Thank you very much for your insight GPS. You make a lot of sense. I am right now out of town, so cannot get any pictures. However, I will tell you a little bit about it. The problem i had happened at the seedling stage. In fact i did water the thing too much. I used 72 cell tray, put coir chips in it with some vermaculite sprinkled over it basically to fill in the spaces and planted all my
seeds in it. I put enough water in the bottom solid tray, enough to last for couple of weeks, because i was again going to be out of town. This was in late feb when it was still cold. I put the tray in the garage under
lights on a timer. When i came back, many of the seeds had germinated and had sort of long lenky seedlings (not too long). I put the tray outside first in partial sun and then in full sun. At this time i was home so i watered it from below, in the tray. I guess even at this point i did not realize that coir remains saturated for long time. Some of the seedlings started drying up in the stem and toppled over. Even at this time i did not realize that the problem was too much water. Anyway, it was soon time for me to go out of town again (now). So, in a week or so i built my fill and drain system, took me much longer than i envisioned it. System consists of a 40"X48" 16" deep chamber made from wooden pallet. I used an immersible
pump to pump
nutrient solution from reservoir to the chamber and used a bell siphon device to drain it passively back to the reservoir. Right now I have put it on only once a day fill cycle with pump on for 30 minutes. I planted various sizes of nursery plants and planted them in one gallon containers. Lava rocks in the bottom inch or so, coir chips loosely packed (i did pre-soak and wash them for about 18 hours), and a layer of lava rock on top to keep coir from floating. These containers were set inside the chamber. I also placed the seedlings tray on an elevated surface. At the full fill level, the nutrient solution comes to about half way up the 1 gallon containers and knowing where the roots are in the containers, i know that only bottom 1/2 of the roots will be actually immersed in the solution at the full fill. So, it is about 30 minutes of actual solution dipping. The two days, i observed the system work, it looked good. I don't know what it will be when i get back. once the plants are established, i plan to transfer them in more appropriate size containers depending upon the plant. Thanks.