Practicing Hydroponics illustrates and documents the implementation of theory and products available to hydroponic gardeners through a "live" personal grow room. My approach to vegetable gardening in this environment came from research conducted on the internet; through reading books; and the knowledge gained though visits to local stores specializing in hydroponics. I happily share my mistakes and success in order to provide you with how I put theory into Practicing Hydroponics!
Grow 2 continues to show fantastic progress. The seeds in this grow, from the same seed packages used in Grow 1, were placed in Rockwool plugs soaked overnight in Europonic Rockwool Conditioner. We planted red and yellow sweet peppers, spinach, buttercrunch, romaine, arugula, parsley, leeks and fennel.
A significant difference between Grow 1 and Grow 2 included the use of the "plug tray". We believe that this tray allows more airflow around the seed plug, as well as within the tray (notice holes between the tray plug rows). We have not added any water to the tray since inserting the seeds into the Rockwool plugs. We have not seen any mold, fungus, or algae growth on these plugs as we did with the 98 STG cubes used in Grow 1 that were placed (packed) into germination tray. Grow 2 seeds were planted about 7 days ago. Humidity dome was removed for photos. The plug tray sits on top of a standard flat with approximately 3/4 inch of water in the bottom of the flat. The plugs in this tray do not touch the water in the flat. The water is in the flat is there to help keep moisture / humidity under the dome.
Above you can see a close up of our first yellow pepper plant germinating from Grow 2. Other pepper seeds have started to form primary growth. Seed packet indicated normal germination rate of 10 to 25 days. We have seen germination after 7 days. Exciting!
Our fennel grew about a half an inch between yesterday afternoon and this morning. We are now seeing the first leaves from the seed appear. These leaves were not seen yesterday. An overnight wonder! The leek seeds in the row directly to the left of the fennel (far right) are also showing progress and we anticipate we will see their first leaves in another day.
Grow 2 was germinated under "dark" conditions until we saw the first signs of leaves (buttercrunch, romaine, and arugula) and then began a 16 on / 8 off light cycle under a T5 florescent lamp. We are now planning Grow 3 and experiment with Rapid Rooter plugs, Rockwool plugs, and Sure To Grow (STG) cubes all in one modular tray.
Grow Room Update
Equipment shown in the video was acquired from a local grow shop - great educational resource, and retailers with an Internet presence. Special thanks to Texas Hydroponics (www.texashydroponics.com), Growco (www.4hydroponics.com) out of Michigan, and Discount Hydroponics (http://discounthydroponics.com/) out of California for all the great service, selection, and information provided to make our grow room the best we could. Other miscellaneous items acquired locally or had on hand. I am sure that some would go the DIY approach on some of these systems, I wanted to take the "proven" systems and used them first, then experiment with self constructed systems. You sure can learn a lot from the pros, and they deserve to be paid for all those years of R&D.
We finished the grow room ducting yesterday and as you can see in the video we are now in production.
First Seed Germination
Our first germination started several weeks ago and produced less than expected results. We used STG seed cubes and got about 25-30% of the seeds to germinate. I think we know where we went wrong. The process we used included:
1. Wet all cubes in the slab with pH corrected R.O. water, no nutrients
2. Drained excess water from the propagation tray (did not "squeeze" the cubes)
3. Placed seeds in cubes at depth indicated on seed packet
4. Placed humidity dome on the tray
4. Placed propagation tray under T5 light, 16 hours on, 8 hours off
Although we had good rates on the Cherry and Roma tomato plants, the rest didn't come out well. We started to see fungus / algae / mold on top of the cubes. I think due to the high humidity under the dome and poor air circulation in the tray itself (we used the entire block of 98 cubes in the package). After a few weeks, we picked the best 12 seedlings and placed them in the AeroFlow36 system under lights on 16 on / 8 off cycle. We also cranked on the CO2 system to deliver 1500 ppm in the room.
Second Seed Germination
After assuming we had to much humidity, no airflow, and perhaps too much water in the propagation tray, we switched strategies for the second planting. We selected the Rockwool plugs in a 50 count divided tray. After soaking the Rockwool plugs over night in the conditioning solution - noted below - we placed seeds in the plugs at appropriate depths, replaced the humidity dome and left the T5 over the tray off.
After 2 days we began to see sprouts on the buttercrunch lettuce, romain lettuce, and arugula. I waited one more day (today) and saw that we had initial leaves on the same, so I turned on the T5 for 16 on / 8 off cycle. We still do not have germination on the peppers, leeks, fennel, or parsley which all have longer germination rates. Will update as we get them.
