Aeroponic Potatos

Growth is continuing steadily!
As of today, a fourth potato has sprouted beyond its eyes, with a fifth appearing to be close behind. Root growth continues to improve, with 7 of 8 now showing noticeable roots. The one in the back left is now the only one not showing any signs of growth, which is slightly troubling, but it has not been so long as to cause major concern. There is still plenty of time.

On another note, the water level dropped a little, but not significantly enough to cause problems. We are hoping that as the roots grow in they will help block the water from reaching the top, and we plan to add some material around the cups to help prevent leakage out the side holes. That will be for another day though.
That’s all for today. We will be back on Monday with the next update!

They survived! (And they’re growing!)
We returned from Spring break today to a great relief: the potatoes are doing well! Unfortunately, our worries of losing water were also found to be true, as the water level was below that of the pump entrance, meaning that there was at least some time where it could not pump the water. Fortunately, we tested the pump and it didn’t burn out, and the potato plants that are growing show no signs of wilting or unhealthiness.

Speaking of plants, boy do we have plants! Three of our potatoes shot out of the ground over break and already have significant growth. At least two others appear to be sprouting, and in total 6 of the 8 have noticeable root growth, which is a good indicator for their future sprouting.

On the side of trying to prevent water leakage out the top, we shifted around and added some clay pellets to try to block the holes better. In one case, we added a bottle cap over a hole that was too wide to effectively plug with the pellets.

With all of this, we refilled the water and added some more nutrients to keep them growing. We will continue to monitor our progress, but we are definitely more optimistic about our prospects than before! Until next time!

It’s a success (so far)!
We weren’t able to do much today aside from briefly checking in, so no pictures, but things seem to be working well so far. The leakage out the top is definitely not a flooding issue, though there appeared to be a slight drop in water level after the two days of running. We topped it off a bit higher this time so it will hopefully make it through Spring Break next week. No noticeable growth has occurred yet, but that was to be expected. We’ll check back in after Spring Break, and hopefully nothing goes wrong while we’re away…

We’re officially growing potatoes!
Today we were able to finally finish up everything and get growing! We put the potatoes in the cups, covered them with clay pebbles, and put them in the system to start growing. We also added the nutrients and measured our pH to make sure it was in the acceptable range. The misters are potentially a bit too strong, as they sometimes spray a bit through the top. We will likely have to fix later, but it’s not so bad as to prevent us from safely running it now. Aside from this, everything seems pretty secure and functional. Future updates will tell whether it stays that way, but for now, we’re excited to start the growing process!

It works!
Today was a big day, as we pretty much finished all of the physical aspects of our design. We put the misters in, filed the holes in the lid to make them fit the cups better, and put holes in the cups for the roots to grow through. With the misters in, we were finally able to test the complete water system, and we are happy to report that it worked flawlessly! The misters work great and reach the top with ease. All we have to do now is plop in our potatoes, clay covering, and some nutrients and we’ll be good to go.

Next Steps:
We are (again) hoping to finish everything up on Monday. This includes:
1. Cut potatoes to size
2. Put nutrients in system
3. Put potatoes in & cover with clay
4. Set timers
5. Start growing!

A brief setback, big news…
Plans have changed a bit this week due to an unexpected snow day on Monday and limited class time to work today. The goal is now to be finished by next Monday, which is unfortunate because we will no longer have a week to make sure everything is running fine before spring break. On the plus side, however, we do get a bit more time to make sure everything is done correctly. In addition to this, we got some big news today: we finally have our potatoes! This means that we can now start on the lid setup as we know the size we will be working with. With what little time we had today, we chose the cups we will be using to house our potato plants and cut the holes in the lid where they will be positioned. We are again planning to come in on Friday to work, and then finish everything up by next Monday.

Next Steps:
Friday – Finish up physical elements: cut holes in cups, add misters, reattach end plug
Monday – Finish logistics: add nutrients, set timers, put in potatoes & clay coverage, start growing!

Progress continues (mostly) on schedule!
As of today, the internals of our system are almost complete. We got our waterproof tape and were able to secure everything in an effective manner. We had a bit of trouble with the cream cheese containers floating until Ryan realized we forgot to fill them with water after we put rocks in them, so the buoyancy of the air was counteracting the weight of the rocks. This was easily remedied, though, and they are now soundly sunk. With that settled, we got our first test of the water pump, and it works great! We also sealed the holes left by the bucket handles using the tape and some waterproof sealant. Unfortunately, we did not quite have time to add the misters, but this should be a relatively quick add for the next time.

I also forgot to include a picture of the hole we cut for the water pump’s power cord in the last post, so here is one now:

Next Steps:
We are hoping to get this completely set up and running on Monday. With this, here is what we have left to do:
1. Add the misters to the tubing & reattach the end plug
2. Find good sized cups to house our potato plants and cut holes in them for the roots to grow out
3. Cut holes into the lid of the bucket sized to the cups we choose
4. Add nutrients proper nutrients, set timers for misting & lighting
5. Add cups to holes, potatoes to cups, and cover potatoes with clay
6. Turn everything on and start growing aeroponic potatoes!

It’s finally here!
After a bit of a delayed start due to supply difficulties, we have finally started the process of constructing our aeroponics system, and we are off to a good start. Most of the internals are assembled, we are just waiting on some waterproof tape to make sure everything stays together under the wet conditions it will be experiencing. As you can see in the pictures below, we are using cream cheese containers (filled with rocks to keep them from floating) and hard plastic rods to support our tubing just above the water level we intend to use. We also cut a small hole in the side of the lid to allow the power cord for the water pump to exit with the least amount of opening possible.

Next Steps:
This Friday we plan to come in for open lab to help us make up for missed time. We should have our tape by then so we can connect everything together. After it is secure, we will add the mist nozzles to the desired locations.
On Monday, we will be getting our actual potatoes so we can size the cups we need and holes in the lid. Then we just need to add water, nutrients, and some timers and we should be ready to start growing!