Thread: hydro systems
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Old 12-14-2010, 09:58 PM
GpsFrontier GpsFrontier is offline
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Location: Lake Havasu AZ.
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There is not really one type of system that works well for all fruits (or even any plant). They all have their good points and bad points to take into consideration. For instance raspberries and blueberries grow much different than strawberry's. Raspberries and blueberries are large bushes where strawberry's are small bushes. And raspberries and blueberries take years to be fully productive, where if chilled first (winterized) strawberries will be productive shortly after planted for months.

Personally I would not even consider buying a hydroponic system, but rather build my own. I would grow strawberries in long tubes as a flood and drain system, I might even consider using the same design but using it as a NFT system (although I'm not really a fan of NFT systems). Or even in a water culture system (most people will call that a floating raft system). For large bushes like Raspberries and blueberries, I would use a drip system and a minimum 3 gallon bucket size, but I would go with 5 or even 7 gallon buckets. I'm not sure about blueberries but raspberries store their energy in the roots, so it's important not to damage their roots.

I'm not sure of your familiar with growing raspberries, so here is a link to some info about growing raspberries.
Growing Hydroponic Raspberries, part 1 | Hydroponics Blog - Hydroponics Articles - Hydroponics Online

Here is a thread (http://www.hydroponicsonline.com/for...o-systems.html) about some strawberries I grew two summers ago. I built it as a flood and drain system (ebb & flow), but it took almost 50 gallons of nutrient solution to fully flood and not run the pump dry. I eventually got it down to only needing 32 gallons by some modifications. I like the system although I would convert it to a aeroponics system in the future. That way I can have the same amount of plants but use less than 1/4 the nutrient solution.

Also I attached a few pictures of a design I plan to build for growing strawberries. I have not found a good source for the square tubing yet. Vinyl fence post tubing runs about $15 for one five foot piece. But you can easily use round ADS tubing (irrigation tubing) that runs $9 for a 10 foot long piece like I built this system with, it's usually found near the PVC tubing. You can even use rain gutter downspouts that run about $8 for a 10 foot long piece, they don't usual sell end caps for downspouts, but that would work well if you wanted to run it as a NFT system.
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Last edited by GpsFrontier; 12-14-2010 at 10:11 PM.
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