[hammerpamf]

No offense taken regarding the questioning of my motives - a healthy skepticism is a great, some would say necessary, quality for good research.

I assure you that my motives are purely scientific and social in nature. While actions will speak louder than words over time, I do offer a small number of reasons to trust me. First, I am lonely in IL - a metaphorical desert of hydroponics; the only like-minded growers tend to grow one specific crop (hmm), only occasionally congregate at gardening stores, and aren't really interested so much in hydroponics. Second, my wife and I are preparing to have our first child; thus aside from my business and playing a leading role in raising our baby (as my wife will be returning to her winemaker position - gotta be rough) this forum will be my main contact to the outside world of hydroponics: I have no intention of ruining this. Third, I actually do have a website that my wife setup for me as a Christmas gift, but I don't tell anyone about it. Why? Well, it's in complete disrepair to start with, but moreso because it is geared towards providing information to my local community, customers, and family, not intended to be a money generator through ads (there actually isn't any advertising on it). I mention my family because my wife and I don't use any social media sites like Facebook, so we do a little blog on there to keep them abreast of how we're doing. So regarding motives, actions will speak louder than words...but I hope my brief explanations will help to assuage your questioning of my motives a little bit.

Now regarding the rest of your post concerning the research: In the early stages of this project (e.g. this first year), I am thinking we should focus on building group dynamics and using it as a test case for doing research as a decentralized community. In other words, let's not try to hit a home run on our first group experiment; there will undoubtedly be bugs and glitches with the data collection and experimental error that may exclude our findings from being published in a respected academic journal; but if anything, having a group pull together for a growing season and working together will definitely merit our group getting our results published in a popular hydroponics magazine (e.g. Maximum Yield) or perhaps a presentation at a hydroponics conference (e.g. International Society of Horticultural Sciences [ISHS]). This I am not too concerned with at the moment - even if we don't get published or present our results this first year, at least we got to work together as a community of like-minded growers.

Regarding the difficulties that need to be overcome, such as lack of funding and access to lab testing, I don't see these as large impediments to our group making great progress. The greatest architectural and engineering accomplishments of ancient Greece and antiquity Roman Republic/Empire were built by people who lacked formal training in any type of rigorous mathematics and engineering - the Romans relied primarily on arithmetic and empirical knowledge (i.e. knowledge from experience). If they could build the Parthenon, Coliseum, and domed cathedrals, we can definitely find creative ways to conduct hydroponic experiments without lab testing...after all, our common link is interest and experience in hydroponics. To analyze the data we generate from our experiments, it will take individuals trained in statistics and have an experimental background; since I have a graduate degree in management/operations science (i.e. statistical analysis, management, optimization rolled into one) I will offer my services to shoulder much of the burden; but I'm sure others will also take a look at the data and offer interpretations of the results. Then, we can either write up sections as a team and put them together (smoothing out the narrative once together), or come to some other arrangement. Either way, everyone in the group should have access to the data.

Whew! Almost done with this post: regarding your interests in compost teas and beneficial bacteria, I have some research papers laying around somewhere (i.e. I belong to the ISHS and also have an interest in these topics, so I got some papers from there). I'll be able to get you some info in the next few days.