Latest / Hydroponics Daily / Seedling Establishment in Hydroponics: Tips and Tricks

Transcript

Seedling Establishment in Hydroponics: Tips and Tricks · Hydroponics Daily

• 0:00
  Hello, welcome back to Hydroponics Daily. Today is currently 29 degrees Celsius.
• 0:06
  No idea what that is in Fahrenheit, but it is flipping hot.
• 0:10
  So I'm afraid I've got the windows open and you'll hear birds cheeping and motorbikes roaring.
• 0:18
  Is that the word what a motorbike does?
• 0:20
  Anyway, yeah, so I'm afraid I'm not in a soundproof room today because it's just too hot to do that.
• 0:24
  I thought i would cover today establishing
• 0:28
  seedlings in hydroponic systems because that's
• 0:31
  what i am battling with at the moment in
• 0:34
  my own hydroponic grow so we set
• 0:37
  up an nft system in the labs a new
• 0:40
  nft system we've we've run nft systems numerous
• 0:43
  times before we're setting up a new one to grow black
• 0:46
  grass chilies and hops and spring onions
• 0:49
  and when you grow certain hydroponic
• 0:52
  crops it can be difficult establishing the seedlings getting
• 0:55
  them going there's two options really the first
• 0:58
  is like if you're growing lettuce or leafy greens you
• 1:02
  sow them in the trays that they're going to be harvested in and that's
• 1:05
  that you don't need to space them out pot them up anything like
• 1:09
  that or if you're growing in cocoa or soil
• 1:11
  you can just grow them in plugs and water them hand.
• 1:14
  Water them and then you you pot them
• 1:17
  up into different sized containers however you're growing in nft in
• 1:21
  in slabs or anything like that or deep water culture how do
• 1:24
  you get that seedling to start and then develop and
• 1:27
  then finally get into the much much larger container or the
• 1:30
  much larger slab now you can sow directly into
• 1:34
  the into the system however you have to then
• 1:37
  run a large slab or a large system continually when
• 1:40
  you've got these tiny little plants and the light you're wasting
• 1:43
  a lot of light you're wasting a lot of nutrients you get
• 1:46
  an algae build-ups you want to use as small a system as possible
• 1:49
  when you're setting up your seedlings you almost want
• 1:52
  a mini version of the system that
• 1:55
  you're going to run and so you can sometimes
• 1:58
  say you're growing a rockwool you can get you can cut
• 2:01
  with a sharp knife a section off
• 2:05
  the rockwool and then put that in a tray and then just sow
• 2:08
  your seeds on top and then hand water them every day that
• 2:11
  works perfectly well however there are a couple of disadvantages of this it's
• 2:14
  not a continuous circulating system unlike nft
• 2:18
  or dwc so your slabs can dry out and you can get localized salt build up and
• 2:26
  algae loves that sort of system so because there's no cover on the on the rock
• 2:31
  wall the mineral wool so that's one option but it's not ideal so.
• 2:36
  You can get dedicated aeroponic systems for cuttings and seedlings,
• 2:41
  like mini small-scale ones.
• 2:43
  You can use a cracky method for the seedlings, so just like I have a reservoir
• 2:48
  that sits there that's not being pumped, it's not being aerated.
• 2:51
  However, what I've set up today I think is probably the best method,
• 2:54
  and I'll share a picture as the artwork for this episode,
• 2:59
  and I'll share that on social
• 3:02
  media as well if you go to the utreema or the liquid gold
• 3:05
  or gold leaf page you'll see a picture of
• 3:07
  what i've set up today for my nft system and
• 3:11
  the great thing about this system is it's ridiculously cheap i
• 3:14
  think it must have cost me less than 30 british pounds to set up easily so what
• 3:20
  it is is a black bucket which is going to hold the reservoir of nutrients a
• 3:25
  10 pound pump off ebay because it's not worth going to a gross shop for a tiny little the lowest.
• 3:32
  Power powered pump you can get then that's connected
• 3:35
  to a four mil pipe so i've had
• 3:38
  to down use a a buy on
• 3:41
  ebay a a a reducer
• 3:45
  from from 13 to four mil and then
• 3:48
  put a little hole in the top of the bucket the bucket lid and that
• 3:51
  pipe then goes into a plant pot
• 3:55
  that's sitting on top of the bucket on the bucket lid and in there is volcanic
• 4:01
  rock and then i've got four little sprinklers around the volcanic rock that
• 4:05
  my seedlings are going to be sewn either sewn directly into or i'm going to
• 4:09
  have little rock wall plugs that are going to sit in in within.
• 4:13
  The volcanic rock,
• 4:15
  I've not put the volcanic rock straight into the plant pot because it will all
• 4:19
  just seep out back into the bucket.
• 4:23
  So I've put a brewing bag, sieve bag.
• 4:30
  Is it mash when they're brewing? They have like a 400 mesh micron filter bag
• 4:37
  that all the hops and the barley goes in.
• 4:41
  And i've used one of those to contain
• 4:45
  all the volcanic rock in the container and as
• 4:48
  i say it's a cheap pump and then other things i've done
• 4:51
  you always make sure you rinse the volcanic rock and the rock wall before
• 4:54
  you set up the nft any nft
• 4:57
  system always run it a few times and then
• 5:00
  rinse and throw that water away and then run it once with
• 5:03
  the nutrients in as well so that it's all nice and even
• 5:06
  i've actually ran this with i got what's called
• 5:08
  a milton tablet basically releases chlorine gas into the
• 5:12
  system and to sterilize the
• 5:15
  whole system as well because i thought it needed that because some of
• 5:17
  the buckets had been used before for cocoa so i didn't want any microbial contamination
• 5:22
  and then there obviously i cleaned everything beforehand and scrubbed everything
• 5:26
  clean because you can't just rely on sterilization you've actually got to clean
• 5:29
  things uh and then tomorrow i'll be sowing the seeds directly into rock wall
• 5:34
  plugs that will sit in the volcanic rock and i'll add the.
• 5:39
  The fertigation solution, I'll be adding gold leaf or liquid gold,
• 5:43
  as it's called in the UK, at probably around one mil per litre.
• 5:47
  So that will buffer everything, it will dechlorinate everything,
• 5:50
  and it'll add some nutrients to get the seeds germinating.
• 5:52
  As well as providing the nutrients for growth, a lot of seeds germinate faster
• 5:58
  if they're given nutrition as well.
• 6:01
  So things like nitrates are a really good signal to plants that it's time to
• 6:06
  germinate and actually promote earlier flowering.
• 6:09
  So from that once those seeds have germinated
• 6:12
  into the plugs the rock hole plugs i can
• 6:15
  then take those plugs and then put them into our full
• 6:19
  system which has got one meter rock
• 6:22
  hole slabs in it and then a much more powerful pump and
• 6:25
  then in gullies and drains and the final
• 6:29
  setup so that's what we'll be doing
• 6:31
  and then if you all you'll also notice a lot of growers you'll
• 6:35
  see almost like a pyramid you'll see the plug that's then hit
• 6:38
  then planted into a i think it's
• 6:40
  about 10 centimeters by 10 centimeter by 10 centimeter cube
• 6:43
  and that cube is finally put into the one meter slabs and that's rock wool or
• 6:49
  mineral wool as you call it and they use that system commercially for things
• 6:53
  like tomatoes but you can also get those exact same dimensions in cocoa and
• 6:58
  coir if you're using them so at the green tech show last week you will see the small.
• 7:03
  Cocoa plugs the small cocoa
• 7:06
  squares and then the cocoa slabs which basically mimics
• 7:10
  the whole rockwool nft system but for this one i've gone for rockwool within
• 7:15
  volcanic rock for the seedlings and then my hope is that for spring onions i
• 7:21
  can replicate this system and actually use this small scale nft bucket system as almost like a mini.
• 7:29
  System for growing spring onions through from seed through to
• 7:32
  harvest whereas for most of the other crops and things
• 7:36
  like tomatoes cucumbers also be
• 7:39
  growing chilies hops else could we go grow in this sort of system any sort not
• 7:47
  perennial but large plants we don't want to be this is not our final system
• 7:51
  we're using this to get our seedlings we don't want to be using anything,
• 7:57
  soil-based anything that's going to create a
• 8:01
  lot of contamination in the nft system so you might say oh just plant plenty
• 8:06
  seedlings in seedling compost and then and then wash them off all the soil off
• 8:15
  them and then put them into the nft system well the soil is going to contain loads of,
• 8:19
  microbes are just going to contaminate the nft system as soon as they're planted
• 8:23
  in and we don't want that.
• 8:24
  We want to keep these plants as clean as possible, and I think this is probably the best method.
• 8:28
  So that's one way of going for seedling establishment in hydroponics. It's very difficult.
• 8:34
  It's probably one of the most difficult parts of hydroponics,
• 8:37
  because if you're going to get an issue with a nutrient deficiency,
• 8:40
  it's going to really scupper and slow down the plants when you're trying to establish them.
• 8:47
  Lettuce can grow to harvest in six to eight weeks in hydroponics,
• 8:50
  but if you don't get the things right during establishment,
• 8:53
  they can just sit there as a seedling for weeks and weeks and weeks and
• 8:56
  do nothing they don't look and it's like anything's wrong
• 8:58
  but one factor is wrong and the whole system will just
• 9:01
  sit there going no i'm not going to grow until i'm given
• 9:04
  the secret sauce and the same with lots of different plants
• 9:07
  like that so seedling is very important in hydroponics and
• 9:11
  the reason i'm using the volcanic rock is that it it provides
• 9:14
  a lot of moisture backup in case the system falters and
• 9:18
  so the rock will can suck water in from
• 9:21
  from the volcanic rock around it and also the delicate
• 9:25
  roots that might appear from the volcanic from the rock horse
• 9:27
  plugs they're not going to be damaged when i try
• 9:30
  and remove the plug from the system
• 9:33
  and hopefully this will be a good system but i'll let you know how we get on
• 9:37
  with it and update you later on if you've got a better way of establishing ceilings
• 9:41
  then let me know as i say a lot of people just rely on passive reservoirs that
• 9:44
  aren't recirculated or hand watering their their plugs if you are a very large grower a commercial.
• 9:53
  Nursery or hydroponic system then obviously you could
• 9:55
  have a whole nft system a whole tray
• 9:58
  of ebb and flood dedicated just
• 10:02
  to establishing small plugs and
• 10:05
  that would be the perfect system you
• 10:08
  know you could have a whole recirculatory system that was like a mini version
• 10:12
  of the of the system that they were going to go into and if you're a large grower
• 10:16
  you can do that but for smaller mid-sized growers and hobbyists that's not possible
• 10:22
  you you can't have just a smaller version you can't just have one tray that then would go into a,
• 10:28
  2000 trays that would just wouldn't be possible so that's
• 10:32
  a nice thing about being a massive grower isn't it you can just have a
• 10:36
  mini system for seedling establishment and
• 10:39
  seedling growing on if you've found this podcast
• 10:42
  useful then you're welcome if you know
• 10:45
  somebody who's struggling with seedling establishment then please
• 10:48
  share this podcast with them and if you've had this podcast shared with
• 10:51
  you then you owe the person who shared it with you a pint
• 10:54
  so go down the pub buy them a drink and if you
• 10:57
  could do a screenshot of this podcast
• 11:00
  as it appears on your smartphone and share it to social media that would mean
• 11:05
  the world to me because it would help share this hydroponics podcast with the
• 11:10
  wider horticultural community that's been hydroponics daily for today tomorrow
• 11:14
  i'll have another absolute banger of an episode for you until then goodbye.