what am i doing wrong i have a lettuce tree
 

well it has been a few months now since i started growing aquaponic lettuce. From the beginning the lettuce seemed to be growing oddly, but for me never growing lettuce before i just let it go and thought i would wait and see how it goes. Well it has been a few months and i can't figure out why my lettuce isn't hasn't like formed into what a lettuce head looks like instead i have a lettuce tree.

In the pictures the plant looks like it is dieing this is because i had to turn off the main lights because the lettuce was growing to high and burning itself.


Does anyone have any ideas what i am doing wrong?





thank you


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Just to let you know,
you can add the pictures as an attachment, that way they wont blow the page out of proportion with wise. Also it makes thumbnail pictures that you can click on to view the full size picture, that way the thread does not wind up being a mile long. When writing the post, just scroll down the page a little to the section titled "Additional Options " then click on the button "manage attachments" click the browse button and attach the file. You can attach up to 20, 5 at a time to each post.

The lettuce plants are bolting. Lettuce is a cool weather plant, when the weather warms up they figure they are about to die. So they elongate (bolt) upward in an attempt to flower and seed before they die. You should try to keep the temperature in the low 70's, but no more than 80 degrees max. The leaves are still editable though. Just cut them off one by one, soak them in cool water in the sink, then towel dry and put in a Ziploc bag in the frig. Some say they can be a little bitter, but that's what I did and I didn't notice that.

Also I use natural light so I don't have first hand knowledge of artificial lighting. But as I understand it, lettuce is a low light requirement plant. Meaning that they don't need a lot of light intensity, and actually do better with low intensity lighting.

Hmm that is interesting I have my lights on a 13 hour cycle so maybe I will reduce that and make my light further away

However the temp thing bothers me a bit because I am growing in my basement but maybe it is because of the closeness of my lights


Thank you I'll try out your segestions

I don't know what the temp in your basement is in general, but the air temp around the foliage (plant canopy) is what matters to the plants, and what they respond to. If the temp is lower/higher on the wall thermostat, that's not an accurate reading. The temp at the foliage is what maters to the plants. If I remember correctly you even said at one point, the plants foliage was burning when it got close to the lights.

I would take a regular thermometer and place it near the top of the plant canopy (closest to the heat source). I'm not familiar with all types of lettuce, but don"t think your lighting cycle has any thing to do with it. You are at almost a 50/50 cycle with 13 on, and 11 off. They should be fine with more than that on. But the light source is most likely the cause of heat source to the plants. But I would also check the temp of the nutrient solution. If it's high, it could also be adding to the heat problem for the plants. It should be in the low 70's as well. I just use a inexpensive $2 fish tank thermometer to check mine. Also, can you elaborate on the lighting?

P.S. You said it was a aquaponics system, can you elaborate on that because I cant tell much from the pictures. If it's a real aquaponics system you may have a nutrient problem as well. Also if you are just using fish emulation or bat guano etc. and just considering it a real aquaponics system, well that's even worse. I just cant tell anything in that regard from the pictures. Along with any possible heat issues, true aquaponics is more complicated than hydroponics. But using fish emulation or bat guano instead of live fish is not compatible, but possible with enough trial and error. As well as the addition of microbes.

Lettuce will grow under just plain shop lights. try something with a color temp of 6500K that is all i use on mine.