Today we took a look at our system and it has been making great progress in it’s growth. We do not like the color that it is it seems to be a little too yellowish, and it also seems to wilt a bit. We have been keeping a close eye on the pH level, we think that the pH might be the factor of its color and growth. We added some additional Nutrient solution as the level seemed to drop a bit, we also added a bit pH down with the addition of the new nutrient solution it needed to be brought down.
Our plants seem to be doing quite well. More stems have emerged and new growth is evident. Our water culture system is working well up to this point. The growth rate has increased since the plants have been moved into the growing system. One problem we did encounter was with the pH of the nutrient solution. When we checked the pH, we discovered it was up around 8. We added pH down until we reached around a pH of about 6.5. The next class when we checked the pH again, it was up to about 8 again. Again we lowered the pH to about 6.5. I am not sure why this is happening, but the plants seem to be doing well up to this point.
Our mesclun is showing improvement. The plants have emerged from their seeds and have begun to grow. Each of our three cups in which we planted in each seem to be doing well. Since the mesclun has now germinated, it will be transferred into our constructed growing system tomorrow. I expect faster growth at that point because during the germination process, only a small amount of nutrient solution was used. Regular tap water was mainly used up to this point.
When we arrived back from fall break we found that our plants did not seem to begin to grow. We did not have the system set up at this point however. We had the seeds germinating in the window sill. Our nutrient solution had all but dried up completely. We poured more solution onto the rockwool hoping that the mesclun will begin to grow. Next Monday we will insert the plants into our water culture system and place it under the light.
Today we started germinating our mesclun. We also finished building our hydroponic system. We plan on letting it germinate for about a week then we will transfer the plants into the growing system.