When to move rockwool seedlings to dutch buckets

[gdgdad]

Stan, sorry for the delayed response. We’ve had 2 waves of visitors over the last 4 weeks! Family “escaping” their state’s “Lockdown”! I’d tried posting yesterday, but the site was down, and even as I post this it seems to be running slow.

Going full aeroponic for tomatoes will be interesting.
Are you running the pvc completely through the bucket, then 2 sprayers on each side of the netcup?

Given how massive the tomato plants get, the cages will have to be strong and not be supported by the buckets. I actually “hung” my tomato cages from a 2X2 that goes across the green house (see pics). Without perlite as a base, I’d worry the weight of the plant at the net cup/bucket lid would push the net cup through. I was able to re-coup easily 90% of the perlite when I changed plants, only replaced the paint stariner bags.

I’ll be following your progress closely. I believe the aeroponic approach would actually be better, no roots growing up into and clogging hose lines, and I swear the plants grow faster in the aeropnic cloner bucket. But, as I learned on my aeroponic rail system, I’d devise a way to easily access and change sprayers. My next design will have capped access holes over the sprayers, and I’ve already fabricated a tool to reach down into the rail and extract and replace the sprayer quickly. I’ve also learned lessons on what to grow and not grow in a rail system. Some plants get massive, overwhelm the rails covering other net cup “slots”. I’m sticking to small lettuce, small herbs & spices (the Peppermint got massive!!) and we’ve had great results with (and love to eat) the Bok Choy.
As usual, the nutrient/ water consumption is phenomenal! Dutch Buckets alone 462 gallons since November 1st. Lastly, I’m currently growing 2 Tear Drop, 1 cherry and 2 different Beef Steak tomatoes (see pics). I’m definitely exploring an aeroponic system to grow things like summer squash, small “8 ball” water mellon. It would have to have broad spacing between plants, or maybe even moving away from PVC pipe or rail to individual buckets smaller than 5 gallon. We wanted things like Broccoli and Brussel sprouts, but not sure how to accommodate the height/weight. Keep me (and the blog) posted on your progress. Good luck!