as soon as the roots reach the nutrients the lady's will grow like the hammers
So we've reached Day 9 - she's sent a couple of roots down which are almost touching the nutes now:
Her growth is really beginning to accelerate and she's still only small which is a good sign - looking forward to when those roots hit the res solution!
teach me how to do it, you obviously know what your doing when it comes to hydro
I'm still learning myself grogr33n - the hydro grows I did ten years ago I don't think count - I'm very rusty! I've done a lot of reading though and the concept is quite simple, it's just keeping on top of things so you don't hit avoidable problems (pH, res temp, EC etc.) At the moment it's pretty low maintenance as she's not using tons of water / nutes etc. The pH is staying pretty stable and she's not using too much water (she's used about 1.5l since Saturday and the EC had climbed from 1.3 to 1.4 but I've topped up with 1/2 strength and the EC's back to 1.3).
I think a small hydro set up like mine is pretty low maintenance; a couple of minutes a day to check everything is ok, and then about half an hour once a week to empty and clean the res and add new solution. I've never grown in soil but I think hydro can be less messy as you're only moving water around, and it's all automatic, so as long as the levels and pH etc aren't bouncing around you can leave it for a bit if you go away for a few days and it will keep doing it's thing. It's not very forgiving though if your pump breaks or you do something wrong!
Whilst I've never grown weed in soil I do a lot of gerdening generally and I've never seen anything grow as fast as with hydro. I'd recommend giving it a go - I think some people get put off by the cost of the systems if you buy them pre-made and the seeming complexity, but it's really no more complicated than mixing the nutes (which you have to do for soil too) and building the system, which is as simple as a tank and a pump to take the nutes to the roots.
Keep following though and you'll learn from my mistakes !!
Im very interested in your hydro setup as i am kinda thinking aeroponic for my next
It's quite a simple DIY system; a DWC with a pump and dripper to get the nutes right into the centre of the root mass. I bought the totes off the internet and then a pump and air pump. The totes were the expensive bit actually, but if you can find some second hand ones or know somebody who can give you a couple then you're just looking at a pump, air-pump and net pots - you could probably be up and running for £20 (excluding the cost of the nutes).
It runs 24h 24/7 pumping in the oxygen and pumping the solution to the roots.
I was thinking of aeroponics myself too before building this. I can quite easily convert it to aero and I'm tempted to give it a try, but I'm going to wait until I've got the BerryBomb going and I've cloned her - I want to keep everything the same but see how different systems / techniques affect yield, but if I use different plants it won't be a fair experiment!
If you wanted to build an aeoponic system you could follow what I've done but rather than run a tube from the pump to the centre of the root mass, just run a short hose up from the pump with a 'T' on the end, and a couple of short pieces of hose with mister spray attachments on the ends (Hozelock make some good ones for gardens and they come in 90deg, 180deg, and 360deg arcs so you can make sure there's a good mist across the whole inside. The sprays cost about £5. And then not worry about the clay pebbles obviously, just get some of the neoprene collars to cover the top of the net pots.
Agreed!
