between planting hydro and ground.
 

Differences between planting hydro and ground.

On June 1, I transferred plants bought from Home Depot into my 16 bottle system. I had a cucumber left over, so I put it into the ground. The plant in the ground is about 3 times the size of the ones in the hydro system. The difference is, that the hydro plants have several fruit and the one in the ground has only 1 fruit. The hydro plant roots are just now peeking out of the holes in the cups, so obviously, the hydro roots are smaller resulting in smaller plants and leaf structure.

The question? Is this normal?

The reason hydro plants do not need as much roots as with dirt is because you are force feeding the plant every 30 minutes. With dirt plants the roots need to go searching for food and water in the ground to grow. Thus all the energy goes into root production instead of fruit production as with hydroponic plants.