Problems with pests/fungus ??? Help
 

Hello Everyone,

I just started my first aeroponic experiment a few weeks ago. Its outside (I know not exactly ideal) but so far its been going pretty good. I have my vegetable plants in 3" net baskets in 5 gallon buckets with sprayers spraying the nutrient solution into the root system that drains down into the main reservoir and recirculates. I've been using water soluble hydroponic fertilizer from JR Peters. For the past few weeks, everything was going pretty smoothly.

I began to notice some damage to some of the lower stems on a few of the plants (see pictures below). It looks like something is eating up parts of the lower stems of the plants and on one of them it actually looks like something cut the stem open and exposed part of the inside of the stem (#3). The sprayers are under the root system, no water should be hitting that part of the plant. The buckets are at least 3 feet of the ground and I haven't seen any insects on them. I'm not sure what else it could be. I live in Jacksonville Florida.

Any help or advise would be greatly appreciated. Thanks a lot!

What do the roots look like?
What type of plants are these?
If you just put them outside, google sun scald as it can occur on the stem, leaves and fruit.

The roots are all white, they look good. The plants have been outside for quite some time (maybe 2-3 weeks). I started the seeds indoors and I probably put them outside when they were around 2-3 weeks old.

I will look up sun scald today...thanks!

Anyone else???

And the pictures are of squash plants and a tomato

Can you post some pics of the whole plant? I've grown outside using aeroponics and have never had that problem. Looking at your pics the hydroton looks "very" wet. Mine are usually dry on top. I'm wondering if the stems are getting hit with some spray and the sun is burning them. My plants are in direct sunlight all summer so I don't think that would be a problem unless the stems are wet while the sun is beating down on them.

At this link http://www.hydroponicsonline.com/for...my-system.html you can see my first aeroponic grow and you will see the hydroton is dry.

Wet stems can cause stem rot as well.