High Pressure Aeroponics

[PetFlora]

Both plants have slowed down growing. Still very little sign of bunching pistils so this morning I flipped to 12/12. OMG just read a reply to another thread by BlueDog. Most likely the high RH in the root chamber has prevented pistil clusters and bud sites from developing.

It has been very warm here, Room and root pod humidity over 80 which is bad. I was putting ice jugs in the root chamber but it wasn't dropping the RH much, so I made a poor man's chiller using spare pvc and a spare low pressure pump from my earlier foray into low pressure aero.

I drilled 2 @ 7/8 holes (in/out) and ran an open ended loop of PVC from the submerged pump around the interior perimeter then out where it drains back into the ice cold water bath.

Below is current photos. Note the small root in the foreground is of the LARGE plant (now 17"- the small one is 12"). You might see new roots have developed (whitish). Sorry but it's hard to hold the lid up while taking the pic, as the plants tend to fall over.

Not bad for 2 plants that were on death's door. Now if I can only get them to bud out.

You can see the PVC around the perimeter.

 

[turttle]

 

[Sky Rocket]

Out curiosity what timer is your ppump running on? For example one minute onn 5 minutes off.

 

[PetFlora]

Good question. It's a bit of a sliding scale. Small roots might need more, whereas older roots less. Basically for my mature roots ~ 2 seconds on/2 minutes off- think one-to-sixty ratio. You have to watch your roots. If water droplets are collecting you are feeding too much at each interval. You don't want them too wet or too dry. Think tacky.

hth

 

[Sky Rocket]

Good question. It's a bit of a sliding scale. Small roots might need more, whereas older roots less. Basically for my mature roots ~ 2 seconds on/2 minutes off- think one-to-sixty ratio. You have to watch your roots. If water droplets are collecting you are feeding too much at each interval. You don't want them too wet or too dry. Think tacky.

hth

I just keepp mine simple. I have my aeropnocs setup 1 min on 5 minutes off. From clones to the flower stage.

Do you think 2 seconds on is kind of short period to spray the roots. Why so short of a on time?

 

[PetFlora]

Sky Rocket: In the beginning I was using times closer to yours. But then a seasoned grower (lurker) saw my then posted root shots and told me my on time was too long, and that by saturating the roots I was slowing down their ability to eat. He also told me not to let them get too dry. It's sort of like us, nutritionists tell us to eat lots of small meals throughout the day instead a few bigger ones, as small meals are much easier to digest.

If your plants are healthy and your roots have tons of root hairs, which appear all along each lateral root (looks like pipe cleaners) then your technique is working- don't mess with success.

BUT, if your lateral roots are not covered with root hairs, you are leaving a lot of bud development on the table.

The roots in my current picture are not a good example, though that should change now that I am getting the root pod RH down to where it is more friendly to budding.

Found this 09 Atomizer post on another site. It validates why the root pod RH is so important

Atomizer Wrote: A 50 micron droplet holds a small volume of water (0.000295 mm3) so the water temperature isn`t too important.

The air temperature and humidity in the root zone are more important as they affect the lifespan of the droplets.
A 50um droplet in a 25C, 50% RH root chamber will live for around 4.5 seconds reducing in size as it dies


hth

 

[PetFlora]

Sunday Morning Update: My biggest plant was droopy this morning. I mixed fresh LL/S but it did not respond. Maybe two weeks ago I added an inline filter with 200 mesh screen, but the mist head was somewhat clogged. Easy to clean. Within 10 minutes the plant perked right up. hth

 

[Smoketahchoke]

Re: TAKE 2: HPA + Quantum T 5 Bad Boy 8 bulb

Hey Flora I was wondering what you thought of putting you're drain holes 3/4 the height of the mis header to create a res for your plants and still get some drain to waste going?

 

[PetFlora]

Re: TAKE 2: HPA + Quantum T 5 Bad Boy 8 Bulb

Excellent question.

I thought about this a while ago, seeing othr posts, I concluded the drawbacks outweighed any benefits.

The reason to think about doing it is as a backup, however, the tap root will seek out the body of water instead of developing lateral roots to feed on the mist.

Take a look at any DWC root system. They have massive roots that are smooth like spaghetti, virtually no lateral root development. Any lateral roots (fishbones) they may have are not totally dialed in. When the mist time and RH are within reasonable parameters, the lateral roots not only develop all along each lateral root, they fill up with roothairs that look like pipe cleaner fuzzies. At that point your roots are in max feed mode.

hth

 

[PetFlora]

Photo Shoot

I continue to be amazed at the recovery

12"Plant is Indica dom whereas the 17.5" is sat dom

New roots are growing every day all over the front root mass. Amazing to think the small roots in the front belong to the 17.5" plant. She really took a hit when I was sick

Finally evidence of pistil clusters., Hard to see here, but they are there

__________________

 

[Sky Rocket]

Plants are recovering good. What nutes are you using?

 

[PetFlora]

Thanks SkyR. First time using DM Gold, but I only added Zone one res change back. Considering what my roots wnet through, I should have added it long ago, and actually DM recommends starting with it. I like their nutes a lot, but customer relations sucks, and I find their new Nute Calculator hot by 25%. I can't push these girls past 900-~ without getting some tip burn. This is great as my girls are doing fine and it keeps my runoff more stable too. hth

 

[Sky Rocket]

Thanks SkyR. First time using DM Gold, but I only added Zone one res change back. Considering what my roots wnet through, I should have added it long ago, and actually DM recommends starting with it. I like their nutes a lot, but customer relations sucks, and I find their new Nute Calculator hot by 25%. I can't push these girls past 900-~ without getting some tip burn. This is great as my girls are doing fine and it keeps my runoff more stable too. hth

I use dm's calculator as well but I. I always use 3/4 to maybe halft of what they recommend. For some reason if I follow there nute schedule my ppms are always higher than there's.

 

[PetFlora]

It was a sad day. My biggest plant is a hermie, so I pulled it. I am now extending my pause time from 1:55 (higher than that and the big plant wilted) to 2:05.

Looking for advice, but will keep increasing until I see wilt. She immediately responded that she was happy by aiming her leaves at the lights, same as though I had LL/S her. Cool to see what happens as you dial in the numbers. One of the tell tale signs the pod is right is when the lateral roots develop root hairs. To date I had none. Expect to see them soon

 

[PetFlora]

For the past week, I have been struggling to find the right feed/pause cycle working with 2 seconds and varying the pause from 2:05 all the way up to 2:45. The best response from the plant is 2 on/2:05 pause, but the roots were not developing root hairs. Longer times caused the leafs to droop.


I came across a link to my previous grow journal on another site and decided to read it through. It's hilarious to look at all the trial and error mistakes I was making. Lots of people contributed on it, and one in particular offered excellent guidance. On that grow I was using 4 heads/18G tote until Me2 did the math and said I only needed 2 heads. Considering all the mistakes, I still had root hairs.

Somehow I completely forgot this and have been trying to make the magic with one head. Within one hour of installing the 2 head mister the plant top burst to life- photo tomorrow- of course it will take a few days before I can expect any root hairs, but it should happen now.

I still have to dial in the pause time, which is tomorrows project.

 

[Toaor]

Hey PF, look forward to seeing your pics when you post.

As you kow I'm growing Aeroponically but not with high pressure, my nutes are just sprayed from the pressure of Maxijet 1000 pump and four 90 degree normal garden/greenhouse irrigation spray heads.

If you check out my journal from when you first looked you'll see they're doing just fine with 5-10 minutes on every hour, I vary the timings throughout day and it comes on only a couple of times in the lights off period.

Although the bottoms of the roots are actually swimming aroundin my nutes permanently so there is only about 15 cms between netpots and nute solution with an air pump running 24/7.

Best regards, Toaor

When I first read your posts I was worried that they die if I didn't feed every few minutes but Yaroots system was only doing between 5-15 mintues every two hours so I'm very happy they've done well and will continue to grow in same way next time round.

Self Growth Journal #1

 

[PetFlora]

Toaor: mj will do remarkable things with even minimal attention to detail, but it's the attention to detail in every venture that separates the few from the many. As long as you are happy that is all that matters, but my guess is you wouldn't have subscribed unless you felt you were leaving something on the table.

 

[Toaor]

Just trying to share my experience of the very simple aeroponic system with others as it seems it's the way a lot of people are going, mine's been a real learning curve from start to not quite finished yet.

I know when I start my next lot off I will do things slightly differently but will stick mainly with what I've got, as it suits my tiny grow area.

One day I really do hope to have the space to grow some monsters, till then I have to keep them short and not too bushy.

It'll be interesting to see what my final yield is off the three of them as they won't get beyond 75cms tall.

Toaor

 

[PetFlora]

They have probably reached max height. The trick now is root nourishment, so they can pack on the buds. You just can't do that with minimal pot size.hth

 

[PetFlora]

The Lonely Lady is budding out nicely

Another view

The Horny Male. I am collecting his pollen as he has such great traits. Can I pollinate him and his sister?