Okay...so I have another question. Mixed among the pepper plants I have in the system I previously posted about in this forum are a couple of tomato plants for the wife (she loves those things!).
Anywho, have noticed lately that the tomato plants look very "droopy". My initial impression would be a lack of water...but I've researched that too much water can do the same thing. As usual, I'm confused and decided to come here to see if any of you more experienced growers have ideas.
Pics included below (sorry if they are too big). Some specifics to go along with the pics. These are currently sitting in my smaller "cloner" aero system I posted about in this forum. The
nutrient solution is on the warm side...running around 77F right now. We're looking into getting a portable AC unit to place in the room in hopes that if we can keep the ambient temp down the nutrient solution temp will drop some. Exploring other options for cooling as well. Nutrient pH is pretty stable and hovers right around 6.0 ~ 6.2. TC meter is showing a ppm of around 1100 ~ 1200. I don't have any more sophisticated testing equipment to be able to measure the individual nutrient levels though. I'm using the TechnaFlora "recipie for success" veg cycle recipie. As you can see in the pics, the roots appear alright (at least to me). Heck of a lot longer than they were when we first put them in there. They have a nice whitish color to them (not a pure white, but certainly not brown either). Week before last I was on a constant spray cycle with the
pump running for the entire 16 hour light cycle. That seemed to be raising my temp in the nutrient solution up quite a bit so I dropped back to a 15 min spray/45 minute off cycle and have been running on that cycle since last week. Lighting for this system is still the 2 4' dual buld t8 flourescent shop
lights with the generic
bulbs from local hardware store (not the fancier higher output ones made specific for plants - Will be moving these guys under a 400W MH soon though).
I'm hoping this is just lack of water and that maybe the roots are drying too much during that 45 minute dry cycle. Any other thoughts?