lathyrus_long

18 ms·

31.
by lathyrus_long 5y ago
Reverse osmosis water solves a lot of problems. Household RO systems are pretty wasteful, though; the pressure across the membrane is just the household water pressure, so the ratio of waste:purified is around 3:1. Fancier RO systems with p
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by lathyrus_long 5y ago
I have a drain-to-waste system running open loop, with a constant dose of acid and sensors monitoring the pH of the leachate that drains from the pots. In that system, I've seen step changes in that pH that I believe correspond to step
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by lathyrus_long 5y ago
Yeah, battery acid is sometimes used, and not a terrible corrosive risk with the precautions you note. I don't love that it doesn't come with any specs e.g. on heavy metal contaminants, but I think it's near-certainly fine in
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by lathyrus_long 5y ago
You'd pay a lab about $45, same as I did for my quality control check. A few of the ions--like nitrate or ammonium--will probably get tested with some kind of color-change reaction, and quantified with a visible-light spectrophotometer
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by lathyrus_long 5y ago
The nutrient profiles in my calculator are copied from various academic publications. Those profiles typically come with less discussion of how they were designed than I might hope, but I assume it's from review of trials of the form m
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by lathyrus_long 5y ago
Some growers keep their reservoir and root zone as sterile as possible, using additives like hydrogen peroxide or calcium hypochlorite. Others dose beneficial bacteria intended to outcompete bad stuff, like Bacillus amyloliquefaciens (Hydro
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by lathyrus_long 5y ago
"What ions", strictly--they're salts, so they dissociate when they dissolve. But it's conventional to look at the breakdown by element, not by ion, even in cases where the specific ion is important. For example, fertiliz
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by lathyrus_long 5y ago
> It seems quite foliage heavy though, do you think that's because of the commercial nutrient blend you used? Mostly inadequate pruning, I think--I was planning to replace it soon, so I'd gotten lazy. Normally I remove side sho
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by lathyrus_long 5y ago
> However it's worth adding that most of blooming plants will change their 'diet' during their flowering period. Yeah, absolutely. I tend to grow a lot of different plants at different life stages, so an optimal profile fo
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by lathyrus_long 5y ago
> If you have any issues with fungus, gnats or any kind of negative root insects soilless media is the way to go. Yeah, though with the caveat that if your medium retains water very effectively (as e.g. rockwool does) and is exposed to l
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by lathyrus_long 5y ago
You can also acidify the water down to a reasonable pH, though even phosphoric acid is somewhat dangerous and the best choices (nitric or sulfuric) aren't something I want in my apartment. Amateur hydroponic growers often use reverse o
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by lathyrus_long 5y ago
I think that's not by accident. Typical houseplant species seem to be selected for their ability to look good with minimal fertility. That makes them easier to grow, but harder to grow optimally. For example, mint will quickly indicate
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by lathyrus_long 5y ago
There's one in my post about the automation system, at: https://old.reddit.com/r/Hydroponics/comments/o8j68n/singleb... That was still with the old commercially-blended nutrients, though. I've
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by lathyrus_long 5y ago
I've been growing hydroponically through the pandemic. I'm now switching from commercial pre-blended nutrients to my own design, customized for my hard water and blended from individual salts. In the linked article, I briefly revi
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What elements does a plant need to grow?(github.com)
339 points by lathyrus_long 5y ago|102 comments
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by lathyrus_long 5y ago
Here's an article on the technical challenges of a different treed building, Italy's Bosco Verticale: https://global.ctbuh.org/resources/papers/download/2099-a-ne... The weight of the soil and water
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by lathyrus_long 5y ago
As to the seeds, a reputable vendor isn't just starting with any random fruit. Even for an open-pollinated variety, you want large separation distances from other varieties to avoid unwanted cross-pollination, potentially miles. You ca
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by lathyrus_long 5y ago
It's helpful to learn and use professional terminology, to get away from heavily SEO'd search terms. A search for "when to water potted plant" returns endless variations of the same mediocre article, but "coir irrig
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by lathyrus_long 5y ago
If you like aquaponics, then take a look at Goliad Farms. He raises greenhouses full of tropical fish, relying entirely on plants to remove ammonium from the water. And yeah, that root zone microbiome is complex, though somewhat different i
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by lathyrus_long 5y ago
A study found that vinegar significantly slowed growth (vs. citric or phosphoric acid) in all three plant species tested: https://sciendo.com/pdf/10.2478/johr-2019-0004 It may still be better than nothing, since t
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by lathyrus_long 5y ago
They should be fertilized at the same rate at which the plants are consuming the fertilizer. Professionals will often judge this by measuring the electrical conductivity (EC) of the solution leaching from the bottom of the pot. The fertiliz
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by lathyrus_long 5y ago
I also found that advice about as confusing as all the other consumer-targeted houseplant advice. If you've got some time to invest, then I believe you'll find that advice for professional growers makes a lot more sense, much more
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by lathyrus_long 5y ago
Hypochlorite (like they add for disinfection) will break down on standing, or faster with aeration. Chloramine (also added for disinfection) won't, which is why aquarists use various chemical treatments to remove that. Neither is too i
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by lathyrus_long 5y ago
Each utility should report water quality. For most of San Jose, it's https://www.sjwater.com/sites/default/files/2021-06/ccr.pdf The parameters relevant to plants (EC, pH, chloride, etc.) are usuall
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by lathyrus_long 5y ago
Beyond genetics and environment, soil/nutrient fertility also affects the taste. For example, drought-stressing tomatoes near harvest generally improves flavor at the cost of yield, both by the obvious mechanism of adding less water an
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by lathyrus_long 5y ago
> A plant that keeps putting harmful substances in its fruits is losing the game at middle term. We would just spread more seeds of its tastier competitors instead. Humans indeed find some endogenous pesticides unpleasant; but we enjoy o
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by lathyrus_long 5y ago
The point is that if a product is twice as toxic to humans (or bees, or some other off-target species) but four times as toxic to the target pest, then the grower can use a quarter as much and the adverse impact is half. The relevant factor
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by lathyrus_long 5y ago
Yeah, though with some interesting exceptions like Dutch orchid greenhouses. Foreign countries with cheap labor and suitable climates have a big natural advantage, but intensive scientific agriculture (to make best use of the expensive gree
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by lathyrus_long 5y ago
The Israelis invented modern drip irrigation and use it extensively. They also make good use of low-quality water, like treated wastewater and not-totally-desalinated seawater, by developing salt-tolerant varieties and carefully optimizing
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by lathyrus_long 5y ago
Pesticides are still widely used indoors. Pests will get introduced even with strong precautions (air showers at the entrances, etc.). At that point, if they're able to multiply then they will, potentially even faster than outdoors sin

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