result of political unrest in Afghanistan, some Hazaras have migrated to Iran. The local Hazara population has been estimated at 500,000. At least one-third have spent more than half their life in Iran Before Iran was forced to relinquish the Herat region according to the Treaty of Paris in 1857 during the reign of Naser al-Din Shah, the country was in possession of a much greater part of Greater Khorasan. One of the tribes that roamed in this part prior to cession, were the Hazaras. The tribe settled on both sides of the border after the border between Iran and Afghanistan was drawn. The leadership of this tribe at the end of the Qajar period and also the Pahlavi period was with Muhammad Yusuf Khan Hazara known as "Sulat al-Sultanah Hazara", a Sunni Hazara who was a politician and the first Sunni representative member in the Iranian Parliament and the only Sunni Iranian who has represented Mashhad in the history of Iran's legislatures.

India
The Attarwala claim to be Hazara who mainly inhabitant in the state of Gujarat, India, descended from a group of Mughal soldiers who were initially settled in Agra, during the rule of the Mughal Emperor Jahangir. According to their recorded documents, they then migrated to Ahmedabad via Gwalior, Ratlam and Godhra. This migration followed their participation in the community in the 1857 Indian War Independence. Once settled in Gujarat, India, the community took up the occupation of manufacturing perfumes known as ittars. The word attarwala means the manufacturer of perfumes. A second migration took place in 1947 from Agra, after the partition of India, with some members immigrating to Pakistan, while others joining their co-ethnics in Ahmedabad.

Diaspora
Alessandro Monsutti argues, in his recent anthropological book, that migration is the traditional way of life of the Hazara people, referring to the seasonal and historical migrations which have never ceased and do not seem to be dictated only by emergencies such as war. Due to the decades of war in Afghanistan and the sectarian violence in Pakistan, many Hazaras left their communities and have settled in Australia, New Zealand, Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom and particularly the Northern European countries such as Sweden and Denmark. Some go to these countries as exchange students while others through human smuggling, which sometimes costs them their lives. Since 2001, about 1,000 people have died in the ocean while trying to reach Australia by boats from Indonesia. Many of these were Hazaras. The notable case was the Tampa affair in which a shipload of refugees, mostly Hazaras, was rescued by the Norwegian freighter MV Tampa and subsequently sent to Nauru.

Culture and society

Hazara culture is a combination of customs, traditions, behaviors, beliefs, and norms that have been formed in interaction and confrontation with the surrounding phenomena for many years and now it is displayed as a cultural identity. The Hazara culture is rich in heritage, with many unique cultures, and has common influences with various cultures of Central Asia and South Asia. The Hazaras, outside of Hazarajat, have adopted the cultures of the cities where they dwell, resembling the cultures and traditions of the Afghan Tajiks and Pashtuns. Traditionally the Hazara are highland farmers. In Hazarajat, they have retained many of their own cultures and traditions and many of their cultures and traditions are more closely related to those of Central Asians than to those of the Afghan Tajiks. Historically and traditionally, Hazaras live in houses, but some of them such as Aimaq Hazara and a few other are semi-nomadic and live mostly in felt yurts, rather than houses.

Attire
Hazara clothing have an important and special role in supporting the cultural, traditional and social identity of the Hazara ethnicity. Hazara clothes are produced manually and by machine; In Afghanistan these types of clothes are sewn in most parts of the country, especially in central provinces of Afghanistan.

Male clothing
Hazara men traditionally wear barak, also called barag, and hat. Barak is one of the important components of Hazara people's clothing. Barak is a kind of soft, sticky and thick piece made from the first wool of lambs of special sheep that are raised in Hazarajat, provided. In addition to being a very acceptable, stylish, and regal clothe, the Hazara barak is also a warm winter that is resistant to moisture and does not get wet easily in snow and rain. Also, barak has a special property and softness, it reduces muscle pains and is also healing for joint pains. Nowadays, the most common clothes among Hazara men is the perahan o tunban and sometimes with a hat or a turban.

Female clothing
The traditional clothing of Hazara women includes a pleated skirt with a tunban or undergarment. The lower tunbans are made of fabrics such as flowered chits and the upper skirts are made of better fabrics such as velvet or zari and net and have a border or decoration at the bottom. The women's shirt is calf-length, close-collared, and long-sleeved, and has slits on both sides that are placed on the skirts, which are admired for their completeness in the Islamic set. Hazara women's clothing has certain characteristics according to their social, economic, and age conditions. The clothes of young Hazara women are made of different fabrics in different colors and happy designs with beautiful and colorful chador, but older women prefer dark-colored fabrics with simple black and white designs. Hazara women's chador or head cover is often decorated with ornaments that is often silver or gold, and sometimes with a hat. The ornaments on the clothe is silver or gold necklace with colorful beads, buttons, bangles, and silver or gold bracelets.

Headgear
Hazaras traditionally wear headgear or hats, which are of different types for men and women. There are different types of Hazara hats and caps, some of which are made from animal skin and some from barak. Also some Hazara men wear the turban of Khorasan.

Cuisine
The Hazara cuisine is strongly influenced by Central Asian, South Asian, and Persian cuisines. However, there are special foods, cooking methods and different cooking styles that are specific to them. They have a hospitable dining etiquette. In their culture, it is customary to prepare special food for guests.

Language
The Hazaras speak the Dari and Hazaragi dialects of the Persian language.

According to Encyclopaedia of Islam, Hazaragi is a Persian dialect, which is infused with many Turkic and a few Mongolic words or loanwords. According to Encyclopædia Britannica, the Hazara speak an eastern variety of Persian called Hazaragi with many Mongolian and Turkic words. According to Encyclopaedia Iranica, the Hazaras speak a Persian dialect with many Turkic and some Mongolic words. According other sources, the Hazara population speaks Persian with some Mongolian words. According to an Iranica article on the language of Hazaras, the present dialect to consist of three strata: (1) pre-Mongol Persian, with its own substratum; (2) the Mongolian language; and (3) modern tājiki, which preserves in it elements of (1) and (2). The primary differences between Persian and Hazaragi are the accent. Despite these differences, Hazaragi is mutually intelligible with Dari, the official language of Afghanistan.

According to Doctor of Sciences Lutfi Temirkhanov, the ancestors of the Hazaras were Mongol-speaking and only after the resettlement, they mixed with the Persian-speaking and Turkic-speaking population: "hordes of Mongol princes and feudal lords found themselves in a Persian-speaking encirclement; they mixed with them, were influenced by the Persian-Tajik culture and gradually adopted the Persian language". According to a number of sources, in the 16th century during the life of Babur some of them spoke a Mongolian language. According to the Great Russian Encyclopedia an other sources, until the 19th century some Hazaras spoke Mongolian. And according to Temirkhanov, the Mongolian elements make up 10% of the Hazara vocabulary. The Turkic and Mongolic words make up about 20% of the vocabulary of Hazaragi dialect.

Religion
Hazaras predominantly practice Islam, mostly the Shi'a, with a significant and almost a large Sunni, some Isma'ili and Non-denominational Islam. The majority of Afghanistan's population practices Sunni Islam; this may have contributed to the discrimination against them.

Shia Hazaras
There is no single theory about the acceptance of the Shi'a Islam by the majority of Hazaras. Probably most of them accepted Shi'a Islam during the first part of the 16th century, in the early days of the Safavid dynasty.

Sunni Hazaras
A significant and almost a large population of Hazara people are Sunni Muslims. Sunni Hazaras have been Sunni since long ago and before the occupation of Hazara lands by Abdul Rahman, but some of them were converted from Shia to Sunni Islam after the occupation of Hazara lands by Abdul Rahman and 1888–1893 Hazara uprisings. In Afghanistan, they inhabit mainly in provinces of Kabul, Baghlan, Badghis, Ghor, Kunduz, Panjshir, Bamyan, Badakhshan, and Parwan.

A Sunni Hazara, Sher Muhammad Khan Hazara, the chieftain of the Hazaras of Qala e Naw, Badghis province and a warlord who participant in the Sunni coalition that defended Herat in 1837. Also, one of the defeaters of British forces around Qandahar and Maiwand desert during the First Anglo-Afghan War in 1838–1842.

Isma'ili Hazaras
Isma'ili Hazaras mainly live in provinces of Kabul, Parwan, Baghlan, Bamyan, Maidan Wardak, Samangan, and Zabul. The Isma'ili Hazaras have always been kept separate from the rest of the Hazaras on account of religious beliefs and political purposes.

Hazara tribes
The Hazara people have been organized by various tribes. Some overarching Hazara tribes are Sheikh Ali, Jaghori, Jaghatu, Qara Baghi, Ghaznichi, Muhammad Khwaja, Behsudi, Daimirdadi, Turkmani, Uruzgani, Daikundi, Daizangi, Daichopan, Daizinyat, Naiman, Qarlugh, Aimaq Hazara, and others. The different tribes come from Hazaristan (Hazara regions), such as Parwan, Bamyan, Ghazni, Ghor, Uruzgan, Daikundi, Maidan Wardak, and more. These tribes live throughout Afghanistan, parts of Pakistan and Iran, as well as in other Hazara-populated areas.

Writers and poets
Some well-known Hazara writers and poets include Faiz Muhammad Kateb, Amir Khosrow Dehlavi, Ismael Balkhi, Hassan Poladi, Kazim Yazdani, Ali Mohaqiq Nasab, Kamran Mir Hazar, Basir Ahang, Sayed Askar Mousavi, Ali Baba Taj, Sayed Abutalib Mozaffari, Rahnaward Zaryab, Aziz Royesh, and so on.

Music
Many Hazara musicians are widely hailed as being skilled in playing the dambura, a native, regional lute instrument similarly found in other Central Asian nations, such as Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan. Some of the famous Hazara musician and dambura players are, such as Sarwar Sarkhosh, Dawood Sarkhosh, Safdar Tawakoli, Sayed Anwar Azad, and others. In Hazara dambura sometimes revolutionary hymns are very common. The first singer who started singing revolutionary hymns on dambura was Sarwar Sarkhosh, and his main message was the uprising of the young generation and the fight against oppression. Also Ghaychak a field instruments in music that is usually played like a fiddle. The resonance bowl is made of walnuts or berries and its wires are metal which is one of the stringed instruments in Hazara music.

Renowned Pakistani musician, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan is also descent of Hazara from Behsudi tribe.

Cinema
Hazara cinema artists have no older background, but nowadays some of their famous actors and actresses include Hussain Sadiqi, Abid Ali Nazish, Shamila Shirzad, Nikbakht Noruz, and others.

Sports
Many Hazaras engaged in varieties of sports, including football, volleyball, wrestling, martial arts, boxing, karate, taekwondo, judo, wushu, Jujitsu, Cricket, Tennis, and more. Pahlawan Ebrahim Khedri, a 62 kg wrestler, was the national champion for two decades in Afghanistan. Another famous Hazara wrestler, Wakil Hussain Allahdad, was killed in the 22 April 2018 Kabul suicide bombing in Dashte Barchi, Kabul.

Rohullah Nikpai, won a bronze medal in Taekwondo at the Beijing Olympics 2008, beating world champion Juan Antonio Ramos of Spain 4–1 in a play-off final. It was Afghanistan's first-ever Olympic medal. He then won a second Olympic medal for Afghanistan in the London 2012 games.

Another notable Hazara athlete Sayed Abdul Jalil Waiz was the first ever badminton player representing Afghanistan in the Asian Junior Championships in 2005, where he produced the first win for his country against Iraq, with 15–13, 15–1. He participated in several international championships since 2005 and achieved victories against Australia, the Philippines and Mongolia. Hamid Rahimi, a Hazara boxer from Afghanistan who lives in Germany. Hussain Sadiqi, a Hazara Australian martial artist who won an award for the best fight scene for an Australian made action movie.

Hazara football players are Zohib Islam Amiri, who is currently playing for the Afghanistan national football team, Moshtaq Yaqoubi an Afghan-Finnish footballer who plays for HIFK, Mustafa Amini, a Hazara Australian footballer who plays as a midfielder for Danish Superliga club AGF and the Australian national team, Rahmat Akbari an Australian footballer who plays as a midfielder for Brisbane Roar, and others like Rohullah Iqbalzada, Omran Haydary, Zelfy Nazary, Moshtaq Ahmadi, and Zahra Mahmoodi.

Some Hazara from Pakistan have also excelled in sports and have received numerous awards, particularly in boxing, football and field hockey.

Pakistani Hazara Abrar Hussain, a former Olympic boxer served as deputy director-general of the Pakistan Sports Board. He represented Pakistan three times at the Olympics and won a gold medal at the 1990 Asian Games in Beijing. Another Hazara boxer from Pakistan is Haider Ali a Commonwealth Games gold medalist and Olympian who is currently retired.

Former captain of the Pakistan national football team Qayyum Changezi was the second Pakistani footballer to score a hat trick in an international game. New Hazara youngsters are seen to appear in football in Pakistan mostly from Quetta, such as Muhammad Ali and Rajab Ali Hazara.

Another is Kulsoom Hazara, a Pakistani female karate champion who has won several gold, silver and bronze medals on national and international stages, including Pride of Pakistan Award. Other karateka Hazaras include Nargis Hameedullah who became the first Pakistani woman to win an individual medal (a bronze) at the Asian Games karate championship, and Shahida Abbasi.

Cultural sports
Cultural sports of Hazara people are those sports that have been inherited from their ancestors for generations.

Buzkashi
Buzkashi is a Central Asian sport in which horse-mounted players attempt to place a goat or calf carcass in a goal. It is the national sport in Afghanistan and is one of the cultural sports of the Hazara people and they still practice this sport in Afghanistan.

Tirandāzi
Tirandāzi is a kind of archery and an old cultural sport of Hazaras.

Pahlawani
Pahlawani or Kushti is a kind of cultural wrestling sport that is performed by Hazaras. Pahlawani has a long history in Afghanistan and among the Hazaras. In Afghanistan, on holidays, Pahlawani fields are set up. Pahlawani is held in different age groups. This cultural sport has its special techniques. Because this sport is very ancient and familiar, it has been continued from generation to generation among the Hazaras.

title: Hazaras


text:
Hawala

Hawala or hewala (حِوالة ḥawāla, meaning transfer or sometimes trust), originating in India as havala (हवाला), also known as havaleh in Persian, and xawala or xawilaad in Somali, is a popular and informal value transfer system based on the performance and honour of a huge network of money brokers (known as hawaladars). They operate outside of, or parallel to, traditional banking, financial channels and remittance systems. The system requires a minimum of two hawaladars that take care of the "transaction" without the movement of cash or telegraphic transfer. While hawaladars are spread throughout the world, they are primarily located in the Middle East, North Africa, the Horn of Africa and the Indian subcontinent. Hawala follows Islamic traditions but its use is not limited to Muslims.

Origins
The hawala system originated in India. In 2003 Hawala as a legal concept was documented, finding evidence of Hawala reaching back to 1327, in a publication by Matthias Schramm and Markus Taube, with the title "Evolution and institutional foundation of the hawala financial system".

"Hawala" itself influenced the development of the agency in common law and in civil laws, such as the aval in French law and pt:aval Portuguese law, and the avallo in Italian law. The words aval and avallo were themselves derived from hawala. The transfer of debt, which was "not permissible under Roman law but became widely practiced in medieval Europe, especially in commercial transactions", was due to the large extent of the "trade conducted by the Italian cities with the Muslim world in the Middle Ages". The agency was also "an institution unknown to Roman law" as no "individual could conclude a binding contract on behalf of another as his agent". In Roman law, the "contractor himself was considered the party to the contract and it took a second contract between the person who acted on behalf of a principal and the latter in order to transfer the rights and the obligations deriving from the contract to him". On the other hand, Islamic law and the later common law "had no difficulty in accepting agency as one of its institutions in the field of contracts and of obligations in general".

Regulation
Following the September 11 attacks in 2001 those international organizations that are responsible for counterterrorism and enforcing laws against money laundering have directed their efforts on identifying problems within the hawala, as well as other remittance systems. The First International Conference on Hawala in May 2002 published the Regulatory Frameworks for Hawala and Other Remittance Systems. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) contributed a chapter, in which informal value transfer systems were considered. According to the IMF, countries with limited financial services experience macroeconomic consequences because residents rely heavily on informal fund transfer systems. Informal value transfer systems share common characteristics, including anonymity, lack of regulation or official scrutiny. Therefore informal value transfer systems may be susceptible to use by criminal organizations for money laundering and terrorist financing.

Procedure
In the most basic variant of the hawala system, money is transferred via a network of hawala brokers, or hawaladars. It is the transfer of money without actually moving it. In fact, a successful definition of the hawala system that is used is "money transfer without money movement". According to the author Sam Vaknin, there are large hawaladar operators with networks of middlemen in cities across many countries, but most hawaladars are small businesses who work at hawala as a sideline or moonlighting operation.

In general, the process of hawala operates as follows:

 * 1) Sending Money: The Sender provides a sum of money to a hawala agent known as the Sending Broker. This money is intended for the Recipient in another city, often in a foreign country.
 * 2) Providing Instructions: Along with the money, the Sender provides a code or password (Token) to the Sending Broker. This Token serves as a key for the Recipient to receive the money.
 * 3) Communicating the Token: The Sender informs the Recipient of the Token, either directly or through a different channel like a phone call or more recently, electronic messaging.
 * 4) Initiating Transfer: The Sending Broker contacts another hawala agent, the Receiving Broker, located in the Recipient's area. They inform the Receiving Broker about the money to be transferred and provide the Token necessary for the Recipient to collect the funds.
 * 5) Receiving Money: The Recipient approaches the Receiving Broker, who disburses the transferred sum to them, usually after deducting a small commission.
 * 6) Trust Mechanism: Hawala relies on a system of trust between brokers. The Sending Broker owes the Receiving Broker the amount disbursed to the Recipient. This trust is established over time and through established relationships within the hawala network. Despite the absence of formal documentation, hawala transactions heavily depend on the reputation and reliability of the brokers involved.
 * 7) Maintaining Integrity: The hawala network ensures integrity and trust by carefully vetting new brokers and maintaining strict adherence to established protocols and codes of conduct. Reputation within the network is paramount, and any breach of trust can result in severe consequences, including ostracisation from the network.

The unique feature of the system is that no promissory instruments are exchanged between the hawala brokers; the transaction takes place entirely on the honour system. As the system does not depend on the legal enforceability of claims, it can operate even in the absence of a legal and juridical environment. Trust and extensive use of connections are the components that distinguish it from other remittance systems. Hawaladar networks are often based on membership in the same family, village, clan or ethnic group, and cheating is punished by effective excommunication and the loss of honour, which lead to severe economic hardship.

Informal records are produced of individual transactions, and a running tally of the amount owed by one broker to another is kept. Settlements of debts between hawala brokers can take a variety of forms (such as goods, services, properties, transfers of employees, etc.), and need not take the form of direct cash transactions.

In addition to commissions, hawala brokers often earn their profits through bypassing official exchange rates. Generally, the funds enter the system in the source country's currency and leave the system in the recipient country's currency. As settlements often take place without any foreign exchange transactions, they can be made at other than official exchange rates.

Hawala is attractive to customers because it provides a fast and convenient transfer of funds, usually with a far lower commission than that charged by banks. Its advantages are most pronounced when the receiving country applies unprofitable exchange rate regulations or when the banking system in the receiving country is less complex (e.g., due to differences in the legal environment in places such as Afghanistan, Yemen, and Somalia). Moreover, in some parts of the world, it is the only option for legitimate fund transfers. It has been used even by aid organizations in areas in which it is the best-functioning institution.

Regional variants
Dubai has been prominent for decades as a welcoming hub for hawala transactions worldwide.

Hundis
The hundi is a financial instrument that developed on the Indian sub-continent for use in trade and credit transactions. Hundis are used as a form of remittance instrument to transfer money from place to place, as a form of credit instrument or IOU to borrow money and as a bill of exchange in trade transactions. The Reserve Bank of India describes the Hundi as "an unconditional order in writing made by a person directing another to pay a certain sum of money to a person named in the order."

Horn of Africa
According to the CIA, with the dissolution of Somalia's formal banking system, many informal money transfer operators arose to fill the void. It estimates that such hawaladars, xawilaad or xawala brokers are now responsible for the transfer of up to $1.6 billion per year in remittances to the country, most coming from working Somalis outside Somalia. Such funds have in turn had a stimulating effect on local business activity.

West Africa
The 2012 Tuareg rebellion left Northern Mali without an official money transfer service for months. The coping mechanisms that appeared were patterned on the hawala system.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Hawala


text:
Hydroponics

Hydroponics is a type of horticulture and a subset of hydroculture which involves growing plants, usually crops or medicinal plants, without soil, by using water-based mineral nutrient solutions in an artificial environment. Terrestrial or aquatic plants may grow freely with their roots exposed to the nutritious liquid or the roots may be mechanically supported by an inert medium such as perlite, gravel, or other substrates.

Despite inert media, roots can cause changes of the rhizosphere pH and root exudates can affect rhizosphere biology and physiological balance of the nutrient solution when secondary metabolites are produced in plants. Transgenic plants grown hydroponically allow the release of pharmaceutical proteins as part of the root exudate into the hydroponic medium.

The nutrients used in hydroponic systems can come from many different organic or inorganic sources, including fish excrement, duck manure, purchased chemical fertilizers, or artificial standard or hybrid nutrient solutions.

In contrast to field cultivation, plants are commonly grown hydroponically in a greenhouse or contained environment on inert media, adapted to the controlled-environment agriculture (CEA) process. Plants commonly grown hydroponically include tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, strawberries, lettuces, and cannabis, usually for commercial use, as well as Arabidopsis thaliana, which serves as a model organism in plant science and genetics.

Hydroponics offers many advantages, notably a decrease in water usage in agriculture. To grow 1 kg of tomatoes using intensive farming methods requires 214 liter of water; using hydroponics, 70 liter; and only 20 liter using aeroponics.

Hydroponic cultures lead to highest biomass and protein production compared to other growth substrates, of plants cultivated in the same environmental conditions and supplied with equal amounts of nutrients.

Since hydroponic growing takes much less water and nutrients to grow produce, and climate change threatens agricultural yields, it could be possible in the future for people in harsh environments with little accessible water to hydroponically grow their own plant-based food.

Hydroponics is not only used on earth, but has also proven itself in plant production experiments in space.

History
The earliest published work on growing terrestrial plants without soil was the 1627 book Sylva Sylvarum or 'A Natural History' by Francis Bacon, printed a year after his death. As a result of his work, water culture became a popular research technique. In 1699, John Woodward published his water culture experiments with spearmint. He found that plants in less-pure water sources grew better than plants in distilled water. By 1842, a list of nine elements believed to be essential for plant growth had been compiled, and the discoveries of German botanists Julius von Sachs and Wilhelm Knop, in the years 1859–1875, resulted in a development of the technique of soilless cultivation. To quote von Sachs directly: "In the year 1860, I published the results of experiments which demonstrated that land plants are capable of absorbing their nutritive matters out of watery solutions, without the aid of soil, and that it is possible in this way not only to maintain plants alive and growing for a long time, as had long been known, but also to bring about a vigorous increase of their organic substance, and even the production of seed capable of germination." Growth of terrestrial plants without soil in mineral nutrient solutions was later called "solution culture" in reference to "soil culture". It quickly became a standard research and teaching technique in the 19th and 20th centuries and is still widely used in plant nutrition science.

Around the 1930s plant nutritionists investigated diseases of certain plants, and thereby, observed symptoms related to existing soil conditions such as salinity. In this context, water culture experiments were undertaken with the hope of delivering similar symptoms under controlled laboratory conditions. This approach forced by Dennis Robert Hoagland led to innovative model systems (e.g., green algae Nitella) and standardized nutrient recipes playing an increasingly important role in modern plant physiology. In 1929, William Frederick Gericke of the University of California at Berkeley began publicly promoting that the principles of solution culture be used for agricultural crop production. He first termed this cultivation method "aquiculture" created in analogy to "agriculture" but later found that the cognate term aquaculture was already applied to culture of aquatic organisms. Gericke created a sensation by growing tomato vines 25 ft high in his back yard in mineral nutrient solutions rather than soil. He then introduced the term Hydroponics, water culture, in 1937, proposed to him by W. A. Setchell, a phycologist with an extensive education in the classics. Hydroponics is derived from neologism υδρωπονικά (derived from Greek ύδωρ=water and πονέω=cultivate), constructed in analogy to γεωπονικά (derived from Greek γαία=earth and πονέω=cultivate), geoponica, that which concerns agriculture, replacing, γεω-, earth, with ὑδρο-, water.

Despite initial successes, however, Gericke realized that the time was not yet ripe for the general technical application and commercial use of hydroponics for producing crops. He also wanted to make sure all aspects of hydroponic cultivation were researched and tested before making any of the specifics available to the public. Reports of Gericke's work and his claims that hydroponics would revolutionize plant agriculture prompted a huge number of requests for further information. Gericke had been denied use of the university's greenhouses for his experiments due to the administration's skepticism, and when the university tried to compel him to release his preliminary nutrient recipes developed at home, he requested greenhouse space and time to improve them using appropriate research facilities. While he was eventually provided greenhouse space, the university assigned Hoagland and Arnon to re-evaluate Gericke's claims and show his formula held no benefit over soil grown plant yields, a view held by Hoagland. Because of these irreconcilable conflicts, Gericke left his academic position in 1937 in a climate that was politically unfavorable and continued his research independently in his greenhouse. In 1940, Gericke, whose work is considered to be the basis for all forms of hydroponic growing, published the book, Complete Guide to Soilless Gardening. Therein, for the first time, he published his basic formula involving the macro- and micronutrient salts for hydroponically-grown plants.

As a result of research of Gericke's claims by order of the Director of the California Agricultural Experiment Station of the University of California, Claude Hutchison, Dennis Hoagland and Daniel Arnon wrote a classic 1938 agricultural bulletin, The Water Culture Method for Growing Plants Without Soil, one of the most important works on solution culture ever, which made the claim that hydroponic crop yields were no better than crop yields obtained with good-quality soils. Ultimately, crop yields would be limited by factors other than mineral nutrients, especially light and aeration of the culture medium. However, in the introduction to his landmark book on soilless cultivation, published two years later, Gericke pointed out that the results published by Hoagland and Arnon in comparing the yields of experimental plants in sand, soil and solution cultures, were based on several systemic errors ("...these experimenters have made the mistake of limiting the productive capacity of hydroponics to that of soil. Comparison can be only by growing as great a number of plants in each case as the fertility of the culture medium can support").

For example, the Hoagland and Arnon study did not adequately appreciate that hydroponics has other key benefits compared to soil culture including the fact that the roots of the plant have constant access to oxygen and that the plants have access to as much or as little water and nutrients as they need. This is important as one of the most common errors when cultivating plants is over- and underwatering; hydroponics prevents this from occurring as large amounts of water, which may drown root systems in soil, can be made available to the plant in hydroponics, and any water not used, is drained away, recirculated, or actively aerated, eliminating anoxic conditions in the root area. In soil, a grower needs to be very experienced to know exactly with how much water to feed the plant. Too much and the plant will be unable to access oxygen because air in the soil pores is displaced, which can lead to root rot; too little and the plant will undergo water stress or lose the ability to absorb nutrients, which are typically moved into the roots while dissolved, leading to nutrient deficiency symptoms such as chlorosis or fertilizer burn. Eventually, Gericke's advanced ideas led to the implementation of hydroponics into commercial agriculture while Hoagland's views and helpful support by the University prompted Hoagland and his associates to develop several new formulas (recipes) for mineral nutrient solutions, universally known as Hoagland solution.

One of the earliest successes of hydroponics occurred on Wake Island, a rocky atoll in the Pacific Ocean used as a refueling stop for Pan American Airlines. Hydroponics was used there in the 1930s to grow vegetables for the passengers. Hydroponics was a necessity on Wake Island because there was no soil, and it was prohibitively expensive to airlift in fresh vegetables.

From 1943 to 1946, Daniel I. Arnon served as a major in the United States Army and used his prior expertise with plant nutrition to feed troops stationed on barren Ponape Island in the western Pacific by growing crops in gravel and nutrient-rich water because there was no arable land available.

In the 1960s, Allen Cooper of England developed the nutrient film technique. The Land Pavilion at Walt Disney World's EPCOT Center opened in 1982 and prominently features a variety of hydroponic techniques.

In recent decades, NASA has done extensive hydroponic research for its Controlled Ecological Life Support System (CELSS). Hydroponics research mimicking a Martian environment uses LED lighting to grow in a different color spectrum with much less heat. Ray Wheeler, a plant physiologist at Kennedy Space Center's Space Life Science Lab, believes that hydroponics will create advances within space travel, as a bioregenerative life support system.

As of 2017, Canada had hundreds of acres of large-scale commercial hydroponic greenhouses, producing tomatoes, peppers and cucumbers.

Due to technological advancements within the industry and numerous economic factors, the global hydroponics market is forecast to grow from US$226.45 million in 2016 to US$724.87 million by 2023.

Techniques
There are two main variations for each medium: sub-irrigation and top irrigation. For all techniques, most hydroponic reservoirs are now built of plastic, but other materials have been used, including concrete, glass, metal, vegetable solids, and wood. The containers should exclude light to prevent algae and fungal growth in the hydroponic medium.

Static solution culture
In static solution culture, plants are grown in containers of nutrient solution, such as glass Mason jars (typically, in-home applications), pots, buckets, tubs, or tanks. The solution is usually gently aerated but may be un-aerated. If un-aerated, the solution level is kept low enough that enough roots are above the solution so they get adequate oxygen. A hole is cut (or drilled) in the top of the reservoir for each plant; if it is a jar or tub, it may be its lid, but otherwise, cardboard, foil, paper, wood or metal may be put on top. A single reservoir can be dedicated to a single plant, or to various plants. Reservoir size can be increased as plant size increases. A home-made system can be constructed from food containers or glass canning jars with aeration provided by an aquarium pump, aquarium airline tubing, aquarium valves or even a biofilm of green algae on the glass, through photosynthesis. Clear containers can also be covered with aluminium foil, butcher paper, black plastic, or other material to eliminate the effects of negative phototropism. The nutrient solution is changed either on a schedule, such as once per week, or when the concentration drops below a certain level as determined with an electrical conductivity meter. Whenever the solution is depleted below a certain level, either water or fresh nutrient solution is added. A Mariotte's bottle, or a float valve, can be used to automatically maintain the solution level. In raft solution culture, plants are placed in a sheet of buoyant plastic that is floated on the surface of the nutrient solution. That way, the solution level never drops below the roots.

Continuous-flow solution culture
In continuous-flow solution culture, the nutrient solution constantly flows past the roots. It is much easier to automate than the static solution culture because sampling and adjustments to the temperature, pH, and nutrient concentrations can be made in a large storage tank that has potential to serve thousands of plants. A popular variation is the nutrient film technique or NFT, whereby a very shallow stream of water containing all the dissolved nutrients required for plant growth is recirculated in a thin layer past a bare root mat of plants in a watertight channel, with an upper surface exposed to air. As a consequence, an abundant supply of oxygen is provided to the roots of the plants. A properly designed NFT system is based on using the right channel slope, the right flow rate, and the right channel length. The main advantage of the NFT system over other forms of hydroponics is that the plant roots are exposed to adequate supplies of water, oxygen, and nutrients. In all other forms of production, there is a conflict between the supply of these requirements, since excessive or deficient amounts of one results in an imbalance of one or both of the others. NFT, because of its design, provides a system where all three requirements for healthy plant growth can be met at the same time, provided that the simple concept of NFT is always remembered and practised. The result of these advantages is that higher yields of high-quality produce are obtained over an extended period of cropping. A downside of NFT is that it has very little buffering against interruptions in the flow (e.g., power outages). But, overall, it is probably one of the more productive techniques.

The same design characteristics apply to all conventional NFT systems. While slopes along channels of 1:100 have been recommended, in practice it is difficult to build a base for channels that is sufficiently true to enable nutrient films to flow without ponding in locally depressed areas. As a consequence, it is recommended that slopes of 1:30 to 1:40 are used. This allows for minor irregularities in the surface, but, even with these slopes, ponding and water logging may occur. The slope may be provided by the floor, benches or racks may hold the channels and provide the required slope. Both methods are used and depend on local requirements, often determined by the site and crop requirements.

As a general guide, flow rates for each gully should be one liter per minute. At planting, rates may be half this and the upper limit of 2 L/min appears about the maximum. Flow rates beyond these extremes are often associated with nutritional problems. Depressed growth rates of many crops have been observed when channels exceed 12 meters in length. On rapidly growing crops, tests have indicated that, while oxygen levels remain adequate, nitrogen may be depleted over the length of the gully. As a consequence, channel length should not exceed 10–15 meters. In situations where this is not possible, the reductions in growth can be eliminated by placing another nutrient feed halfway along the gully and halving the flow rates through each outlet.

Aeroponics
Aeroponics is a system wherein roots are continuously or discontinuously kept in an environment saturated with fine drops (a mist or aerosol) of nutrient solution. The method requires no substrate and entails growing plants with their roots suspended in a deep air or growth chamber with the roots periodically wetted with a fine mist of atomized nutrients. Excellent aeration is the main advantage of aeroponics. Aeroponic techniques have proven to be commercially successful for propagation, seed germination, seed potato production, tomato production, leaf crops, and micro-greens. Since inventor Richard Stoner commercialized aeroponic technology in 1983, aeroponics has been implemented as an alternative to water intensive hydroponic systems worldwide. A major limitation of hydroponics is the fact that 1 kg of water can only hold 8 mg of air, no matter whether aerators are utilized or not.

Another distinct advantage of aeroponics over hydroponics is that any species of plants can be grown in a true aeroponic system because the microenvironment of an aeroponic can be finely controlled. Another limitation of hydroponics is that certain species of plants can only survive for so long in water before they become waterlogged. In contrast, suspended aeroponic plants receive 100% of the available oxygen and carbon dioxide to their roots zone, stems, and leaves, thus accelerating biomass growth and reducing rooting times. NASA research has shown that aeroponically grown plants have an 80% increase in dry weight biomass (essential minerals) compared to hydroponically grown plants. Aeroponics also uses 65% less water than hydroponics. NASA concluded that aeroponically grown plants require ¼ the nutrient input compared to hydroponics. Unlike hydroponically grown plants, aeroponically grown plants will not suffer transplant shock when transplanted to soil, and offers growers the ability to reduce the spread of disease and pathogens. Aeroponics is also widely used in laboratory studies of plant physiology and plant pathology. Aeroponic techniques have been given special attention from NASA since a mist is easier to handle than a liquid in a zero-gravity environment.

Fogponics
Fogponics is a derivation of aeroponics wherein the nutrient solution is aerosolized by a diaphragm vibrating at ultrasonic frequencies. Solution droplets produced by this method tend to be 5–10 μm in diameter, smaller than those produced by forcing a nutrient solution through pressurized nozzles, as in aeroponics. The smaller size of the droplets allows them to diffuse through the air more easily, and deliver nutrients to the roots without limiting their access to oxygen.

Passive sub-irrigation
Passive sub-irrigation, also known as passive hydroponics, semi-hydroponics, or hydroculture, is a method wherein plants are grown in an inert porous medium that moves water and fertilizer to the roots by capillary action from a separate reservoir as necessary, reducing labor and providing a constant supply of water to the roots. In the simplest method, the pot sits in a shallow solution of fertilizer and water or on a capillary mat saturated with nutrient solution. The various hydroponic media available, such as expanded clay and coconut husk, contain more air space than more traditional potting mixes, delivering increased oxygen to the roots, which is important in epiphytic plants such as orchids and bromeliads, whose roots are exposed to the air in nature. Additional advantages of passive hydroponics are the reduction of root rot.

Ebb and flow (flood and drain) sub-irrigation

In its simplest form, nutrient-enriched water is pumped into containers with plants in a growing medium such as Expanded clay aggregate At regular intervals, a simple timer causes a pump to fill the containers with nutrient solution, after which the solution drains back down into the reservoir. This keeps the medium regularly flushed with nutrients and air.

Run-to-waste
In a run-to-waste system, nutrient and water solution is periodically applied to the medium surface. The method was invented in Bengal in 1946; for this reason it is sometimes referred to as "The Bengal System".

This method can be set up in various configurations. In its simplest form, a nutrient-and-water solution is manually applied one or more times per day to a container of inert growing media, such as rockwool, perlite, vermiculite, coco fibre, or sand. In a slightly more complex system, it is automated with a delivery pump, a timer and irrigation tubing to deliver nutrient solution with a delivery frequency that is governed by the key parameters of plant size, plant growing stage, climate, substrate, and substrate conductivity, pH, and water content.

In a commercial setting, watering frequency is multi-factorial and governed by computers or PLCs.

Commercial hydroponics production of large plants like tomatoes, cucumber, and peppers uses one form or another of run-to-waste hydroponics.

Deep water culture

The hydroponic method of plant production by means of suspending the plant roots in a solution of nutrient-rich, oxygenated water. Traditional methods favor the use of plastic buckets and large containers with the plant contained in a net pot suspended from the centre of the lid and the roots suspended in the nutrient solution. The solution is oxygen saturated by an air pump combined with porous stones. With this method, the plants grow much faster because of the high amount of oxygen that the roots receive. The Kratky Method is similar to deep water culture, but uses a non-circulating water reservoir.

Top-fed deep water culture
Top-fed deep water culture is a technique involving delivering highly oxygenated nutrient solution direct to the root zone of plants. While deep water culture involves the plant roots hanging down into a reservoir of nutrient solution, in top-fed deep water culture the solution is pumped from the reservoir up to the roots (top feeding). The water is released over the plant's roots and then runs back into the reservoir below in a constantly recirculating system. As with deep water culture, there is an airstone in the reservoir that pumps air into the water via a hose from outside the reservoir. The airstone helps add oxygen to the water. Both the airstone and the water pump run 24 hours a day.

The biggest advantage of top-fed deep water culture over standard deep water culture is increased growth during the first few weeks. With deep water culture, there is a time when the roots have not reached the water yet. With top-fed deep water culture, the roots get easy access to water from the beginning and will grow to the reservoir below much more quickly than with a deep water culture system. Once the roots have reached the reservoir below, there is not a huge advantage with top-fed deep water culture over standard deep water culture. However, due to the quicker growth in the beginning, grow time can be reduced by a few weeks.

Rotary
A rotary hydroponic garden is a style of commercial hydroponics created within a circular frame which rotates continuously during the entire growth cycle of whatever plant is being grown.

While system specifics vary, systems typically rotate once per hour, giving a plant 24 full turns within the circle each 24-hour period. Within the center of each rotary hydroponic garden can be a high intensity grow light, designed to simulate sunlight, often with the assistance of a mechanized timer.

Each day, as the plants rotate, they are periodically watered with a hydroponic growth solution to provide all nutrients necessary for robust growth. Due to the plants continuous fight against gravity, plants typically mature much more quickly than when grown in soil or other traditional hydroponic growing systems. Because rotary hydroponic systems have a small size, they allow for more plant material to be grown per area of floor space than other traditional hydroponic systems.

Rotary hydroponic systems should be avoided in most circumstances, mainly because of their experimental nature and their high costs for finding, buying, operating, and maintaining them.

Substrates (growing support materials)
Different media are appropriate for different growing techniques.

Rock wool
Rock wool (mineral wool) is the most widely used medium in hydroponics. Rock wool is an inert substrate suitable for both run-to-waste and recirculating systems. Rock wool is made from molten rock, basalt or 'slag' that is spun into bundles of single filament fibres, and bonded into a medium capable of capillary action, and is, in effect, protected from most common microbiological degradation. Rock wool is typically used only for the seedling stage, or with newly cut clones, but can remain with the plant base for its lifetime. Rock wool has many advantages and some disadvantages. The latter being the possible skin irritancy (mechanical) whilst handling (1:1000). Flushing with cold water usually brings relief. Advantages include its proven efficiency and effectiveness as a commercial hydroponic substrate. Most of the rock wool sold to date is a non-hazardous, non-carcinogenic material, falling under Note Q of the European Union Classification Packaging and Labeling Regulation (CLP).

Mineral wool products can be engineered to hold large quantities of water and air that aid root growth and nutrient uptake in hydroponics; their fibrous nature also provides a good mechanical structure to hold the plant stable. The naturally high pH of mineral wool makes them initially unsuitable to plant growth and requires "conditioning" to produce a wool with an appropriate, stable pH.

Expanded clay aggregate
Baked clay pellets are suitable for hydroponic systems in which all nutrients are carefully controlled in water solution. The clay pellets are inert, pH-neutral, and do not contain any nutrient value.

The clay is formed into round pellets and fired in rotary kilns at 1200 C. This causes the clay to expand, like popcorn, and become porous. It is light in weight, and does not compact over time. The shape of an individual pellet can be irregular or uniform depending on brand and manufacturing process. The manufacturers consider expanded clay to be an ecologically sustainable and re-usable growing medium because of its ability to be cleaned and sterilized, typically by washing in solutions of white vinegar, chlorine bleach, or hydrogen peroxide, and rinsing completely.

Another view is that clay pebbles are best not re-used even when they are cleaned, due to root growth that may enter the medium. Breaking open a clay pebble after use can reveal this growth.

Growstones
Growstones, made from glass waste, have both more air and water retention space than perlite and peat. This aggregate holds more water than parboiled rice hulls. Growstones by volume consist of 0.5 to 5% calcium carbonate – for a standard 5.1 kg bag of Growstones that corresponds to 25.8 to 258 grams of calcium carbonate. The remainder is soda-lime glass.

Coconut Coir
Coconut coir, also known as coir peat, is a natural byproduct derived from coconut processing. The outer husk of a coconut consists of fibers which are commonly used to make a myriad of items ranging from floor mats to brushes. After the long fibers are used for those applications, the dust and short fibers are merged to create coir. Coconuts absorb high levels of nutrients throughout their life cycle, so the coir must undergo a maturation process before it becomes a viable growth medium. This process removes salt, tannins and phenolic compounds through substantial water washing. Contaminated water is a byproduct of this process, as three hundred to six hundred liters of water per one cubic meter of coir are needed. Additionally, this maturation can take up to six months and one study concluded the working conditions during the maturation process are dangerous and would be illegal in North America and Europe. Despite requiring attention, posing health risks and environmental impacts, coconut coir has impressive material properties. When exposed to water, the brown, dry, chunky and fibrous material expands nearly three or four times its original size. This characteristic combined with coconut coir's water retention capacity and resistance to pests and diseases make it an effective growth medium. Used as an alternative to rock wool, coconut coir offers optimized growing conditions.

Rice husks
Parboiled rice husks (PBH) are an agricultural byproduct that would otherwise have little use. They decay over time, and allow drainage, and even retain less water than growstones. A study showed that rice husks did not affect the effects of plant growth regulators.

Perlite
Perlite is a volcanic rock that has been superheated into very lightweight expanded glass pebbles. It is used loose or in plastic sleeves immersed in the water. It is also used in potting soil mixes to decrease soil density. It does contain a high amount of fluorine which could be harmful to some plants. Perlite has similar properties and uses to vermiculite but, in general, holds more air and less water and is buoyant.

Vermiculite
Like perlite, vermiculite is a mineral that has been superheated until it has expanded into light pebbles. Vermiculite holds more water than perlite and has a natural "wicking" property that can draw water and nutrients in a passive hydroponic system. If too much water and not enough air surrounds the plants roots, it is possible to gradually lower the medium's water-retention capability by mixing in increasing quantities of perlite.

Pumice
Like perlite, pumice is a lightweight, mined volcanic rock that finds application in hydroponics.

Sand
Sand is cheap and easily available. However, it is heavy, does not hold water very well, and it must be sterilized between uses.

Gravel
The same type that is used in aquariums, though any small gravel can be used, provided it is washed first. Indeed, plants growing in a typical traditional gravel filter bed, with water circulated using electric powerhead pumps, are in effect being grown using gravel hydroponics, also termed "nutriculture". Gravel is inexpensive, easy to keep clean, drains well and will not become waterlogged. However, it is also heavy, and, if the system does not provide continuous water, the plant roots may dry out.

Wood fiber
Wood fibre, produced from steam friction of wood, is an efficient organic substrate for hydroponics. It has the advantage that it keeps its structure for a very long time. Wood wool (i.e. wood slivers) have been used since the earliest days of the hydroponics research. However, more recent research suggests that wood fibre may have detrimental effects on "plant growth regulators".

Sheep wool
Wool from shearing sheep is a little-used yet promising renewable growing medium. In a study comparing wool with peat slabs, coconut fibre slabs, perlite and rockwool slabs to grow cucumber plants, sheep wool had a greater air capacity of 70%, which decreased with use to a comparable 43%, and water capacity that increased from 23% to 44% with use. Using sheep wool resulted in the greatest yield out of the tested substrates, while application of a biostimulator consisting of humic acid, lactic acid and Bacillus subtilis improved yields in all substrates.

Brick shards
Brick shards have similar properties to gravel. They have the added disadvantages of possibly altering the pH and requiring extra cleaning before reuse.

Polystyrene packing peanuts
Polystyrene packing peanuts are inexpensive, readily available, and have excellent drainage. However, they can be too lightweight for some uses. They are used mainly in closed-tube systems. Note that non-biodegradable polystyrene peanuts must be used; biodegradable packing peanuts will decompose into a sludge. Plants may absorb styrene and pass it to their consumers; this is a possible health risk.

Inorganic hydroponic solutions
The formulation of hydroponic solutions is an application of plant nutrition, with nutrient deficiency symptoms mirroring those found in traditional soil based agriculture. However, the underlying chemistry of hydroponic solutions can differ from soil chemistry in many significant ways. Important differences include:
 * Unlike soil, hydroponic nutrient solutions do not have cation-exchange capacity (CEC) from clay particles or organic matter. The absence of CEC and soil pores means the pH, oxygen saturation, and nutrient concentrations can change much more rapidly in hydroponic setups than is possible in soil.
 * Selective absorption of nutrients by plants often imbalances the amount of counterions in solution.  This imbalance can rapidly affect solution pH and the ability of plants to absorb nutrients of similar ionic charge (see article membrane potential). For instance, nitrate anions are often consumed rapidly by plants to form proteins, leaving an excess of cations in solution. This cation imbalance can lead to deficiency symptoms in other cation based nutrients (e.g. Mg2+) even when an ideal quantity of those nutrients are dissolved in the solution.
 * Depending on the pH or on the presence of water contaminants, nutrients such as iron can precipitate from the solution and become unavailable to plants. Routine adjustments to pH, buffering the solution, or the use of chelating agents is often necessary.
 * Unlike soil types, which can vary greatly in their composition, hydroponic solutions are often standardized and require routine maintenance for plant cultivation. Under controlled laboratory conditions hydroponic solutions are periodically pH adjusted to near neutral (pH 6.0) and are aerated with oxygen. Also, water levels must be refilled to account for transpiration losses and nutrient solutions require re-fortification to correct the nutrient imbalances that occur as plants grow and deplete nutrient reserves. Sometimes the regular measurement of nitrate ions is used as a key parameter to estimate the remaining proportions and concentrations of other essential nutrient ions to restore a balanced solution.
 * Well-known examples of standardized, balanced nutrient solutions are the Hoagland solution, the Long Ashton nutrient solution, or the Knop solution.

As in conventional agriculture, nutrients should be adjusted to satisfy Liebig's law of the minimum for each specific plant variety. Nevertheless, generally acceptable concentrations for nutrient solutions exist, with minimum and maximum concentration ranges for most plants being somewhat similar. Most nutrient solutions are mixed to have concentrations between 1,000 and 2,500 ppm. Acceptable concentrations for the individual nutrient ions, which comprise that total ppm figure, are summarized in the following table. For essential nutrients, concentrations below these ranges often lead to nutrient deficiencies while exceeding these ranges can lead to nutrient toxicity. Optimum nutrition concentrations for plant varieties are found empirically by experience or by plant tissue tests.

Organic hydroponic solutions
Organic fertilizers can be used to supplement or entirely replace the inorganic compounds used in conventional hydroponic solutions. However, using organic fertilizers introduces a number of challenges that are not easily resolved. Examples include:
 * organic fertilizers are highly variable in their nutritional compositions in terms of minerals and different organic and inorganic species. Even similar materials can differ significantly based on their source (e.g. the quality of manure varies based on an animal's diet).
 * organic fertilizers are often sourced from animal byproducts, making disease transmission a serious concern for plants grown for human consumption or animal forage.
 * organic fertilizers are often particulate and can clog substrates or other growing equipment. Sieving or milling the organic materials to fine dusts is often necessary.
 * biochemical degradation and conversion processes of organic materials can make their mineral ingredients available to plants.
 * some organic materials (i.e. particularly manures and offal) can further degrade to emit foul odors under anaerobic conditions.
 * many organic molecules (i.e. sugars) demand additional oxygen during aerobic degradation, which is essential for cellular respiration in the plant roots.
 * organic compounds (i.e. sugars, vitamins, a.o.) are not necessary for normal plant nutrition.

Nevertheless, if precautions are taken, organic fertilizers can be used successfully in hydroponics.

Organically sourced macronutrients
Examples of suitable materials, with their average nutritional contents tabulated in terms of percent dried mass, are listed in the following table.

Organically sourced micronutrients
Micronutrients can be sourced from organic fertilizers as well. For example, composted pine bark is high in manganese and is sometimes used to fulfill that mineral requirement in hydroponic solutions. To satisfy requirements for National Organic Programs, pulverized, unrefined minerals (e.g. Gypsum, Calcite, and glauconite) can also be added to satisfy a plant's nutritional needs.

Additives
Compounds can be added in both organic and conventional hydroponic systems to improve nutrition acquisition and uptake by the plant. Chelating agents and humic acid have been shown to increase nutrient uptake. Additionally, plant growth promoting rhizobacteria (PGPR), which are regularly utilized in field and greenhouse agriculture, have been shown to benefit hydroponic plant growth development and nutrient acquisition. Some PGPR are known to increase nitrogen fixation. While nitrogen is generally abundant in hydroponic systems with properly maintained fertilizer regimens, Azospirillum and Azotobacter genera can help maintain mobilized forms of nitrogen in systems with higher microbial growth in the rhizosphere. Traditional fertilizer methods often lead to high accumulated concentrations of nitrate within plant tissue at harvest. Rhodopseudo-monas palustris has been shown to increase nitrogen use efficiency, increase yield, and decrease nitrate concentration by 88% at harvest compared to traditional hydroponic fertilizer methods in leafy greens. Many Bacillus spp., Pseudomonas spp. and Streptomyces spp. convert forms of phosphorus in the soil that are unavailable to the plant into soluble anions by decreasing soil pH, releasing phosphorus bound in chelated form that is available in a wider pH range, and mineralizing organic phosphorus.

Some studies have found that Bacillus inoculants allow hydroponic leaf lettuce to overcome high salt stress that would otherwise reduce growth. This can be especially beneficial in regions with high electrical conductivity or salt content in their water source. This could potentially avoid costly reverse osmosis filtration systems while maintaining high crop yield.

Common equipment
Managing nutrient concentrations, oxygen saturation, and pH values within acceptable ranges is essential for successful hydroponic horticulture. Common tools used to manage hydroponic solutions include:
 * Electrical conductivity meters, a tool which estimates nutrient ppm by measuring how well a solution transmits an electric current.
 * pH meter, a tool that uses an electric current to determine the concentration of hydrogen ions in solution.
 * Oxygen electrode, an electrochemical sensor for determining the oxygen concentration in solution.
 * Litmus paper, disposable pH indicator strips that determine hydrogen ion concentrations by color changing chemical reaction.
 * Graduated cylinders or measuring spoons to measure out premixed, commercial hydroponic solutions.

Equipment
Chemical equipment can also be used to perform accurate chemical analyses of nutrient solutions. Examples include:
 * Balances for accurately measuring materials.
 * Laboratory glassware, such as burettes and pipettes, for performing titrations.
 * Colorimeters for solution tests which apply the Beer–Lambert law.
 * Spectrophotometer to measure the concentrations of the key parameter nitrate and other nutrients, such as phosphate, sulfate or iron.
 * Containers for growing and storing the plants.

Using chemical equipment for hydroponic solutions can be beneficial to growers of any background because nutrient solutions are often reusable. Because nutrient solutions are virtually never completely depleted, and should never be due to the unacceptably low osmotic pressure that would result, re-fortification of old solutions with new nutrients can save growers money and can control point source pollution, a common source for the eutrophication of nearby lakes and streams.

Software
Although pre-mixed concentrated nutrient solutions are generally purchased from commercial nutrient manufacturers by hydroponic hobbyists and small commercial growers, several tools exist to help anyone prepare their own solutions without extensive knowledge about chemistry. The free and open source tools HydroBuddy and HydroCal have been created by professional chemists to help any hydroponics grower prepare their own nutrient solutions. The first program is available for Windows, Mac and Linux while the second one can be used through a simple JavaScript interface. Both programs allow for basic nutrient solution preparation although HydroBuddy provides added functionality to use and save custom substances, save formulations and predict electrical conductivity values.

Mixing solutions
Often mixing hydroponic solutions using individual salts is impractical for hobbyists or small-scale commercial growers because commercial products are available at reasonable prices. However, even when buying commercial products, multi-component fertilizers are popular. Often these products are bought as three part formulas which emphasize certain nutritional roles. For example, solutions for vegetative growth (i.e. high in nitrogen), flowering (i.e. high in potassium and phosphorus), and micronutrient solutions (i.e. with trace minerals) are popular. The timing and application of these multi-part fertilizers should coincide with a plant's growth stage. For example, at the end of an annual plant's life cycle, a plant should be restricted from high nitrogen fertilizers. In most plants, nitrogen restriction inhibits vegetative growth and helps induce flowering.

Growrooms
With pest problems reduced and nutrients constantly fed to the roots, productivity in hydroponics is high; however, growers can further increase yield by manipulating a plant's environment by constructing sophisticated growrooms.

CO2 enrichment
To increase yield further, some sealed greenhouses inject CO2 into their environment to help improve growth and plant fertility.

title: Hydroponics


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title: Humanist (disambiguation)