Hydroponics= cultivation of plants in nutrient solution rather than in soil.
If I was looking at the effect of phosphate ions on mitosis, how could I measure/change the concentration of phosphates in the solution, whilst keeping all other nutrients at the same concentration ❓
hmm. Well you could try making your own solutions with varying amounts of phosphates. However, you would then need to have several plants for each concentration plus one control with the original unaltered solution to monitor change. At that point you have reduced quite a bit of work to paperwork monitoring and such.
This seem like a direction you might be interested in moving in?
ERS