Hydroponic Tomatoes

[Elagrow]

Someone suggested filling the container to about half way up the netpots with solution.
The air stone I am using is only large enough to bubble mist onto 1 netpot.

I did raise the netpots about 1/4 inch higher. My PH was at 7.6 I will bring that down once I have the chemicals to do it in the next couple day's

in regards to the Vermiculite, would you have a recommendation on what brand to use? (for my next project)

also, You use the Hydroton alone as a grow medium with the seedling?

[Sequim]

Originally Posted by Elagrow

Someone suggested filling the container to about half way up the netpots with solution.
The air stone I am using is only large enough to bubble mist onto 1 netpot.

The non-bubbled net cup might dry out enough if the bottom is very shallow into the solution. The problem is exacerbated by the rock wool cube. When it gets saturated it just won't dry out by itself, and the tiny seedling can't consume nearly enough water to dry it out. So the water it contains just stagnates and there is no significant flow with the aerated solution to transport oxygen.

The first time I had this problem I pulled the cubes with seedlings out of the netcup and carefully peeled the rockwool cube apart, salvaging as much of the seedling roots as I could. Then the naked seedling went back into the hydroton and began its recovery. I never used cubes again.

A pH of 7.6 is close to where precipitates can start to form. This would depend on the nutrient concentration though, which for your seedlings I'd guess is pretty low so you're probably safe for a while.

I think vermiculite is pretty generic stuff. The bag I have here is branded "Hoffman", but I'm sure any old brand will do.

I use straight hydroton only once the seedling has been removed from the vermiculite. I transplant into 3" net cups, then when the roots become long enough that removal from the net cup might be difficult I transplant to 6" net cups, again in hydroton.

And again, this transplant work is done under water. In air, you can't safely pull a seedling out of a net cup if its roots are tangled in the cup mesh, but this becomes pretty easy under water. I use a dinner fork to comb out any roots that are binding with the mesh.

I should have some pictures somewhere; I'll look for them.

[Sequim]

Originally Posted by Cole_Robbie

I'm glad you posted that info about the plant roots being too wet and diluting flavor. I wonder if things would be different in an aeroponic setup?

I learned about this, and the high-EC trick to mitigate it, from a professor at University of Arizona Controlled Environment Agriculture Center who was kind enough to communicate with my by E-mail. There's much to be learned there; I've often thought about attending one of their short courses, but I'm getting to old to travel well.

http://ag.arizona.edu/ceac/

[Cole_Robbie]

Thanks for the link. I especially like the grafting web site that page links to.

[Elagrow]

Alright alittle update.

I lowered the water level in the container to just above the level of the netpots bottom.

my sickly plant is looking worse, the leaves are still not developed good, and it just lays down unable to hold its self up still. My other plant however is looking strong still.
I hope the water dry's out abit in the cubes to allow oxygen to the roots better.

Both plants have roots coming down through the netpots, and the healthier looking one has several more then the other one, and they are much longer.

Do you have any suggestions on how to save the sickly plant? I hate to see it die on my, but if it is going to die no matter what I can focus on the 1 healthier one more and give it more space in the box. any help would be appreciated. I have a soil container almost ready if that might help it come back to life.

[Sequim]

Sometimes you just have to give up on a sick plant and start over. It might start to recover if it can get some air in the root zone, but even so it will face a long recovery and may never be a robust plant.

When I went through this same issue several years ago there were 12 plants in the grower. I stripped all the rock wool cubes off and most of the plants did recover; some did not. They were several weeks behind in growth though, so it would have been better to start over without the cubes.

Sorry I can't offer more hope.

Pete

[Elagrow]

Originally Posted by Sequim

Sometimes you just have to give up on a sick plant and start over. It might start to recover if it can get some air in the root zone, but even so it will face a long recovery and may never be a robust plant.

When I went through this same issue several years ago there were 12 plants in the grower. I stripped all the rock wool cubes off and most of the plants did recover; some did not. They were several weeks behind in growth though, so it would have been better to start over without the cubes.

Sorry I can't offer more hope.

Pete

That is fine, it is just a learning experience for me, next time I will try something different.

Lets focus on the healthier one then.

[ElementalDomain]

I have a small veganic organic farm in the high desert of California. I utilize a lot of different methods: no-till, ebbnflow hydro, strawbale, agro-towers. I come from a soil BRIX background. I have 50 pots total in my ebbnflow system. I have three seasons now with them and I will not use them for anything but flowers again. I started with regular mineral salt ferts, then moved to a organic fert. I could never get a BRIX reading above fair. I don't like the way the tomato roots circle the net pot - yes, they grow down below the pot but I just think the root systems are not healthy. I finally changed to water only in the reservoirs and went back to foliar feeding (vegan). I gradually began to see the BRIX reading go up.

I've had nothing but trouble with hydro systems. If your electricity goes off - and stays off for any amount of time in really hot weather - they can die. If the electricity goes off when the pots are filled with water - and it doesn't come back on right away - they get pythium and die. With the pots all connected to the same water source - if one gets sick, they all do. Its expensive to run a RO system - even with a 2:1 water waste ratio. My water bills since I've been doing hydro average about $300. They have to be dumped every 7 days - that is 50 gallons of water for each system.

In theory it would be nice to think you can shuttle that used water out to other growing things but if they aren't close then you are forever dragging hoses around and waiting while they trickle out. I did experiment with adding barley/peat mixtures to the reservoirs and developing an eco system so that they do not have to be changed during a season and it was moderately successful but needs tweaking.

All in all, waaay too much trouble and I am going back to straw bale gardening.

[ElementalDomain]

Originally Posted by Elagrow

Alright alittle update.

I lowered the water level in the container to just above the level of the netpots bottom.

my sickly plant is looking worse, the leaves are still not developed good, and it just lays down unable to hold its self up still. My other plant however is looking strong still.
I hope the water dry's out abit in the cubes to allow oxygen to the roots better.

Both plants have roots coming down through the netpots, and the healthier looking one has several more then the other one, and they are much longer.

Do you have any suggestions on how to save the sickly plant? I hate to see it die on my, but if it is going to die no matter what I can focus on the 1 healthier one more and give it more space in the box. any help would be appreciated. I have a soil container almost ready if that might help it come back to life.

Your plant most likely has pythium (root rot). It only takes the plant sitting with its roots in the water for about 4 hours to kill it. Root rot is caused because the root cannot get air - which happens if it is sitting in water. My advice, start over. You are going to need to completely sterilize everything that the plant touched - pythium will not go away even if the pots, dry. There is a misunderstanding in hydro that the plant should always be getting water - its a myth perpetuated by hydro companies - probably not intentionally. Until your tomato plant is of considerable size it does not need to be watered more than once a day. It needs to develop a really good root system before you move up to watering cycles. You will move up to each additional cycle carefully so as to not get root rot. Tomato plants also need to be stressed on a regular basis so that the fruit will be sweeter. You will know when to move up to each additional cycle of watering by monitoring the media it is growing in. It should be slightly damp, not wet. When it starts drying out faster than four hours or so, move up to another watering cycle. Tomatoes do better when not getting over-watered. Too much water introduces disease. Plants grown in hydro cubes often do not transplant well. The media of the cube, in this case rockwool, will clog up and will not be able to get air. It can be done but it takes someone really experienced in these things. I use buffered (to neutral ph) coco to seed in, move it to a coco net pot in the hydro system. At some point in the season when I cut the tomato plant back to 12", I take the whole thing (it will be sort of welded together, the roots and media and will come out easy) out of the net pot and transplant it into a air-pot or Rootmaker and take it into the greenhouse so it can continue to grow and thrive in the greenhouse during the winter.

[ElementalDomain]

Originally Posted by Sequim

I haven't tried any organic nutes. I didn't know there is such a thing.

There is probably more than one definition of "organic", but my understanding is that "organic" describes nutrition minerals in their unrefined state derived from formerly living substances by natural processes. Anything containing refined minerals would not qualify as organic.

Some minerals must be compounded or otherwise processed (such as chelation) to become available to the plants. Bioactivity and other natural processes accomplish this in soil media, but I don't understand how it could be accomplished in hydroponic media.

If these processes are done as part of the nutrient manufacturing, then wouldn't something be needed to segregate the desired compounds from the process waste before introducing to the growing system? This would seem like a form of refinement.

Please clarify this for me if you can. I'm all ears. Well, actually "all eyes" would be more accurate for a forum post.


Pete

Yes, there are organic nutes - by definition they cannot contain mineral salts - which most hydro nutes are. You can lower ph with citric acid but you can raise it with regular non-aluminum baking soda. I have to ask though, why are you trying to grow a "seedling" in a hydro system? Some do, its true, but there is no need to and its a lot of work. They are too small and too fragile and they will not leaf right. I start my seedlings in damp-off, on a heat mat, under T5 lights - with the lights being 3-6 inches above the seedling tray. Your seedlings, if the light and heat amounts are correct will come up in 3 days. They will develop their first leaves at about an inch high. When they develop their first set of true leaves I transplant them into Rootmaker propagation cells using neutral buffered coco and leave them there until they are about 8" tall. THEN I transplant them into the hydro system. Its less work, trust me on this, and you get too see which plants are the most healthy to use in the hydro systems. If you try this way you will see that the plants develop and fruit faster.

[Elagrow]

Originally Posted by ElementalDomain

Yes, there are organic nutes - by definition they cannot contain mineral salts - which most hydro nutes are. You can lower ph with citric acid but you can raise it with regular non-aluminum baking soda. I have to ask though, why are you trying to grow a "seedling" in a hydro system? Some do, its true, but there is no need to and its a lot of work. They are too small and too fragile and they will not leaf right. I start my seedlings in damp-off, on a heat mat, under T5 lights - with the lights being 3-6 inches above the seedling tray. Your seedlings, if the light and heat amounts are correct will come up in 3 days. They will develop their first leaves at about an inch high. When they develop their first set of true leaves I transplant them into Rootmaker propagation cells using neutral buffered coco and leave them there until they are about 8" tall. THEN I transplant them into the hydro system. Its less work, trust me on this, and you get too see which plants are the most healthy to use in the hydro systems. If you try this way you will see that the plants develop and fruit faster.

Im just a beginner, learning new things daily here on tomatoville. My next grow I will definitely not use cubes, I will for sure germinate using vermiculite, and use hydroton as the sole medium for the hydroponic stage.

Also,
I removed the sick looking plant from the system, and will be only working with the single plant.

[Sequim]

Originally Posted by Elagrow

Im just a beginner, learning new things daily here on tomatoville. My next grow I will definitely not use cubes,

snip-------

Hang in there Elagrow. The best lessons are learned by mistakes, and these are also the ones you remember forever.


Pete

[Sequim]

Originally Posted by ElementalDomain

I have a small veganic organic farm in the high desert of California.

snip-----------

I once rode a motorcycle through Yucca Valley in the middle of summer. From this experience I'd say its a serious challenge to grow anything there, regardless of method. And it would be mighty difficult to keep hydro solutions cool enough to stifle pythium.

We have the opposite problem here on the Olympic Peninsula of Washington. Sometimes its hard to get the solutions warm enough for good root activity. Pythium is the least of my worries.

I size my reservoirs about 18 liters per plant (tomatoes) and add booster concentrate daily during warm sunny growing weather. I generally replace the solutions at 19 day intervals; plus or minus a few days depending on how the plants are behaving. I distribute the spent solution around on the rhododendrons. After a season of this my rhodies are blooming more vigorously than ever.


Pete

[Elagrow]

Heres my progress so far...



you know what that white powdery looking stuff on the rockwool?

I also got my PH down to 6.4, finally got the shipment of PH decrease.

My EC is also 419ppm seems low.

[Cole_Robbie]

That's powdery mildew. Plants can tolerate a little, but it can also take over and kill them, too.

Dilute drug store peroxide (3%) down to about 1% and pour that over the cube and the rocks. It's fine to get on the plant, too, it will kill any powdery mildew on the plant as well. It tends to grow down around the stem where you can't see it as well. Rockwool has a tendency to contribute to stem rot, as it is a good incubator with lots of moisture to grow mold and mildew.