Aeroponics is a growing method where the plant roots are suspended in the air with a fine mist of nutrient solution applied either continually or intermittently over the root surface. While we tend to think of aeroponics as a recent development in the hydroponics field, it has actually been in use since the 1940's, although largely as a research tool rather than as an economically feasible method of crop production. In the last decade however there has been the development of a number of aeroponics systems both for use commercially and as small ‘hobbyist' systems. The reasons for the interest in aeroponic technology stem from the fact that using traditional hydroponics systems (media, NFT and flood and drain), has often made controlling conditions in the root zone difficult, particularly where growers are battling a tropical climate. And for this reason much of the large scale commercial development of aeroponics has occurred in countries such as Singapore where temperate crops such as lettuce and other salad greens can be successfully grown using aeroponics technology where other hydroponic methods failed.

For the hobbyist grower, aeroponics offers other major advantages: Oxygen starvation, stagnation and water logging and over watering are common problems in soil, soilless and hydroponic systems. It can be difficult to supply the plant's root system with sufficient oxygen, particularly in warmer conditions where the plant's oxygen requirement is much higher and less dissolved oxygen is held by the nutrient solution. Aeroponic methods ensure the plants not only have sufficient water, nutrients and of course oxygen. For this reason, the use of a well designed and maintained aeroponic system can give huge increases in growth rate and plant survival when compared to many of the standard NFT or media based hydroponic systems.