The new system, described in the journal Crop Health, is built around commercially available one-liter opaque plastic hydroponic pots with matching lids, each costing approximately 0.30 US dollars. A hole roughly half a centimeter in diameter is drilled in the center of each lid to cradle the seedling stem while the roots descend into the nutrient solution. Smaller auxiliary holes accommodate plastic sticks and clips that prop up plants as they grow, preventing tilting in mature specimens. The pots themselves are opaque, a detail with real practical consequences: by blocking light from reaching the solution, they suppress algal growth, which otherwise fouls hydroponic systems and adds cleaning labor. Because the pots can be cleaned, disinfected, and reused across experiments, the long-term cost of the platform drops even further. Crucially, no pumps, circulating reservoirs, or aeration devices are required at any point in the workflow.

The cultivation protocol begins on germination trays filled with perlite moistened with a half-strength modified Hoagland solution, or MHS, a complete nutrient formulation containing major ions such as nitrate, potassium, calcium, magnesium, and phosphate together with a full complement of micronutrients including boron, manganese, zinc, copper, molybdenum, and cobalt, buffered at a pH of 5.8 to 6.0. Seeds are surface-sterilized with a sodium dichloroisocyanurate solution containing Tween-20 before sowing, and seedlings germinate under controlled conditions at 24 degrees Celsius with a 16-hour light, 8-hour dark photoperiod and 60 to 70 percent relative humidity. After 15 days on the trays, seedlings are transferred into the hydroponic pots. The perlite clinging to the roots is gently rinsed away in water to minimize transplant damage, and the young plants are kept under low light for their first two days in the system to reduce shock. Early on, the solution fully submerges the roots; as the root system matures, the level is lowered so the liquid occupies only about three-quarters of the pot volume. This seemingly minor adjustment is one of the system’s most important engineering decisions, because it leaves the basal portions of the roots exposed to air and provides enough passive oxygenation to eliminate the need for artificial aeration altogether.

Nutrient management under the system is deliberately minimal. The solution is first replaced one month after transplanting, and thereafter renewed every two weeks, a schedule the authors found sufficient to sustain healthy growth without pH corrections or intermediate top-ups in most cases. The simplicity translates directly into labor savings compared with setups that demand frequent solution changes, continuous pH monitoring, and mechanical aeration. The researchers first optimized the platform with Nicotiana benthamiana, a mainstay of plant molecular biology prized for its amenability to transient transformation, grafting, and virus-induced gene silencing, and then expanded their tests across a striking taxonomic breadth.

To assess species compatibility, the team grew seven representative species side by side in hydroponics and conventional soil: the dicotyledonous cucumber, tomato, soybean, and N. benthamiana, and the monocotyledonous rice, wheat, and maize. Shoot length was tracked at 10, 20, and 35 days after transfer, with dry biomass measured at the final time point. The results favored hydroponics for several of the dicots. Ten days after transfer, cucumber and soybean shoots were 69 percent and 63 percent longer, respectively, than their soil-grown counterparts, an advantage maintained throughout the cultivation period. N. benthamiana nearly doubled its shoot length relative to soil-grown plants by day 35, and the shoot dry weights of hydroponic cucumber, soybean, and N. benthamiana were all significantly greater than those of soil-grown controls. Tomato was the exception among the dicots, with soil-grown plants reaching heights 32 percent greater after 35 days, although shoot dry weights did not differ significantly between the two systems, indicating that total biomass accumulation was comparable even if internodal elongation differed.

The monocots told a more cautious story. Rice, wheat, and maize showed no obvious differences in shoot length relative to soil-grown plants during the first 20 days after transfer, but as cultivation continued they progressively developed chlorosis and weak growth. The team attempted to rescue performance by testing half-strength, full-strength, and double-strength nutrient solutions, yet leaf yellowing persisted. The authors therefore conclude that the current system supports early-stage monocot growth but is not yet suitable for long-term monocot cultivation, and they suggest that formulations supplying nitrogen as ammonium or as mixed ammonium and nitrate, along with alternative iron sources and pH adjustments, may be needed to close that gap. The honest recognition of this limitation gives the work practical credibility: the platform is presented as a broadly capable dicot system rather than a universal solution.

Beyond the seven directly compared species, four additional plants, Arabidopsis thaliana, cultivated tobacco, potato, and the medicinal legume Astragalus membranaceus, all grew healthily in the system. In total, eight dicotyledonous species were cultivated successfully, and four of them, N. benthamiana, Arabidopsis, soybean, and tomato, completed their entire life cycles and produced mature seeds entirely within the hydroponic setup. The full-cycle result is particularly notable for Arabidopsis, a species often considered difficult to grow hydroponically, and it means researchers can now carry a plant from germination to seed set without ever touching soil, opening the door to experiments in which root-zone conditions are controlled from cradle to grave.

The functional demonstrations extend well beyond simple cultivation. In transient expression assays, hydroponically grown N. benthamiana leaves expressing the RUBY reporter, which produces a visible red pigment, and the enhanced green fluorescent protein showed transformation efficiency comparable to soil-grown plants. Tomato grafting succeeded in both systems, with all nine graft attempts taking under each condition, supporting the system’s use in studies of systemic signaling and metabolite transport. The parasitic weed dodder, Cuscuta australis, established infections on hydroponic hosts just as readily as on soil-grown plants, providing a clean platform for host–parasitic plant interaction studies. Perhaps most compelling is the system’s performance in root exudate work, a field where soil is a hopeless confound. The researchers collected exudates from phosphorus-starved N. benthamiana and found that the concentrated exudates triggered germination in up to 76 percent of broomrape (Phelipanche aegyptiaca) seeds, a rate closely matching that induced by the synthetic strigolactone analog GR24, confirming that the platform captures biologically meaningful strigolactone signaling under nutrient stress.

Stress physiology experiments further showcased the platform’s precision. Thirty-day treatments of nitrogen deficiency, phosphorus deficiency, and 200 millimolar salt stress produced distinct, quantifiable phenotypes in N. benthamiana: salt stress severely suppressed height and cut chlorophyll content by roughly half, nitrogen starvation drove strong leaf yellowing and a 50 percent reduction in shoot biomass, and phosphorus deficiency reduced biomass by 32 percent while actually stimulating root elongation, a classic foraging response. Quantitative PCR confirmed that the expression of marker genes for nitrogen starvation (NRT1.1, NR, AMT1;1), phosphorus starvation (PHO2, PHR1, SPX1), and oxidative salt stress (SOD1-1, SOD1-2, CAT1) tracked the treatments faithfully. Wounding experiments added another layer: mechanical damage to hydroponically grown leaves and roots rapidly induced the jasmonic acid biosynthesis genes AOC and AOS, and root wounding triggered measurable accumulation of jasmonic acid and its bioactive conjugate JA-isoleucine within 30 minutes, demonstrating that even fast-moving hormonal signaling can be resolved in this system.

The authors argue that the combination of negligible cost, effortless assembly, reusability, and freedom from aeration equipment makes this platform a practical tool for laboratories with limited resources, and the breadth of validated applications, from root physiology and stress assays to grafting, parasitic plant interactions, exudate collection, and transient gene expression, suggests it could become a quiet workhorse across plant biology. For a field in which the price of entry has often been measured in specialized hardware and hours of maintenance, a 30-cent pot that can carry a plant from seed to seed is a refreshingly democratic proposition, and one that many laboratories are likely to adopt within the year.

Subject of Research: A low-cost, reusable hydroponic system for multi-species plant cultivation and root biology research

Article Title: A versatile, low-cost, and reusable hydroponic system for the cultivation of plants of various species

Article References: Zhang, J., Zhang, X., Qian, M., & Wu, J. (2026). A versatile, low-cost, and reusable hydroponic system for the cultivation of plants of various species. Crop Health, 4(1), Article 21. https://doi.org/10.1007/s44297-026-00084-5

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1007/s44297-026-00084-5

Keywords: hydroponics, plant science, Nicotiana benthamiana, Arabidopsis thaliana, soybean, tomato, root exudates, abiotic stress, parasitic plants, jasmonic acid, grafting, soilless cultivation