page_title: Aeroponics
section_title: Aeroponic propagation (cloning)
hierarchical_section_title: Aeroponics / History / Aeroponic propagation (cloning)
caption_attribution_description: English: GTI Aeroponic Rooting System (propagation) 1983
context_page_description: Aeroponics is the process of growing plants in an air or mist environment without the use of soil or an aggregate medium. The word "aeroponic" is derived from the Greek meanings of aer and ponos. Aeroponic culture differs from both conventional hydroponics, aquaponics, and in-vitro growing. Unlike hydroponics, which uses a liquid nutrient solution as a growing medium and essential minerals to sustain plant growth, or aquaponics, which uses water and fish waste, aeroponics is conducted without a growing medium. It is sometimes considered a type of hydroponics, since water is used in aeroponics to transmit nutrients.
context_section_description: Aeroponic culturing revolutionized cloning (vegetative propagation) from cuttings of plants. Numerous plants which were previously considered difficult, or impossible, became easier to propagate via stem cuttings in aeroponics, such as delicate hardwoods or cacti which were sensitive to bacterial infection in cuttings. The overall success of propagation with the use of aeroponics is that the system creates a highly aerated environment around the root, which causes good root hair development (Soffer and Burger, 1988). There is also more root and growth development due to the nutrients supplied to the plants through the aeroponics system (Santos and Fisher 2009). Since the roots are not grown in any rooting media, it minimizes the risk of the plants getting infected by root disease (Mehandru et al. 2014).
  The use of aeroponic is important for helping to propagate plants with low rate of success in vegetative propagation, plants that have important medicinal uses, plants that are in high demand, and to create new cultivars of certain plant species. Leptadenia reticulata is an important plant used in medicines that also has a low reproduction rate through both seed and cuttings (Mehandru et al. 2014). Aeroponics has made it easier to propagate some these important medicinal plants (Mehandru et al. 2014). Ulmus Americana, which was almost completely wiped out by Dutch elm disease, along with other cultivars of the species have also shown some success through propagation with aeroponics allowing for elm trees to be more available on the market (Oakes et al. 2012).
  Aeroponics is a more viable alternative to the traditionally used process of overhead misters (Peterson et al. 2018). There is a higher success rate with the use of aeroponics compared to overhead misters, and with the overhead misters there are drawbacks such as needing to apply large volumes of water, having potentially unsanitary conditions, having irregular misting coverage, and potential leaching of foliar nutrients (Peterson et al. 2018). In short, cloning became easier because the aeroponic apparatus initiated faster and cleaner root development through a sterile, nutrient rich, highly oxygenated, and moist environment (Hughes, 1983).
caption: GTi's apparatus cut-away of vegetative cutting propagated aeroponically, achieved 1983
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