View Single Post
Old May 9, 2018   #6
bobcatgardener
Tomatovillian™
 
Join Date: Jan 2017
Location: Erath Louisiana
Posts: 32
Default

First the nutrients, I am using master blend. It has worked great on everything I have put it to. Even blackberry cuttings that were put in the buckets. The only issue I seem to have is with bell peppers, they seem to need more shade with the solution. Same plants in the field as in the HT and if their not shaded in the HT they get scorched.

As for as the set up I have different types. In the middle section, it's the Dutch bucket set up, again running master blend along with the nitro, and Epsom salt. Pump runs 4 times a day for 30 mins each at this time of year. Drunk g the heat of the summer I will add 3 more 15 min cycles In between while the sun is out. Even with shade cloth with 6 hrs between cycles the plants show signs of stress.

Now on the lean too on the side of the HT. I call it a trough system. The plants in it are just placed in a net cup with clay pebbles.
When I started I had drip emmiters that would run all the time slowly running water over the stems and roots in the net cups. I would hold about 2 inches of solution in the bottom or each trough. But that caused a problem as the small tubings would move with the temp changes. Even with them being secured down with straps. And then would run water across the tops of the plywood and down to the ground wasting it. So then we ran a pipe to the far end of the trough and would just circulate the solution from the far end to the drain end. Both worked fine but not losing the solution was a big pulse for me. Again at this point we were still only holding about 2 inches of solution in the bottom of the troughs.
I had some plants die and wanted to replace but at this point we had replaced the drippers with hard piping and the roots were barely long enough to get to the bottom of the net cup. So watch I did then was cut a piece of pipe and raise it to the point where the roots were in the solution. These took a bit longer to get established that with the drippers. But it has worked and worked well from what I can see. No matter how the trough is set up the water constantly runs.

After all that to answer your question. I am really not sure what to call it. I guess DWC would be a good call. The reason I built the troughs was I had a bunch of that OSB plywood laying around for way too long. So long that when I bought it, I paid less than 3 dollars a sheet for it.

Finally the audio... I am from south louisiana so I don't speak great all the time haha!

Thanks for the questions you have any suggestions?
bobcatgardener is offline   Reply With Quote