Agriculture
Leca prepares the best convenience bed for growth of plants due to:
Ventilating of the soil and root, preventing soil from evaporation and saving water for sponge-like body of aggregate, water feeding adjustment, lightness, insulation, chemically neutral, environment-friendly, cleaner than soil, and no pestilential effects on soil or plants.
What is the benefit of Leca aggregate for landscape area and how we can improve our building?
1. Instead of approximately 1.8 ton/m3 sweet soil can be used 1.1 ton/m3 mixed Leca and sweet soil or sometimes less than it, (depends on the Leca percentage) therefore more than 60% can be reduce imposed load.
Obviously the thickness of slabs, reinforcement and concrete will be reduced accordingly.
2. The earthquake loads depends on weight of building, therefore according to the imposed load reduction the applicable lateral load will be reduced.
3. Transportation, adjustment and up loading and off loading of this material is easier than heavy material.
4. The root of tree or flowers can easily move and grow at lightweight soil and aggregate.
5. The Leca manufactured at some 1100 degree temperature, therefore it not taints the soil and there are not anything to have inappropriate effects for plants.
6. The pH is ≈ 7.1 therefore is inactive for soil.
7. The Leca doesn’t decay like normal soil in long saturate condition which is considered a vital factor for plants.
8. Leca can improve a lot water drainage of Sweet soil which it is very usable in the Gulf countries when heavy rain.
9. Leca can stabilize the soil against the strong wind of Gulf countries.
10. With Leca we can improve protect the lower layer against high and low temperature and consequently roots of plants remain in wet condition.
What is hydroponics?
The word “hydroponics” derivates from the Greek words for water and work (ponos). The literal translation is “let the water do the work”. Modern applications began in 1930`s. Today hydroponics commonly refers to growing plants without soil. Plants do not need soil, they need mineral elements, water, air and light. In hydroponics the mineral elements are added to water to form a nutrient solution which feeds the plants. This technology has a tremendous future. One day our food may well be grown without soil. Thousands of commercial greenhouses around the world use hydroponic systems for tomatoes, lettuce and cucumbers and other vegetable crops of which many products will be found on your supermarket shelves. There are two main categories of hydroponic system: active which uses a pump to irrigate the gardens and passive that depends on gravity flow, capillary action or weak absorption.