Hydro CBD flowers 2026: 14 pages read, one says hydroponics

Hydroponics means growing without soil. The roots either sit directly in a circulating nutrient solution or in a largely inert medium irrigated with that solution, such as rock wool, perlite, clay pebbles or coconut fibre. The grower then sets the pH, the strength of the solution and the light.

In its manual of good agricultural practices for greenhouse crops, the FAO devotes a chapter, "Soilless culture", to these systems. It defines soilless culture as any way of growing plants without soil as the rooting medium, with nutrients reaching the roots through the irrigation water. The roots grow either in a porous substrate watered with nutrient solution or in the solution itself. The next chapter, on substrates, names coconut fibre and perlite among the usual materials.

That leaves a useful distinction. A flower grown indoors on coco-perlite is soilless, yet its page does not use the word hydroponics. This comparison keeps to what each page says. Our guide to indoor, outdoor and greenhouse compares the three main ways of growing.

We reread the fourteen pages on 23 September 2026. The left-hand column gives each page's wording in a literal translation; for Purple Runtz, it quotes the editorial text.

Five pages describe soilless growing, and only one of them uses the term hydroponics. Eight describe greenhouse or open-field growing, the reverse of what the word suggests. The remaining page says "indoor" and names no medium.

Only one displayed name, Bubble Gum Hydro, keeps "Hydro"; on the other pages the word appears only in the address. The Purple Runtz page, displayed simply as "Runtz", gives two versions. Its summary mentions "indoor, no growth enhancers", while its editorial text and FAQ describe hydroponic growing on an inert substrate. The second wording is more precise.

Three pages describe soilless growing in enough detail to compare: the only one claiming hydroponics, and two grown on coco-perlite. The figures are the reference profiles shown on 23 September 2026. No laboratory certificate is published for these batches as of 18 October 2026.

The last row divides the price per gram by the CBD content. At 100 g, Purple Runtz comes to 2.05 ÷ 0.108 = €18.98 per gram of cannabidiol. Bubble Gum Hydro, with the same price and content, gives the same result. Orange Fritter shows 0.5 points more and costs €0.35 more per gram: 2.40 ÷ 0.113 = €21.24. Its extra content falls short of covering the higher price.

These figures do not show that soilless growing yields more CBD. Several open-field flowers in the same catalogue show higher figures, such as Wedding Cake and Forbidden Fruit at 12.3%, despite their "hydro" address. Content depends on genetics, growing practice and harvest timing, and has to be read batch by batch. Our survey of CBD flowers at 100 g compares prices across the whole catalogue.

On organic status, Regulation (EU) 2018/848 on organic production excludes hydroponic growing: organic crops must grow in living soil connected to the subsoil. The French agriculture ministry confirmed this in its answer to a written question in the Assemblée nationale published in May 2021. A soilless flower may be well grown and still cannot carry the organic logo. Our article on organic CBD flowers explains what the label guarantees.

In law, the growing medium plays no part. The French order of 30 December 2021 governs the variety, which must be listed in the EU common catalogue or the French catalogue, and the Δ⁹-THC content, capped at 0.30%. On 29 December 2022, the Conseil d'État, France's highest administrative court, struck down the ban on selling raw flowers. Neither text says anything about the growing medium.

A batch analysis measures cannabinoids, usually by high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC), and sometimes terpenes, pesticides and heavy metals. You need three lines to check a batch:

• the batch number, identical on the product page and the label;
• the Δ⁹-THC, stated as a figure and at most 0.30% (here 0.1%, 0.1% and 0.2%);
• the analysis date, which must come after the stated harvest.

An analysis says nothing about the growing method. No line of a cannabinoid profile reveals whether the plant grew in water, on coco or in the ground. That remains the producer's statement, which you read where it is written. The certificate of analysis guide and the laboratory page explain how to read an analysis, and the CBD flowers category lists all 72 products. Phytogrammes sells these flowers to adults only, and they are not food.