I'm working on designing a really versatile, really cheap soilless system. I'm trying to make sure that it has features built in that help mitigate the negatives associated with hydro/aero systems. I've worked in several things, but want to make sure I'm not missing something obvious, or have a complex solution where something simpler will do.
The negatives of soilless systems that I've found:
*initial cost can get pretty costly for advanced systems
*ongoing costs can get pretty high too, based on the type of system, the kind of medium used, and the nutrients chosen
*soilless growing requires more attention and knowledge than traditional gardening methods
*power failure = crop stress - and for some systems, can mean crop death in a matter of hours
*diseases and pests affect entire crop - while soilless systems aren't as prone to some diseases, once one takes hold, your entire system is compromised
*some soilless systems with minimal medium don't provide much stability for the plant, so you end up with a top heavy plant that requires lots of support
What are some other major 'cons' to soilless growing?
I've compiled my favorite ways you guys (and the rest of the internets) have dealt with these negatives. Remember, at all points I'm looking for value (long life, reasonable cost) and simplicity.
*initial cost:
-Start up costs can be kept to a minimum by using cross purposed products wherever possible (dedicated hydro stuff is sometimes WAY more expensive than the same product made for a huge industry like food service) and designing a system just large enough to take advantage of some scale. A single bucket system is going to cost a lot more 'per plant' than a four bucket system, and up to a certain point, you'll always get lower 'per plant' costs with a larger system.
*ongoing costs:
-Fertilizer costs can get pretty high if you use hydro-specific nutrients, but you can get away with spending a lot less by using commercial products like Dyna gro. You can save even MORE money by mixing your own, which I will do once I get the hang of soilless growing. Mixing your own also lets you make changes to individual components, build in pH buffering, and probably do other cool flexible things I'll learn about when I get there.
-Another major ongoing cost is in medium - some mediums can only be used once, which adds a lot to the long term cost 'per plant.' It seems like there are two main ways to deal with this - by using a system design that requires less medium, or by incorporating a medium that can be reused. Some combination of the two is probably the best way to reduce long term costs but still maximize plant growth. Right now, I'm leaning towards using net pots (reduces the amount of medium needed) and filling them with rocks or hydroton or aquarium glass mixed with some water loving medium. Ideally, even the other medium (coir, rockwool of some sort, sure to grow, etc...) will be at least somewhat reusable. In the end, I'm looking to balance FAST growth with very low ongoing costs - which is, essentially, what I'm experimenting with.
-There's also the ongoing water cost, but since soilless is so much more water efficient than traditional agriculture, I don't worry too much about this except that I have no intention of building a drain-to-waste system. I feel like those are dumb and counteract too many of the benefits of hydroponics.
*maintenance and knowledge:
-I am trying to design a system simple enough that the eventual end user could be a bright nine year old capable of figuring out which simple list of directions to follow. I'm trying to minimize the amount of time each day that needs to be given, as well as trying to increase the amount of time the system can go without more than just a five minute check and refill. At the end of it, the system will definitely still require a little more upkeep than traditional gardening, but I want to come up with simple enough bits and pieces (sensors and the like) that can be broken down to lists of steps in a short instruction manual.
*power failure implications:
-this one scares the bejesus out of me, but it seems simple enough to work around . for each system (say, four or eight buckets?) you'd just need one extra (small) pump on a timer and a UPS. You wouldn't want it to go on very often - especially in aero systems, where a drip will limit your root hair development - but just often enough that plants wouldn't fall over and die before you got the power back on. Unfortunately, UPS are pretty expensive, so it might make more sense to find a 12V pump and timer and DIY a battery backup. lots of things to try!
*disease and pest issues:
-fortunately, there aren't as many things to worry about in soilless systems, but the things that do pop up have the ability to take out entire crops. I'm heavily leaning towards dealing with this by incorporating some sort of organics into the system. The brown slime thread is AWESOME - I'm of the opinion that it can be used as a preventative measure, and he's got it down to a great inexpensive method. I haven't looked deeply into how to adopt that into other systems - like true aero, where the atomization will kill the bacteria - but I'm sure there's a way to work with it, perhaps by incorporating the organics into a separate reservoir with the power backup pump? The other way to handle this is by using disease resistant strains, but I'm not sure how much research there is on some of the diseases that only soilless crops are prone to. I'm definitely aiming towards organics, because I lean kind of hippie and I like the idea of incorporating some of the stuff I know made my dirt gardens thrive.
*plant stability:
I'd love to figure out a way to use aeroponics and something like SWC with virtually no medium, because I think that would maximize growth and minimize ongoing costs. Unfortunately, then you end up with a root system with little to no support, and a very top heavy plant. Some people just support the plant itself as it grows, and I've seen some folks use empty net pots and collars for the roots and first bit of the stem... I'm not a fan of collars, they're kind of expensive for what they are, and I've heard they aren't as reusable as they should be, stuff about not being able to get them sanitized? I've heard the same thing about hydroton and other 'reusable' mediums, actually - and while organics might be able to help with that in the root chamber, I'm not sure that will protect the shoots. As for support, though, I like the idea of bungeeing the whole bucket to the surface it's sitting on, which means the actual plant supports can be more for training than weight support.
So that's what I've got so far in terms of the things that can go disastrously wrong in soilless systems, and some cheap solutions I've stumbled upon or am thinking about for each of them. Anyone have any other soilless issues, and ways they've solved them?
PS - I'm sure you noticed, but I'm ignoring lighting for now. I've done a lot of research, but I haven't actually played with the different options. Soon!
The negatives of soilless systems that I've found:
*initial cost can get pretty costly for advanced systems
*ongoing costs can get pretty high too, based on the type of system, the kind of medium used, and the nutrients chosen
*soilless growing requires more attention and knowledge than traditional gardening methods
*power failure = crop stress - and for some systems, can mean crop death in a matter of hours
*diseases and pests affect entire crop - while soilless systems aren't as prone to some diseases, once one takes hold, your entire system is compromised
*some soilless systems with minimal medium don't provide much stability for the plant, so you end up with a top heavy plant that requires lots of support
What are some other major 'cons' to soilless growing?
I've compiled my favorite ways you guys (and the rest of the internets) have dealt with these negatives. Remember, at all points I'm looking for value (long life, reasonable cost) and simplicity.
*initial cost:
-Start up costs can be kept to a minimum by using cross purposed products wherever possible (dedicated hydro stuff is sometimes WAY more expensive than the same product made for a huge industry like food service) and designing a system just large enough to take advantage of some scale. A single bucket system is going to cost a lot more 'per plant' than a four bucket system, and up to a certain point, you'll always get lower 'per plant' costs with a larger system.
*ongoing costs:
-Fertilizer costs can get pretty high if you use hydro-specific nutrients, but you can get away with spending a lot less by using commercial products like Dyna gro. You can save even MORE money by mixing your own, which I will do once I get the hang of soilless growing. Mixing your own also lets you make changes to individual components, build in pH buffering, and probably do other cool flexible things I'll learn about when I get there.
-Another major ongoing cost is in medium - some mediums can only be used once, which adds a lot to the long term cost 'per plant.' It seems like there are two main ways to deal with this - by using a system design that requires less medium, or by incorporating a medium that can be reused. Some combination of the two is probably the best way to reduce long term costs but still maximize plant growth. Right now, I'm leaning towards using net pots (reduces the amount of medium needed) and filling them with rocks or hydroton or aquarium glass mixed with some water loving medium. Ideally, even the other medium (coir, rockwool of some sort, sure to grow, etc...) will be at least somewhat reusable. In the end, I'm looking to balance FAST growth with very low ongoing costs - which is, essentially, what I'm experimenting with.
-There's also the ongoing water cost, but since soilless is so much more water efficient than traditional agriculture, I don't worry too much about this except that I have no intention of building a drain-to-waste system. I feel like those are dumb and counteract too many of the benefits of hydroponics.
*maintenance and knowledge:
-I am trying to design a system simple enough that the eventual end user could be a bright nine year old capable of figuring out which simple list of directions to follow. I'm trying to minimize the amount of time each day that needs to be given, as well as trying to increase the amount of time the system can go without more than just a five minute check and refill. At the end of it, the system will definitely still require a little more upkeep than traditional gardening, but I want to come up with simple enough bits and pieces (sensors and the like) that can be broken down to lists of steps in a short instruction manual.
*power failure implications:
-this one scares the bejesus out of me, but it seems simple enough to work around . for each system (say, four or eight buckets?) you'd just need one extra (small) pump on a timer and a UPS. You wouldn't want it to go on very often - especially in aero systems, where a drip will limit your root hair development - but just often enough that plants wouldn't fall over and die before you got the power back on. Unfortunately, UPS are pretty expensive, so it might make more sense to find a 12V pump and timer and DIY a battery backup. lots of things to try!
*disease and pest issues:
-fortunately, there aren't as many things to worry about in soilless systems, but the things that do pop up have the ability to take out entire crops. I'm heavily leaning towards dealing with this by incorporating some sort of organics into the system. The brown slime thread is AWESOME - I'm of the opinion that it can be used as a preventative measure, and he's got it down to a great inexpensive method. I haven't looked deeply into how to adopt that into other systems - like true aero, where the atomization will kill the bacteria - but I'm sure there's a way to work with it, perhaps by incorporating the organics into a separate reservoir with the power backup pump? The other way to handle this is by using disease resistant strains, but I'm not sure how much research there is on some of the diseases that only soilless crops are prone to. I'm definitely aiming towards organics, because I lean kind of hippie and I like the idea of incorporating some of the stuff I know made my dirt gardens thrive.
*plant stability:
I'd love to figure out a way to use aeroponics and something like SWC with virtually no medium, because I think that would maximize growth and minimize ongoing costs. Unfortunately, then you end up with a root system with little to no support, and a very top heavy plant. Some people just support the plant itself as it grows, and I've seen some folks use empty net pots and collars for the roots and first bit of the stem... I'm not a fan of collars, they're kind of expensive for what they are, and I've heard they aren't as reusable as they should be, stuff about not being able to get them sanitized? I've heard the same thing about hydroton and other 'reusable' mediums, actually - and while organics might be able to help with that in the root chamber, I'm not sure that will protect the shoots. As for support, though, I like the idea of bungeeing the whole bucket to the surface it's sitting on, which means the actual plant supports can be more for training than weight support.
So that's what I've got so far in terms of the things that can go disastrously wrong in soilless systems, and some cheap solutions I've stumbled upon or am thinking about for each of them. Anyone have any other soilless issues, and ways they've solved them?
PS - I'm sure you noticed, but I'm ignoring lighting for now. I've done a lot of research, but I haven't actually played with the different options. Soon!
In all seriousness, I'm working on this one in the back of my head. There is an unlimited supply of old almost worthless computers out there - full of components I'm certain I can use to cheaply automate at least some of the normal 'maintenance' of a soilless system. I've even found a lot of awesome cheap DC pumps that are actually more efficient than their AC counterparts, and computer PSUs are widely available, hella cheap, well regulated, and happen to have standardized inputs and outputs and are BUILT to power things like 12V devices, LEDs, fans, and other cooling options. I should have the first computer PSU powered prototype set up in the next couple of weeks - expect further posts =)
