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Lettuce grow
I posted earlier on in this forum that we were about to start a 9 pot lettuce raft system. Since that time we have made some progress and hope to have a harvest soon. I need some help though. It seems books can only take you so far One of the seeds just seemed to take off way out in front of the others. Now it is encompassing most of the entire system, covering up leaves from some of the other plants. Another issue I ran into was with some seeds not germinating. I decided at that point to first germinate (not in book) then transplant to system. Wound up replacing a few of the pots that had no growth with well germinated seedlings. Also a few of the late bloomers have begun to come around.
I do not remember the exact genus. I want to say Letuca Sativa or Garden Salad. The bag says 40-50 days for harvest. I'm not exactly sure what harvest time should look like either. Imagine it's something similar to what is shown on the bag. This is day 25 , 8 days ago. I should probably post a more recent picture but you can get an idea from these: IMGP0466.JPG (image) IMGP0459.JPG (image) Any ideas or suggestions for this one monster in the midst ? I have thought about perhaps roping it up , but not sure if that was a good idea. It is fun so far and pretty happy with this first time experiment. Keeping the Ph adjusted, temps and nutes have been easy. |
#2
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Bump please, thank you . Wonder if anyone has feedback for me on the original post.
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#3
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Quote:
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I don't have a cloner, but you can place the 1 inch cubes in a cloner like one of these: Hydroponic Plant Cloners - Hydroponics Equipment don't be scared by the price, the prices are ridiculous and the cloners are easy to make yourself. It's nothing more than a light proof box (with lid), pump, tubing with misters, timer and a see through top to hold humidity and let light in. If you want to get fancy, you can add a small humidifier/fogger (for the top of the plants). You could even replace the pump, tubing, misters and timer with a fogger in the root zone (base). There is a thread about foggers in this forum here: http://www.hydroponicsonline.com/for...2-foggers.html You would just cut holes in the lid just big enough to fit the 1 inch rockwool cubes into, or you can even use round foam plugs (picture attached), just cut holes accordingly. You can simply place your cloner near the main system to get light, or you can build a small cfl (compact florescent light) lighting system for it. Using simply a metal reflective shroud, cheaply made from household metal ducting. Then place a couple of light bulb sockets in it, wired in series and attach a plug. Insert the CFL bulbs (picture of cfl attached), and hang the lights above your cloner. Quote:
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#4
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I just set up a small enclosure, put some Hydroton, PH'd treated water and some nutes. I think the old term is a Luwasa system. I have 200watts of CFL (that's the equivalent of 200w). No lid though on it. Thank you Stuart |
#5
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Then you will know exactly when to start the new plants, so that they are ready to place in the system at the same time you harvest the other ones. That way you don't have any unused spots in the main system (not efficient), and once you have cleaned the system (or portion of a large system) between harvests if you want to, you have established plants to immediately place in it, taking weeks off the time needed to mature in the main system. The big issue with how long it can be in a cloning system other than space is your lighting. When using cloners it is typical to use clf's for lighting. That is OK for seedlings, and if the lighting is strong enough small plants. But to grow healthy mature plants you will probably need the metal halide or high pressure sodium type lighting. In other words using cfl's for the cloner (small plants) will be OK but the bigger the plants get they will probably need better lighting. Although plants like lettuce are from what I understand low light (requiring) plants, and will probably do good with good florescent lighting only (maybe even better from what I've read). Quote:
I went real high tech with my new cloner. I was going to post these pictures later when the plants got a little bigger, the plants have only been in it for 2 days. But I have attached some pictures of the small cloner that I just made. It's about as simple as it gets with no moving parts, and for lighting I just stick it outside in the sun during the daytime. The water is only about 2 inches at the bottom. To make sure the rockwool cubes don't dry out, I just shake the container a couple of times a day. They hang above the water level, so they don't water-log the cubes. But when I gently shake the container, the bottom of the cubes get watered. So far so good. P.S. I haven't light proofed it yet, though the bottom portion is doubled (one inside another) so it's pretty dark I hope. Last edited by GpsFrontier; 03-19-2010 at 06:28 PM. |
#6
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LOL...sometimes things can be so simple. I'm new to this forum and have been browsing around and gathering very helpful information. Just wanted to say "Thank You" for the great help. I'm going to use this idea.
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