Hydroponic Food Production - A Definitive Guidebook for the Advanced Home Gardener and the Commercial Hydroponic Grower (7th Ed)
by Howard M. Resh
CRC Press | August 2012 | ISBN-10: 1439878676 | True PDF | 560 pages| 33.7 mb 
http://www.amazon.com/Hydroponic-Food-Production-Definitive-Commercial/dp/1439878676

Hydroponic Food Production: A Definitive Guidebook for the Advanced Home Gardener and the Commercial Hydroponic Grower, Seventh Edition is a comprehensive guide to soilless culture with extensively new and updated contents from the previous edition published in 2001. Meant for hobby and commercial growers, the book:
-    Shows the reader how to set up a hydroponic operation with the options of using any of the many hydroponic cultures presently used in the industry to grow vegetable crops
-    Provides background in plant physiology and nutrition essential for growing these crops
-    Describes nutrient formulations and their applications in nutrient solutions with calculations

This practical guide to soilless growing practices provides detailed information on how to design, set up, and operate hydroponic culture systems. Featuring more than 500 photographs, drawings, and tables, the seventh edition of this bestselling book has been extensively updated and expanded. The text describes the most successful growing cultures to use with specific crops and details media as well as hydroponic techniques. Chapters cover nutrient uptake and mixing as well as deficiencies and their symptoms, plant nutrition, nutrient solution, water culture, tropical hydroponics and special applications, plant culture, nutrient film technique, gravel culture, and more.

About the Author 
http://www.howardresh.com/images/Howard-Resh-thym.jpg
Howard M. Resh, Ph.D.(born January 11, 1941 in Canada) is a recognized authority worldwide on hydroponics. His website www.howardresh.com presents information on hydroponic culture of various vegetable crops. In addition, he has written five books on hydroponic culture both for commercial growers and backyard hobbyists. The call of commercial hydroponics has taken him to many projects in countries including Venezuela, Taiwan, Saudi Arabia, the United States, and in 1999 to Anguilla, British West Indies, in the Eastern Caribbean, where he is still today. Resh continues to do consulting on many unique hydroponic greenhouse operations, including Lufa Farms in Montreal, Canada, where he established the growing techniques and hydroponic systems for a rooftop hydroponic greenhouse in downtown Montreal.

CONTENTS
Chapter 1 Introduction ...................................................................................................1
Chapter 2 Plant Nutrition .................................................................................................9
Chapter 3 Nutrient Solution ...........................................................................................31
Chapter 4 The Medium ..................................................................................................89
Chapter 5 Water Culture ................................................................................................97
Chapter 6 Nutrient Film Technique .............................................................................145
Chapter 7 Gravel Culture .............................................................................................199
Chapter 8 Sand Culture ................................................................................................ 217
Chapter 9 Sawdust Culture ...........................................................................................231
Chapter 10 Rockwool Culture ........................................................................................245
Chapter 11 Coco Coir Culture .......................................................................................293
Chapter 12 Other Soilless Cultures ................................................................................309
Chapter 13 Tropical Hydroponics and Special Applications .........................................349
Chapter 14 Plant Culture................................................................................................387
Appendix 1: Horticultural, Hydroponic, and Soilless-Culture Societies ..................475
Appendix 2: Greenhouse Production Resources .........................................................477
Appendix 3: Units of Measurement—Conversion Factors ........................................ 483
Appendix 4: Physical Constants of Inorganic Compounds ....................................... 485
Appendix 5: Greenhouse and Hydroponic Suppliers ................................................. 487
Bibliography ..........................................................................................................493
Index ....................................................................................................................513