Home | Store | Blog | Forums | FAQs | Lesson Plans | Pictures |
|
|
Thread Tools | Display Modes |
#1
|
|||
|
|||
My first setup - NFT and Ebb and Flow
First off, hello everyone, this is my first post here. I am a professional grower that specializes in super hot peppers, but I also grow all types of vegetables for local markets. I have dabbled with DWC a little in the past, but never anything on the scale of which I am about to embark.
Due to some really inconsistent weather this year, our field grown lettuce was less than predictable so I made the investment into a 8-channel, 144 spot NFT system, a 4' x 8' x 7" flood table and a 4' x 4' x 7" flood table. All of these are located in my 14' x 16' greenhouse just outside of St. Louis. The hope is to supplement our weekly farmer's market sales with a bit of lettuce each week. Untitled by GhostPepperStore.com, on Flickr Unfortunately I do not have pictures of the flood tables right now, but I will come back and update with those and pictures of the NFT which is now plumbed on both sides. The NFT setup is using a underground reservoir, which I thought would help with both algae growth and keeping the water temperatures down. I have a 1000gph pump which, surprisingly, is only getting me about 7L/m return at the drain pipe. Each channel is fed using (2) 1/4" microtube with an inline adjustable flow valve. I will be using the smaller flood table to start my lettuce/spinach seedlings in 1.5" rockwool cubes then transfer them to the NFT once the roots are coming through the bottom. This tray will also double as a starting area for some of the other veggies in the Spring since it is quite an overkill since I will only be starting about 20 lettuce seeds each week. I also have a 1000w MH light mounted centrally to provide supplemental light during the shorter days, I plan to keep it to about 14 hours/day. The greenhouse is heated and I keep night temperatures at around 62 degrees. Daytime temperatures, except in the Summer, stay below 85. I have invested in a pH meter and EC/TDS meter but at the moment I will be using tap water which is testing at 7.5 pH and 250ppm. I do not plan to change to RO water unless absolutely necessary. So now for the questions. This is my first time using rockwool. I sowed 8 varieties of lettuce, spinach and some herbs in the cubes on Sunday after soaking the rockwool in a 5.5pH bath. This morning, the cubes are still very wet. Is this normal? I realize the seedlings are not using any of the water yet, but since I will be giving these the flood and drain treatment, it concerns me that the cubes are staying wet for so long. The cubes are not covered since I have decent humidity in the greenhouse this time of year and it has been raining for the last couple of days to boot. I know that for most NFT systems the recommended flow rate is 1L/minute per channel. I am not quite getting that rate at the moment, is this going to be an issue? I am totally open to constructive criticism here, so please, if you see something wrong with my techniques, call it out. Sorry for the long first post! Thanks for reading. |
Bookmarks |
|
|