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Old 03-04-2017, 06:14 PM
kr3t3n kr3t3n is offline
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Join Date: Mar 2017
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Quote:
Originally Posted by GpsFrontier View Post
Hello kr3t3n,
First foggers and misters aren't the same thing. Foggers produce fog, not mist. Fog is dry, mist is wet. Have you ever went outside on a foggy morning? Did you get wet? That's because there is very little actual moisture in fog.

While I'm not scientist, I can tell you that the water droplet size doesn't determine the size of the mineral element molecule. Plants can't absorb nutrients/mineral salts unless they are in their single raw chemical state. That is unless they are a single molecule. If they bond with another molecule, their not usable to the plant regardless what the water droplet size is.

With that said what makes the water droplet size important is aeration. The small water droplet size allows for better aeration and oxygen uptake. Thus the root growth is much smaller and finer. Like millions of small hairs. These tiny hair like roots are much more efficient in absorbing nutrients because their's a lot more surface area to absorb them. This is why I said a low pressure system would be able to grow bigger potatoes. The water droplet size in a low pressure aeroponic system is much bigger than in a high pressure system. Bigger water droplet size means thicker roots. Bigger thicker roots can support bigger potatoes than tiny thin roots will. With the smaller thinner roots you may get more potatoes because there will be more surface area, but the potatoes will be much smaller as well.

P.S.
Even if you had the fog drop down from the top into the container, it will quickly drop all the way to the bottom. The only way to get even coverage is by creating enough fog to constantly fill the entire container. The fog will fall out of the first opening in the container it can as well. Even if you are able to fill the container with fog for even coverage, there still isn't enough moisture in it and you would have to get more moisture to the plant another way.
Thank you very, very much for this reply. It has answered a lot of questions in my head. I hope I'm not irritating you as I find your answers very useful and learn a lot!

Now I completely understand why fog/mist does not help but even harms the intentional growth of potatoes (while it might be very helpful for growing other plants where saturated root growth is desired).

What are your thoughts on using plastic grill (for weight support) under foam for growbed media? Any ideas what would work best?
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