Get your rally caps out!

We checked our pH again today and it is still stable at about 6.5.  Our new seeds seem to be taking and getting greener by the day.  Our initial growth that are still surviving seem to have reached between 2 and 3 inches.  New growth has begun and is not yet out of the rockwool.  Keep your fingers crossed that the growth will continue.

Hanging a U-ie, Hopefully

Today we implemented all of the changes that were recommended for our system.  We also altered our timer so that it would operate, it had been running non-stop before.  Only one of our plants is still green and healthy, the rest appear wilted.  We also checked the pH of our solution and it looked to be between 6 and 6.5 which was well within our limits.  Hopefully we have made the right decisions to turn our plants around and go back to our initial success.

Taking a turn for the worst…

When I checked on our plants today, I was unhappy to see some plant death and clogging in our drippers.  I have received some tips from classmates such as covering our water supply with a dark covering to prevent algae growth, and placing our rockwool in perlite to allow for deeper root development.  As for the clogging, for now I simply cleaned out the tips and placed them back in the system but that is not a long-term fix.  We may need to switch to a different dripping mechanism.  Our plants quickly reached a height of about one inch and remained constant at that height.

Something’s in the water…

Our hydroponics system is still working well on its own.  New growth has begun and no plants have died besides one radish plant that we attempted to transplant.  This death occurred because we tried not to disturb the radish next to it and in doing so may have just ripped out the plant rather than actually uprooting it.  The only potential issue that I see in the system is that the water has started to get murky and slightly cloudier than when it began.  We will have to look into that further tomorrow by checking the pH or something.  I am also including a photo of the system working on its own.

They grow up so fast.

We placed our seedling cubes in our system yesterday.  I checked on them later in the afternoon and the system was still working properly.  No leaks, overfills, or dripping issues.  Hopefully their growth continues as it started.  Pictures to come later.

Soak up the Sun

The seedling cubes are continuing to sprout and grow.  Six of the eight cubes have sprouted and began to grow.  The other two have shown a change in their seed structure and I think they should grow soon.  A few of the cubes have gotten up to an inch of growth.  Hopefully the success continues and the only problem we will have is what to do with all of the success.

Growing Green

So the seedling cubes were put outside in the sun yesterday and when we brought them back inside later, there was some green.  Not the rockwool, and not the fallen leaf that landed right in the tupperware, but there was real green growth coming from one line of the rockwool cubes.  This means that one of the seeds, either mesculn or radish, is growing or has germinated faster than the other.  I think it is the mesclun but I’m really not sure.  They are back out in the sun today and hopefully the success will continue.

“How do you change the pH of water?” “Add more water.”

Obviously, we didn’t know as much about hydroponics as we thought we did.  When it came to soaking the rockwool to obtain a healthy pH and getting a nutrient solution with that same healthy pH (about 5.5-6.5) we weren’t so sure how to lower pH.  We soon found that there is a chemical solution to add, in SMALL quantities, to lower the pH of a liquid, very creatively named pH down.  We eventually got our pH to about 6 and were happy with that.  We planted 4 rockwool cubes each of mesclun and radish.  Each cube had a number of seeds in the center.  Dr. Brusic advised us to put extra seeds in the cubes with the theory that, if overcrowded, we could always simply remove or weed out the extra later.  I was surprised that mesclun is actually a mix of different seeds to achieve a lettuce variety.  So what now?  Watch and wait.  I am taking home the seedling cubes to grow and develop over break.  Hopefully the nice weather will actually happen and they can sit outside on my patio.  We will have to wait and hopefully see sun and growth.

You mean that actually worked perfectly?

So today, we finished the overall construction of the structure for our system.  We also researched how to begin the seeding process and are on schedule to begin the seeding process on Wednesday.  Above is a photo of our final system after construction.  Also above is a picture of Dickson putting the final touches on the system.