Help! Science Project with my Son

Azoned said:

To make all things equal, you could plant some outdoors- in the dirt and do some hydro w/artifcial light. Put a photocell outside to turn lights on/off.

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Why not just put the hydro system outdoors? Sunlight is very very different than HID light and that's not to mention the elements.

Hmmmmm..well, the whole point of this experiment is to demonstrate the improved food yield of hydro vs "natural" grown beans. So, it's no problem that the lighting, pest, and other environmental variables is different - the point is that with hydro, you can control all those factors to improve yield. The intent isn't just to compare soil and soil-less grow media, it's the whole hydro thing.

I have germinated 10 seeds of the exact same strain - Burpee bush heirloom beans - 5 will go into an indoor top-feed recycle hydro system under T5 fluorescent light and getting appropriate nutes (I'm still investigating nutes). And 5 will go into a garden area outside my house, where they will get optimal sunlight (southern exposure), nutes from the garden soil, and watering as needed. This should be a fair comparison of traditional and hydro growing, including all the elements of each method. This seems like a reasonable and fun experiment that a ten-year-old can fully participate in. What am I missing? Thanks much for the lively feedback. Green beans or ganja, RIU always comes through with great info!

hellraizer30 said:

I wouldnt use MG in hydro! If your looking for a super simple nute line that way cheap, look into GH Maxi grow

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Thanks, HR. Got a bag of the GH Maxigro on the way. GH says it's good for hydro. I'm sure you gotta be real aggressive about making sure it gets fully dissolved before going into the res. I'll put the plants on 1/2 strength after they're big & strong enough to move to the Grodan cubes, then work up from there.

dose it have to be about plants? you could make a simple hydro system and explain the physics and chemistry going on. that would be a much more controlled environment for an experiment.

I mean hes only ten all you would need to wow any one would be maybe Gravity, and that the state of the water is liquid.

Oh and MG in hydro is a no go. MG is basically chicken poop that needs the enzymes i the soil to break it down into usable nutrients

Flash4211 said:

Hmmmmm..well, the whole point of this experiment is to demonstrate the improved food yield of hydro vs "natural" grown beans. So, it's no problem that the lighting, pest, and other environmental variables is different - the point is that with hydro, you can control all those factors to improve yield. The intent isn't just to compare soil and soil-less grow media, it's the whole hydro thing.

I have germinated 10 seeds of the exact same strain - Burpee bush heirloom beans - 5 will go into an indoor top-feed recycle hydro system under T5 fluorescent light and getting appropriate nutes (I'm still investigating nutes). And 5 will go into a garden area outside my house, where they will get optimal sunlight (southern exposure), nutes from the garden soil, and watering as needed. This should be a fair comparison of traditional and hydro growing, including all the elements of each method. This seems like a reasonable and fun experiment that a ten-year-old can fully participate in. What am I missing? Thanks much for the lively feedback. Green beans or ganja, RIU always comes through with great info!

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Well again there are too many variables to consider this an experiment...you won't know if it was the hydro, or the HID lighting, or the cycle you picked, or the lack of bugs...the easiest way and the only way to make it an experiment is if you bring soil inside and go that route, or if you put the hydro outside, so they both have the same lights and environment. I mean he is doing this to learn science yes? So use it to teach him science...trying something different is not an experiment...trying things while changing only one variable at a time is an experiment...

missnu said:

Well again there are too many variables to consider this an experiment...you won't know if it was the hydro, or the HID lighting, or the cycle you picked, or the lack of bugs...the easiest way and the only way to make it an experiment is if you bring soil inside and go that route, or if you put the hydro outside, so they both have the same lights and environment. I mean he is doing this to learn science yes? So use it to teach him science...trying something different is not an experiment...trying things while changing only one variable at a time is an experiment...

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I get what you're saying, missnu, and I understand the scientific principal. It's an issue of defining "Hydroponic Growing." For our purposes, that will include all the common elements: controlled light, nutrients, temperature, and environment. Versus "Natural Growing" where those elements are way less controlled. Varying the individual elements would be more "pure" I agree. But this is more fun and still teaches something. Peace!

Flash4211 said:

Thanks, HR. Got a bag of the GH Maxigro on the way. GH says it's good for hydro. I'm sure you gotta be real aggressive about making sure it gets fully dissolved before going into the res. I'll put the plants on 1/2 strength after they're big & strong enough to move to the Grodan cubes, then work up from there.

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It mixes well, make sure you get A and B if you plan to flower, also mix light on the ppms to start off.
And do annual flushings to remove unwanted salts that have built up

hellraizer30 said:

It mixes well, make sure you get A and B if you plan to flower, also mix light on the ppms to start off.
And do annual flushings to remove unwanted salts that have built up

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You know we're growing green beans, right? Got 3 indoor grows of mj going, but this is a segregated science project I'm doing with my ten-year-old son. Might as well put my hydro experience to use, right? Anyway, beans do have a veg and flower state. I didn't notice the part B of this product - will check on it. Thanks much for the help!

Flash4211 said:

Hmmmmm..well, the whole point of this experiment is to demonstrate the improved food yield of hydro vs "natural" grown beans. So, it's no problem that the lighting, pest, and other environmental variables is different - the point is that with hydro, you can control all those factors to improve yield. The intent isn't just to compare soil and soil-less grow media, it's the whole hydro thing.

I have germinated 10 seeds of the exact same strain - Burpee bush heirloom beans - 5 will go into an indoor top-feed recycle hydro system under T5 fluorescent light and getting appropriate nutes (I'm still investigating nutes). And 5 will go into a garden area outside my house, where they will get optimal sunlight (southern exposure), nutes from the garden soil, and watering as needed. This should be a fair comparison of traditional and hydro growing, including all the elements of each method. This seems like a reasonable and fun experiment that a ten-year-old can fully participate in. What am I missing? Thanks much for the lively feedback. Green beans or ganja, RIU always comes through with great info!

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It will likely get your kid an A it just isn't technically science. Don't worry though, most all schools don't actually enforce you to do actual science for science projects. I find even in high level university classes the teachers are still way too lazy to correct those that don't understand the scientific process. Put bluntly you'll be growing veggies and documenting it but in no way it is a legitimate science experiment. But teachers grade on effort so who really cares - I doubt your kid does. They at all interested in becoming a scientist? Probably not or they would want to do it correctly themselves - so who really cares. Just don't let your kid actually think he's performing a legitimate science experiment but instead let them know whey are having fun and scamming a good grade. (I don't mean scam negatively, I just don't know what other word to replace it with.)

Here's a suggestion -

Do it like you want to but measure what you're actually testing - efficiency. Calculate ALL costs including all power consumed as well as time spend on the veggies and then compare that to yield. Yield compared to yield is absolutely silly as there are way too many variables but comparing yield to time and yield to cost might actually give you something useful and is much more scientific. Of course if you have any skill growing anything the beans outdoors will blow the beans indoors away. Should yield much more and cost much much less in both time and resources.

Gastanker said:

Here's a suggestion -

Do it like you want to but measure what you're actually testing - efficiency. Calculate ALL costs including all power consumed as well as time spend on the veggies and then compare that to yield. Yield compared to yield is absolutely silly as there are way too many variables but comparing yield to time and yield to cost might actually give you something useful and is much more scientific. Of course if you have any skill growing anything the beans outdoors will blow the beans indoors away. Should yield much more and cost much much less in both time and resources.

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Excellent thought, GT. Outdoor cost is virtually 0, indoor has cost for power and nutes, and possibly labor. You're right, it would be a much more meaningful result. But I don't understand why you'd expect a better yield from outdoor plants....?

The sun... Unless it's completely the wrong season (in which case the beans wont grow at all and it's a bs comparison), you cannot compete with the sun. Hydro veggie farms are all outdoor greenhouses, sometimes with supplemental lighting also, but they always use the sun. It's not a cost thing it's that you just can't supply a fraction of the light indoors as you can outdoors. You ever see a 15lb indoor hydro plant? Well it kind of is a cost thing as well... but have you seen a 15 lb indoor plant?

Aside from that if you are comparing efficiency and costs there's no comparison as well - outdoors is near free, indoors is all cost. The beans would never cover the cost the electricity alone, or the nutes, or the plastic pipes, or any of the start-up costs for that matter... It would be fun for your son to include a price over time though to see how long it would take to hypothetically pay off the construction costs of the hydro system... Of course you would need to institute a false worth for your beans in order to make any profit.

Want a real science experiment that's related? Vertical outdoor versus flat outdoor -

Mark out x area times two outdoors, say two 5x5 areas and in one have plants flat on the ground in pots and in the other 5x5 area build a structure so that you can grow vertically (pretty big movement in urban areas). In this case you're comparing productivity of flat farming versus vertical by comparing yield. You can have more plants in the vertical and it doesn't skew the science as long as you make sure to use for the most part the same soil, the same sun, the same water, and the same nutes. Again you can calculate in the startup costs over time versus yield improvement which would look great in teh report and help his grade - and in this case the vertical should show that it would outyield the flat and it would pay for itself in time.


**** Mention sustainablilty in the report and it'll bump up his grade - almost guaranteed. Indoors = not sustainable, outdoors is, outdoors + vertical in an urban area = really sustainable (academically speaking)

beans germ very easy and r quite hardy i grow them every year and they r fuckin monsters rite now my veggies always end up looking like super veggies and i barely use any ferts except whats in the soil when i put it down and then i had some high phosphor guano later on and boom massive harvest

Well, damn, I guess this is why there's a Scientific Method. I was sure that a controlled indoor grow would out-produce an outdoor grow. We'll do it anyway, chips fall where they may.

devinclerk said:

Use both spectrum with the lights. I recently did I similar project with beans but with 6500k vs 2700k and the results were almost identical - mixed always seems to better than just one though.
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Yep, I have plenty of both, will put two of each in a 4-bulb T5 fixture. Thanks!