Hydroponic Setups
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Hydroponic Setups
DIY hydroponic plants?
Is it possible to make a DIY hydroponic plant setup on your desk? Just a small setup for display. And could it be possible to do that without the pumps?
Don't see why not. You need a nice looking waterproof container and the appropriate filling material - stones, gravel, whatever, and the correct nutrients from a garden center. If it is a small container I would suggest you leave a sump in one corner from which you can bale the water out by hand or by a small vacuum pump like those used in winemaking. Then add fresh water and nutrients from a jug or bottle. A plastic bottle filled with water and turned upside down with the mouth under water will give you a regular top up. Proper hydroponics need misting sprays, light and temperature control etc etc, but if you choose sturdy plants like Busy Lizzies they should survive without all the gadgets. I ran a hydroponic Busy Lizzie in half a glass brick for years in the office.
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Hydroponics - Growing Without Soil
The growing of plants without soil is called Hydroponics. It is widely used to grow lush, healthy indoor plants and good quality vegetables, fruits and herbs. Plants absorb nutrients as simple ions in water. The nutrients in the soil dissolve in water and the plant roots absorb them. When the plants get adequate nutrients, the soil is no longer required for the plant to thrive. With the use of proper nutrients and the right artificial light source, an indoor gardener can achieve amazing results. A complete controlled environmental agriculture system should have controlled light, temperature, water, CO2, oxygen, pH and nutrients.
Hydroponics is simple and efficient. On alternate days a pH check is done and the water level is topped up. The nutrient is changed every 7 - 12 days. To turn the light and garden on and off automatically, a timer is often used. Amongst the different forms of Hydroponics, deep water is the purest form since the roots are directly exposed to the nutrient solution. "Deep Water" systems use a small air pump to keep the solution well oxygenated.
Another method of Hydroponics is the Ebb
About the Author
Barney Garcia writes about many different hydroponic and gardening topics. hydroponics shops and hydroponic setups and how to grow with hydroponic
Here's an idea...
I should know better than to try to have a rational discussion with such a dogmatic person. But I can't resist commenting on a few points:
First, I completelty reject the idea (which was being floated by the indoor cooperative/corporate pot grower) that indoor buds are somehow more appropriate for medicinal use. That's truly laughable. I'd much rather have organic outdoor buds raised in full sunshine and native soil as opposed to fancy indoor buds grown with chemical fertilizers and pesticides, especially pyrethroids, which most large indoor growers use to combat spider mites.
As far as overall environmental impact, there's just no comparison:
Growing a couple of pounds of pot indoors requires 1,000s of watts of power usage, 24 hours a day for several months, then 12 hours a day for a couple more months, depending on the strain. And this either means sucking energy from the grid (from fossil fuels and nuclear and hydro sources) or else running your own diesel generator, with all the potential for spills or fires that goes along with that industrial arrangement. Indoor growing requires a structure (house or shed or garage or whatever), fans, ventilation systems, etc. Indoor growing requires costly potting soil, (which is routinely disposed of after each crop) and fancy soil amendments like bat guano and seabird guano, which are usually supplemented with additional fancy liquid fertilizers as the season progresses. Or else they use expensive hydroponic setups, with bubblers to keep the water oxygenated, pumps to circulate the water/liquid fertilizers, etc. And of course nearly all the hydroponic growing solutions are straight-up chemical fertilizer concoctions. And let's not forget the clone machine with additional lights over it, to get the next generation going. Oh, and the clone “mother” needs her own set-up too, lights, hydro, the works. And then with so much capital on the line, most larger indoor growers end up using some of the vast array of available pesticides, particularly pyrethroids, to protect their heavily-leveraged crops from spider mites, molds, etc. And many growers also provide heat, cooling, and they even *directly release* Carbon Dioxide (can you say Global Warming!?) into the growing space to maximize their yield. So those perfectly-formed buds that are fetishized in High Times and Cannabis Culture looks nice, but that's at one HELL of a cost to the planet in terms of energy and resources.
By comparison, if you know what you are doing, this is all it takes to grow excellent-quality outdoor bud:
Sunshine. Your own soil amended with mature compost and inexpensive, readily-available organic soil amendments like chicken manure, bone meal, oyster shell flour, etc. Seeds of a good strain that is appropriate for the climate. A fence. Water. A few common garden tools. That's it.
Yup, that's it. Zero electricity, as the sun is providing the light. Zero pesticides, as the birds and other insects prevent the spider mites from becoming established. Avoid the “Kush” strains and you won't have powdery mildew problems. Grow a strain that flowers early (August/Sept) and you won't have graymold problems. If something DOES go wrong (those deer that got through your fence, or whatever) you didn't lay out a lot of capital, so you don't stand to lose as much.
So there doesn't need to be any “concerted effort” to portray small-scale, outdoor organic ganja growing as more sustainable and less wasteful than indoor growing or any sort. It's a conclusion that any unbiased observer will come to on their own, after learning the facts.
[Of course, large-scale outdoor grows (like the one they found last year where dozens of acres were clear-cut and hundreds ofthousands of plants were involved) are not sustainable in any way, shape, or form. And some outdoor growers, large or small, through ignorance or laziness also use chemical fertilizers and pesticides. But at least in Humboldt it seems that most don't.]
For some reason it seems to infuriate you that people want to make a distinction between large indoor/diesel-dope grow factories and small-scale, organic outdoor gardens. But many of us believe that's exactly the kind of distinction we should be making as we consider what kind of cannabis cultivation should be considered as an acceptable, sustainable part of the county's agricultural fabric in the years to come.
If you seemed to be a bit open-minded on the topic, I could clear up a number of other misconceptions you seem to have about the local horticultural scene. But frankly I'm not willing to waste a whole lot more time on someone who appears to be more interested in shoe-horning any available issue into a justification for their preferred flavor of Central Planning than actually looking at the issues on their merits.