Development of Soilless Culture in Mainland China

Soilless culture has developed very rapidly during the last fifteen years in mainland China. The area of soilless culture in China was around 0.1 hm² in 1985, 50 hm² of soilless culture area in 1995, at present there is about 315 hm² of soilless culture, it increased by about 5 times as compared with 5 years ago. Most areas are for vegetable production, and a few for flower production. They are mainly eco organic type soilless culture system, floating capillary hydroponics, NFT, DFH and Lu SC system. The main problems are how to reduce facility investment to produce non pollution high quality green food, and keep good production environment. The eco organic type soilless culture systems can produce organic Grade AA green food. The report introduced the brief history of soilless culture, main soilless culture systems, main progress in research and extension work, at last discussed the future of soilless culture in mainland China.