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DIY Aeroponics What is High Pressure

Aeroponics
By geekgardener, on September 14th, 2015%

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What is High Pressure Aeroponics?

What is High pressure

Aeroponics
Aeroponics is a technique of
growing plants in chamber that is
periodically sprayed with mist of
the nutrient solution. High
Pressure Aeroponics can be traced
back to 1970s. It really took
momentum after NASA reported it as
the most efficient system to grow
plants in both Earth and in Space.
I explained What is Aeroponics in
my previous post, but What is High
Pressure Aeroponics? High pressure
+ Aeroponics is High Pressure

Aeroponics! Simple Isnt it?

High pressure aeroponics is a
branch of aeroponics that deals
with growing plants in mist
generated under high pressure. Due
the high pressure,the mist particle
size becomes very small. Smaller
mist particles are easily absorbed
by the plant roots.The study
conducted by NASA revealed that 5080 microns is the optimal size for
the mist particles for efficient
absorption by the plant roots.

Advantages of High Pressure Aeroponics

High Pressure Aeroponics (HPA)

uses 90% lesser water then
conventional growing methods
The nutrient requirement is
also less compared to
hydroponics as well as
conventional farming.
Planting density can be
increased since there is no
competition among plant roots.
Spreading of diseases is less
as plants root may not touch
each other.

Disadvantages of High Pressure Aeroponics

High Pressure Aeroponics is not
without its disadvantages.

Setting up a system can require

many parts/components. Making
it difficult for newbies
Due to high pressure and minute
particle size, the high
pressure Aeroponic nozzles have
to be constantly monitored for
clogs. Salt build up can
quickly result in a clogged
high pressure Aeroponic nozzle.
Dependence on electricity or
external power resource for
continuous operation. Any
Failure in the system can
result in the failure of the

crops in a short time.

Low Pressure vs High Pressure Aeroponics

Lets discuss things in little more
detail. In Aeroponics, there are
two types. Low Pressure Systems are
those that operate under very low
pressure. Low pressure Aeroponic
systems merely cause a spray of
water in tiny drops on the roots.
These systems are operated using
standard magnetic drive pump. These
low pressure aeroponic pumps are
connected to PVC tubing with set of
low pressure sprinkler heads. The
pumps are operated 247. The water
drops created by these sprinkler
heads are fairly large. This works
well. Technically, when the
nutrient solution in form of bigger
drops hit the roots all the time,
the system acts like a deep flow
technique or a bubbler system.
Though low pressure aeroponics
works well, it is not as efficient
as High pressure Aeroponics.
High Pressure Aeroponic Systems
operate under very high pressure.
Ideally high pressure aeroponics
systems work at 80 to 100 PSI. This
high pressure is used to atomize
the nutrient solution when it is
supplied via a tiny spray nozzle.
THe dia of the nozzle ranges from
1mm to 5mm. Nutrient solution is

forced via this tiny orifice at

that pressure to create droplet
size of 50 microns or less in
diameter. Basically it is about
making the nutrient solution in its
tiniest form. Also, High Pressure
aeroponics systems operate only for
a short time and it operates in
intervals not continuous.
Typically, the high pressure mist
lasts for a 2-5 seconds followed by
up to 5 minutes of off time. Then
the cycle repeats. The timing is
achieved by a cyclic timer.
High Pressure Aeroponics and
Droplet Size. In a research done by
NASA, it is shown that water
droplet size of roughly 50 microns
are readily absorbed by the plant
roots. The droplet size is
important factor. Larger the water
drop size, lesser oxygen is
available. Again if the droplet
size is too small like a those from
the ultrasonic mister, there will
be too much root hair development
at the expense of leaves and shoot.
So I guess, I answered the question
What is High Pressure
Aeroponics?. OK, we learnt What is
high pressure aeroponics. What next
?. We are going to build a High
pressure Aeroponics System with
parts that are easily available.
Thats what is next! Stay tuned.

Share this with your garden buddies:

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Aeroponics
aeroponic-system, high-pressureaeroponics, hpa, soilless agriculture, soilless-farming

What is Aeroponics An Introduction

By geekgardener, on September 7th, 2015%

What is aeroponics Learn about Aeroponics

What is Aeroponics
Aeroponics is an amazing
alternative for people with limited
spaces to grow plants. You might be
wondering what is Aeroponics? .
Aeroponics is one of the soilless
agriculture techniques, very
similar to hydroponics in that both
the techniques dont use soil to
grow plants. Hydroponics uses water
to grow plants. Whereas,
Aeroponics is a technique of
growing plants without any rooting

medium. There is no soil or water

used to support the plants roots.
The plant roots are suspended in a
dark chamber and nutrient rich
water is sprayed on to the roots at
constant intervals.

Aeroponics Vs Hydroponics
Aeroponics and hydroponics are both
soilless agriculture techniques.
Hydroponics is a science that deals
with growing plants in water or in
any inert growing medium that is
void of any nutrients. All the
required nutrients are provided via
the nutrient solution used to water
the plants.

Aeroponics is a technique or a
subset of hydroponics that involves
growing plants that have their
roots suspended in a dark humid
chamber which is periodically
sprayed with nutrient rich mist.
Aeroponics has many advantages over
conventional way of growing and
also over hydroponics. The water
consumption is 90% less and it
allows for increased oxygen and
nutrient intake since the mist
particle size is very small.

How does Aeroponics Work?

Aeroponics works by using a
sprinkler system to spray oxygen
and nutrient rich solution on the
plant roots. Aeroponics systems
comprise of growing chamber with a
lid. The plants are placed in a net
pot into the holes with their roots
suspended inside the dark chamber.
A programmable cyclic timer is used
to trigger the high pressure
aeroponic pump to go on and it
causes the nutrient solution from
the nutrient reservoir to be
sprayed as a fine mist in the
rooting chamber.
Fine root hairs develop that are
capable of absorbing nutrients from
the moisture. The oxygen intake is
also increased as the chamber is
filled with oxygen rich-nutrient
solution mist.
Because of the very small size of
the spray particle, the wastage of
nutrient solution is greatly
reduced and root rot is completely
avoided due to supply of well
oxygenated solution.

Aeroponics systems
An Aeroponics system is a simply a
construction that has the following

features

Growing chamber with holes for

plants to be suspended with a
dark chamber below for roots
High pressure/Low pressure
Aeroponic misting system
Cyclic timer to periodically
switch on and off the high
pressure aeroponic pump.
Nutrient Solution

The above said features are common

to any Aeroponics systems. Large
size commercial systems can be very
expensive but that doesnt mean a
small scale diy aeroponics kit has
to be very dear. One can build a
homemade Aeroponics system on a
small budget.

Starting an Aeroponic Garden

Starting an Aeroponic garden is
very easy if you know how to build
an Aeroponic system. There are lots
of diy aeroponic system plans
available for you to start.
Building an Aeroponic system is
very easy and can be a fun weekend
project. All you need for your diy
aeroponics is a big storage bin
with lid, irrigation tubing and its
fittings, sprinkler nozzles and a
pump. Interested to do a DIY

aeroponics project? Stay tuned.

So if you are looking for small
garden ideas or have very limited
space to grow plants, why not try
growing with Aeroponics?
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soilless agriculture, soilless-farming

Growing Strawberries: How to grow

strawberries using Hydroponics
By geekgardener, on March 25th, 2015%

Growing Strawberries: How to

grow strawberries in
hydroponic system

Strawberries! Nothing can define

exoticness better than strawberries.
Why do we love growing
strawberries so much? Is it the taste

or the flavor or the price it enjoys in

the market.. Sure there are lots of
other fruits that are more expensive
than a strawberry but strawberry
still has the crown(pun intended).
We recently participated in Lalbagh
flower show and in our stall we
displayed strawberry plants laden
with fruits. They were
displayed in our hydroponic floating Most
raft system. I was so surprised of the
attention that these plants drew
from the crowd. Every single person
passing through our stall talked
about it. There were funny moments
too. Some thought it was lychee and
some, cherry. Some also made sure
they tell us that strawberry grows in

trees.
Though every one were so in love
with the plant, the biggest question
still remained to be answered. How
to grow strawberries? What special
care does it need? the list goes on.
This post is to clear all the doubts
regarding growing strawberries for
a home garden. With these tips on
growing strawberries, you can have
your own strawberry patch that
provides lots of strawberries.

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strawberries? Does it come from
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on for answers.
Where does strawberry plant comes
from?

Growing Strawberries from

Seeds

Seeds of course! Not just

strawberry. Every plant in this world
comes from seed. There are also
other means of propagating them
but they definitely come from seed.
Now dont ask me what came first
seed or the plant? One might
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are actually found outside the fruit.

Those small spiky things that you
see on the fruit skin are seeds! So
next time you eat a strawberry, pick
few seeds from the fruit and do a
seed sowing experiment.
Most of the strawberries sold in the
market are hybrid ones. Saving
seeds from them may not yield the
same strawberry that you took the
seeds from. For the kicks, you can
save seeds and try germinating
them. But if you are serious about
this, I would suggest you get
runners from a good source. For this
reason, strawberries are never
propagated via seeds for commercial
production. Seed propagation is only
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Runners are the most common way
of propagating strawberry and they
are easiest and fastest way of
multiplying plants. Runner is the
name for the stalk that comes from
the strawberry plant that has a small
plantlet at the tip which when
buried in soil produces roots and
becomes a individual plant by itself.
Once the roots are established, the
connecting stalk/umbilical can be
cut and the new plant can be moved
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How to Plant Strawberries

Planting Strawberries in
Soil/Soilless mix
No matter what source you received
your plants from, the planting
strawberries have to be done in a
proper manner to achieve best
yields.
Strawberry plants like a well
drained soil. You can easily make a
soil mix that is well draining yet rich
in nutrients. Red soil compost in the
ratio of 1:1 or cocopeat and compost
in the ration of 1:1 is a good mix to
start with. Adding perlite to the mix
will make it more draining. A 20% of
perlite by volume of the mix is good
enough.
When planting strawberries, the
crown of the strawberry plant
should not be buried under the soil
surface. Crown is the portion that
connects the stem to the root. If the
crown is buried, it leads to rotting of
the plant. Leaving it too high above

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the ground will expose the roots to

surface and will let the plants dry
out. Do remember these points when
you are planting strawberries
Plant the runners/saplings in the
potting soil, water them
immediately. Ensure the container
has drainage holes to drain out
excess water.
Strawberry Plant Care
For soil/soilless mix, the following regimen can be
followed.

NPK 19-19-19 @3g per liter once

every three days and calcium and
magnesium can be applied via
dolomite lime. Depending on the
cultivar, the plants might start
sending out runners. Runners can be
a good thing and a bad thing. If your
primary goal is to multiply plants,
then runners are what you want.
Multiple runners can drain the plant
of its energy and can result in a nonvigorous plant. It is also detrimental
to fruit production. If fruit
production is your goal, never let

runners form.
When you start seeing small flowers
being formed, it is time to switch
your fertilizer to a bloom
formulation which is nothing but a
NPK ratio that has more potassium
and less nitrogen. You wont go
wrong with something like 5-15-30,
6-12-36 or 8-25-25.

Growing Strawberries
Hydroponically:
Growing strawberries
hydroponically in an NFT system
requires the plants to be placed in
net pots. The bare rooted strawberry
runners can be placed directly in the
net pots and expanded clay medium
can be filled to close the gaps and
also provide anchorage to the plant.
Alternatively if the strawberry plants
arrived in preformed plugs, the
plugs can be directly inserted into
net pots firmly. The net pots are then
placed in the NFT gully/channel.
They are placed such that the
bottom of the netpot touches the top
of the nutrient solution. This is

essential for the first few weeks

when the root system of the
strawberry plants are still
developing. This also keeps the plug
moist all the time. The nutrient flow
in the channel should be 1-2 liters
per minute and the circulation pump
should be running 247. It is
recommended to aerate the nutrient
solution with an aquarium bubbler
to increase the oxygen content. If
there is a fall of the nutrient solution
from the return pipe to the reservoir,
the fall also causes some aeration.

Hydroponic strawberry NFT

Setup:
Our collection of strawberry plants
we started with came from tissue
culture. They were actually quite
very tiny and needed the care of a
new born.

Growing Strawberries from

Seedlings

Planting Strawberries
The strawberry seedlings are
removed from their nursery and
placed in a net pot. This net pot is
then placed into an pre-drilled hole
in the NFT channel.

The plug size and net pot size should

be match for a proper fit. The plant
should be firmly held in the net pot
and also it should provide a way for
roots to come out. Check out the
roots on that plug, it is easier to put
the net pot when there are not many
roots. Roots that are grown too long
will get cut if you insert the plug
into the net pot. Take care while you
handle these tiny strawberry plants.
they are sensitive.

The way to fit the plug in the net pot

is to give a gentle squeeze so that it
fits snugly in the net pot. Again, be
gentle!

This is how it looks once the plant is

fit inside. After the strawberry plant
is placed, the roots will come out of
the slots present in the net pot.

The plant is placed in the channel.

When you place the plant in the
channel, make sure you have set it
up first with the circulating nutrient
solution. Every channel should get
nutrients flowing at the rate of 1-2
litres per minute. After you place the
net pot in the channel, check if the
bottom of the net pot is in contact
with the nutrient solution. This is
very important for the young plant
to grow. If the plug doesnt touch
the nutrient solution, the roots will
not grow, eventually the plug will

dry out and plants dies away!

The finished system should look like

some thing below. The yellow thingy
you see is a sticky yellow trap to
attract and trap white flies. Very
effective.

There is no rule that you should be

growing strawberries only in
hydroponics. You can try your hands
on Raft system as well. Here are a
dozen plants growing in the raft
system.

Once you have transplanted into a

system, the plant will start growing
provided the right amount of
fertilizer. In hydroponics, nutrient
plays a major part. The right
nutrient in the right concentration is
the key to success.
Strawberry plants grow vigorously
during their vegetative phase.
They develop lots of runners and
also produce plant divisions at
their base. This phase makes the

plant bushy and prepares the

plant to support many fruits.
In the picture below, you can notice
runners falling out of the nft
channels above. I use these runners
for multiplying the strawberry
plants. With one plant, you can make
close to 5-6 plants easily if you let
runners form. While it increases the
number of plants, the fruiting does
get affected. If you want the plant to
produce flowers and start fruiting,
trim off all the runners.

These are strawberry runners cut off

the mother plant after they are
rooted in the plugs. Now they will be
individual plants themselves.

NFT system nutrients:

For a recirculating system like NFT,
the following nutrient protocol can
be followed. It is important that a
water test is conducted before using
any solution and appropriate
adjustments are made as per the
analysis in the test report.
Nitrogen(Nitrate) 160 ppm
Nitrogen (Ammonium) 15ppm

Phosphate 50ppm
Potassium 210
Calcium 190ppm
Magnesium 50ppm.
Fe- 6ppm, Bo-0.5ppm, Mn-0.5ppm,
Cu=0.1ppm, Mo, 0.05ppm, Zn,
0.08ppm
The micronutrient mix is mixed as
above.
Mixing this will result in a solution
of EC 1.8-2.0 provided the base
water has less salinity. The ideal
conductivity for strawberry is 1.21.5 during growth phase and 1.8-2.5
during fruiting phase. Higher the
temperature, lesser the EC.
As seen in the picture, all the
runners are removed. EC also was
raised gradually.

The strawberry plant responded

promptly by growing in size and
flowering. Now that the runners are
gone, there is more energy for the
plants to focus them on flowering
and fruiting.

The system in flowering stage. This

system was in our greenhouse
located on top of our Hydroponic
Store. We had lots of customers
insist that we sell some grown
plants for them. We did sell few
plants and planted smaller plants in
their place. You can see the plants in
different age groups.

Another view of the system

We had a good harvest. Off the 30

plants that we had producing
strawberries, we would get at least
15 strawberries a day. They were
nice shaped ones. They tasted great
too!

My daugher Dhwani, had a blast

with these strawberries almost
every day. Yummy Stawbelly is her
favorite.

Another day, another harvest.

Hydroponics NFT system is

relatively maintenance free.
That said, there are few things
one has to keep in mind. The
nutrient solution, its pH and
conductivity. There are meters
to measure both the
parameters. pH meter
measures, well, pH!. Electrical
Conductivity meter measures
EC. Its good to have both of
them if you want to manage a
system properly. It also helps to

learn about hydroponics by

studying the effect of plant
growth on EC and pH and vice
versa.
If you would like to know what is pH
and conductivity of a solution, I
am working on a hydroponics
series that covers from the
basics to advanced topics. Stay
tuned.
How often to change the
solution.
This is one of the trickiest part and
most of the times, problems arise
because of this. Understanding what
the plant takes is important to take a
call on this. When the plants are
small, they take less nutrients and
as they grow their consumption goes
higher. Also, in summer, plants
consume more water and in winter
the consumption of water is less.
This is mainly due to transpiration.
Measuring the conductivity on a
daily basis will help us to figure that
the plants are taking more water or
more salts or both.
If the EC of the solution keeps
coming down, the plants are taking

more salts
if the EC is climbing up, the plants
are taking more water. We should
refill the tank and reduce the EC of
the solution to avoid salt buildup.
Measure the volume in the tank
everyday.Refill the tank if it goes
below the required volume. Once it
is refilled check the EC and pH
adjust so that the final values fall in
the optimum range needed for the
plants.
There isnt any ideal period after
you which you dump and make a
new solution. After every refill
( either with water or with
nutrients), the solution sways away
from the ideal formulation. After a
couple of refills, there is a chance
that solution is totally out of
balance. Using an EC meter is only
going to tell us the total amount of
salts present it the solution and not
their composition. So generally, if
the reservoir is very small, dumping
the solution can be done every 10-15
days. For larger reservoirs in the
range of few 100s of liters. May be
once a month. ( this is again
depending on the system size).

Should there be any deficiency of

disease incidence like root rot.
Immediate dumping will be
required.
Deficiencies
No matter how well we try to
manage the solution sometimes
deficiencies do show up. It is
important that we keep an eye for
them before they become
irreversible. There are several
reasons deficiency can come. Some
reasons are

pH is not in the right range. This

leads to unavailability of certain
elements.
Precipitation of salts. If they
salts are not dissolved properly ,
then they might react and form
a precipitate that is not soluble
in water, locking out some
elements.
Root disease such as root rot
causing plants to not take up
nutrients.
Environmental stress such as
extreme temperature, humidity
etc.

In this NFT experiment, I came

across iron and calcium deficiency
and pictures are below to help you
identify the same in your garden.
Iron Deficiency
Iron is an immobile element. That
means, it cannot be moved from old
leaves to younger leaves should
there be a deficiency. The symptom
will always be seem in the newer
leaves first. Iron Deficiency results
on chlorosis ( lack of green color).

The remedy for this is to find the

root cause. Adjust the pH and verify
if the right amount of iron is added
in the nutrient. Once the corrective
measure is made it is very easy to
fix.
Calcium Deficiencyy
Like Iron, Calcium also is immobile.
It can only move with water. If water
doesnt reach some part of plant,
calcium doesnt reach. Calcium is
important for cell walls. The
deficiency of calcium results in leaf

tips getting burnt due to lack of

calcium in the cells.Calcium may be
deficient due to unavailability of
calcium in the solution, or simply
the environmental conditions arent
conducive. If there is no water flow
in the plant, say for e.g the weather
is cold, less light and then high
humidity. The plants need not
transpire. Less water uptake and
less calcium.

Pests:

Pests are inevitable in a garden and

hydroponics is no exception. Certain
soil borne pests can be avoided with
the use of NFT system. But sucking
pests that are air borne are your
worst nightmare.
The following insects are quite
common

Thrips
o Remedy is to spray neem oil
and also use blue sticky
traps to attract them.
Aphids
o Remedy is to spray neem oil
@ 5ml per litre of water.
Spider mites
o Forcing a jet of water can
reduce them
o Neem oil spray
o Wettable sulfur.

Check out this video

That brings us to the end of this
post. Quite a long post isnt it?
Send me your questions, comments.
Stay tuned for the hydroponic
series.

GG
Share this with your garden buddies:
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fruits, strawberry
bangalore, fragaria,
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soilless agriculture, soilless-cultivation, strawberry, tissue culture

How to grow Herbs in a Hydroponic Raft

system
By geekgardener, on September 24th, 2013%

How to grow Herbs in a

Hydroponic Raft system
Imagine this. You want to make some dish and
you need Basil. You run to the market to get
some basil. You have to get a whole bunch and
you only need little. You use what you need and
keep the rest in the refrigerator. We all know
what happens to the rest of the basil. This is
mostly the case with all herbs. What if you had a
Basil plant in your garden. You go to your
garden, pluck what you need and use it. Nothing
goes waste! and you get fresh herb.
One of the main reasons why anyone should have
garden of their own is, all the exotic rare
vegetables can be grown right in your garden.
This makes life a lot easier since those veggies
are not available easily in the market when you
need them.
No points for figuring out this post is going to be
on Basil! Nothing can beat the smell of Basil.
Just brushing your hands on the crop brings out
amazing smell. There are several varieties of
Basil varying in colors and flavor. The varieties
are Italian Basil, Regular Basil, Thai Basil,

Lemon Basil and Fine leaved Basil. There are

green and purple colored leaves as well. Basil is
also very easy to grow and maintain. I used
regular Basil and selected Deep-water Culture
method of hydroponics to grow it in. There are
several reasons why I chose that method. I
wanted a system that is simple and easy to
maintain. It should also be taking less space so
that I can keep the whole system in my balcony.
Do you want to grow a nice herb hydroponic
garden in your balcony like in this picture
below ? Read on..

Basil
Basil is a common name for Ocimum Basilicum
and it belongs to the family Lamiaceae (Mint
family). Basil can be grown from seeds or from
cuttings. Basil seeds are very small and when
soaked in water they swell and form a gelatinous
covering. The seeds are used in Faluda and is

some drinks.

Deep Water Culture system/Raft system

In Deep Water Culture, plants are grown in a
container that contains hydroponic nutrient
solution meant for that crop. The plants are
suspended in the nutrient solution using a net
pot attached the lid. One can also use a floating
raft on the container and raft can host the
plants. Generally, in such a system an air
bubbler is provided to aerate the nutrient
solution. This process of aeration will increase
the dissolved oxygen in the nutrient solution.
This can also be called as raft system since the
plants are floated on a raft that sits on the top of
the container.

Seed starting:

Starting Basil seeds is very much similar to

starting any other seed. Basil seeds are quite
small. Handling them can be a little difficult.
Seeds can be started in any medium. I prefer to
use seed starting plugs like the ones pictured
below. These are cocopeat plugs specifically
meant for seed starting and cloning cuttings.
Another reason why I just love these plugs is
that you need not worry if you didnt know
whether or not to transplant. You can sow any
seed and when it germinates, you can transplant
it without any roots getting cut. The plant will
not go through any transplant shock. Isnt that
nice? Another nice thing about the plug is that
the sleeve is bio-degradable.So you can bury the
whole thing into the soil/potting media.
The plants in the image below are couple of
weeks old since they were sown in plugs. This
image was taken on July, 6th.

The roots start to come out of the sleeve of the

starter plugs. This can be clearly seen in the
close up below.

I explained about getting the seedlings ready so

far. Now onto the raft system itself. This kit can
be purchased from Garden Guru store for those
who are interested. The system consists of a tray
and a lid. The lid has holes made in it so that the
netpots can be placed with the seedling. In total,
there can be 12 plants grown at a time. Once
placed, the bottom of the netpot just touch the
surface of the nutrient solution in the bottom
tray.

Netpot placed in the hole made.

In this image, I have filled the bottom tank with

the nutrient solution meant for growing basil. I
used a grow formula nutrient available @
Garden Guru Store in the name of General
Grow. Grow formula is for promoting leafy

growth which is exactly what we want from a

plant like Basil. Anyway.. Fill the tank with
nutrient solution such that the bottom of the
netpot just touches the solution. It can be little
above as well but ensure the roots of the
seedlings dont completely drown in the system.

Transplanting:
In a paragraph above, I mentioned that
transplanting is a piece of cake when it comes to
using plugs. It is! Just take the plug with the
seedling from where you grew all the seedlings
and simply place it in the net-pot. Thats it.
Ensure the plugs dont dry out for a week or so.
If they seem dry, just water it a little bit. In a
weeks time, the roots will start growing down
and they will take the nutrients by themselves.
The transplanting was done on July 6th.

One week later, on July 15th the plants look like

below. A visible growth can be observed. Basil
grows vigorously once it is planted in a
hydroponic system. The plants must be watched
everyday for growth and also for pest incidence.
Usually basil is very less prone to pests but one
cannot rule them out. Watch out for pests.

While it is important to pay attention to the leafs

and shoots of the plant, it is equally important

that you monitor the health of the root system.

Especially in hydroponics, where the plants are
grown exclusive in a nutrient solution, it is
possible that the roots may rot due to lack of
sufficient dissolved oxygen. This oxygen deficit
can result in root rot. Signs of root rot are
browning of roots and slimy nature of the rotten
roots. Sometimes it may also stink. White roots
are a sign of healthy root system. Nice white
roots can be seen in the picture below. An air
pump was used to circulate/oxygenate the
solution. However it is not shown in this picture.

The plant is about 2 weeks old and the growth is

very clearly visible. The plants started to branch
and the smell of basil is all over the place. I did
keep a watch on pest incidence and fortunately
didnt find any.

The picture below was of the roots of the basil

plants two weeks later. The roots do get all
tangled and mixed with one another and we are
totally ok with that ;). White healthy roots with
no signs of rot. The nutrient level started to go
down slowly due to plant consumption and
evaporation.

This is how it looked 3 weeks later. By then it

was ready for harvest. In the kit, I also got some
sporty basil plants with few streaks of purple
coloration on the leaves. The plants were
growing very vigorously and the growth can be
seen in the following picture. At this point, the
nutrient solution was depleting. I changed the
solution and filled it up with a fresh one.

Pictured below is the harvest done on 4th week

after transplanting. This is just one bunch and
we got several after that. This system proved out
to be a very simple one and ideal for growing
herbs like basil, mint etc in small quantities. One
can also put different plants in different growing
sites provided in the kit. Technically one can
grow 12 different herbs in this kit. How do you
like that?

The kit discussed in this post is available for sale

if anyone is interested in it. The kit comes with
the following

Container with lid ( holes premade, but can

be customized)
Nutrient solution for growing herbs
Seeds of Herbs
Net pots
Grow plugs

Interested can contact me

info@geekgardener.in with the subject Herb
Kit or you can place an order via this link
Garden Guru Hydroponic Kit
Hope you all enjoyed this article.

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20 comments
article, forsale, Herbs, Hydroponics
deep water
culture, geekgardener, Hydroponics, in bangalore, in india, nutrients.
basil, raft system, soilless agriculture

Growing Seedless Cucumber in

Hydroponics Kratky System
By geekgardener, on May 14th, 2013%

This my first post after the little one

came into our family. She is keeping
us quite busy and happy. With all of
us spending all the time with her, it
is little difficult to keep up the blog
and its demands. Gardening didnt
stall but blogging and responding to
emails took the back burner. This
time, blame it on the baby. This time
I thought I will write a post on a
system that is good when you dont
have time to look after. Here goes
In this article we are going to see
how to grow cucumber
hydroponically. If you remember, I
had posted a two part article on
exactly this topic!. So why another
post on this topic? Read on.. you will
know.
When you have a vegetable garden
in your terrace, watering them daily
is very very important and it can
become very tedious if you have too
many plants growing. How do we
solve this problem? Automating the
watering via a drip irrigation is one

way. But can be improve it further?

What if we have a system in which
we dont have to water the plant at
all. Sounds crazy? Impossible? One
would think so..
I was looking for a system that will
try to reduce maintenance if not
completely avoid it. By maintenance,
I mean watering, adding fertilizer
etc. Since water availability is also a
concern, I added another constraint.
No water wastage( via drainage). In
that process, I checked different
hydroponic systems to see If i can
achieve my goal of having a system
that is very easy to maintain ( read it
as no maintenance ), no need to
water everyday and very easy to
build. Though the goals are only 3,
they are very difficult to achieve
considering the fact hydroponics is
known to be not simple. So I
decided to try out a system I read
about few years back. This system is
called Simple Non-circulating
hydroponic system and was
invented by a scientist called Kratky.
This system is the simplest of all and
works like a charm* .
To build this system, you will need

the following.
Requirements:

Barrel/Drum with Lid 100200L capacity

Netpots or Pots with lots of
holes
Expanded Clay
Nutrient solution (Bloom
Formulation)

Cocopeat Pellets

Drill machine/Hack saw blades.

I am going to give you the following

steps for the system setup.

Raise the seedlings from seeds.

Transplanting the seedlings
Prepare the lid and the reservoir
Fill the reservoir with Nutrients
Forget about it.

Step 1 Raise the seedlings from seeds.

Expand the cocopeat pellets and sow

the seeds in them. In about a weeks
time, the seeds will germinate
(sometimes sooner). Water them

with half strength nutrient solution

till they have two true leaves. If you
dont have cocopeat pellets, you can
also use expanded clay/coco chips.
But if you are a beginner, it is easier
to use cocopeat pellets.
The pellets in their dry form should
look like this:

Once you add water and expand

they should look like this.

The best thing about using cocopeat

pellet is it is so natural and the plant
roots form as it would in soil.
Regarding the water holding
capacity, cocopeat pellet wins. With
the biodegradable sack around it, it

is my first choice for any seedling

nowadays. The fabric is so thin it
allows roots to penetrate through it,
which is exactly what we want in a
hydroponic system.A seedling
germinated in cocopeat will look like
the picture below. It is important to
not let the pellet dry out. Once true
leaves form the seedling is ready for
transplanting.

Step 2 Transplanting the seedlings

Prepare the Net pot/pot for

transplanting the seedling by filling
it with Hydroton. Hydroton is a
brand name for expanded clay.
Expanded clay is made by heating
up small clay balls to a very high
temperature.Due to the water
contained inside, they pop up to
form a light weight growing
medium. Wash the expanded clay to
get rid of all the dust. Once it is
clean it is ready to be filled in a
netpot. If you have net pots (bigger
ones), then most of your job is done.
If you dont you might want to make
a pot with lots of holes in the
bottom. Make holes that are large
enough to hold all the expanded
clay. Larger holes will cause all the
expanded clay to fall out the net pot
into the nutrient solution.
Transplanting the seedlings is very
easy if you used Cocopellets.
Cocopellets are also called as
rooting plugs. It is as simple as just
taking the seedling and placing it in
another pot. Now your seedling is
transplanted into a pot that contains
Hydrotons. Proceed to next step.

Step 3 Prepare the lid of the reservoir

Now this needs a little bit of work.

The idea here is to make a hole
large enough to make a pot fit in.
Depending on the pot size, you can
make a hole in the lid. If you have
jigsaw/cutting machine at your
disposal, then making a hole is piece
of cake. If not you have have to
make circular mark and use a
hacksaw blade to make a circular
hole. They are lots of tools available
in the market for these things. Suit
yourself.
In the picture below, I used the lid of
a paint bucket to make a the hole. I
later filled with expanded clay and
transplanted the seedlings.
Transplanting is as simple as taking

the plants in rooting plugs and

placing it over a layer of expanded
clay balls and fill the rest of the pot
with expanded clay. Isnt that easy?

Step 4 Fill the reservoir with

Nutrients.
Now comes the best part.
Remember I was saying how easy
this system is? The drum/barrel is
about ~75 ltr capacity. The barrel is
filled with nutrient solution (bloom
formulation) to a level such that the
bottom of the netpot barely touches
the nutrient solutions top surface.
When we transplant the plant, the
roots would not have come out of
the netpot so it may take few days
for the roots to come out of the
netpot and drop into the nutrient

solution below. Till then care is

taken to not let the netpot with
expanded clay to dry out completely.
Just water it with nutrient solution
every morning. It will only take 3-5
days for the roots to emerge out of
the pot and start to reach down for
the nutrient solution. This is aided
by the high humidity that is formed
in the barrel.
The following picture was about a
week to 10 days after the previous
picture. Once the roots start to
touch the nutrient solution, you can
literally forget about this system.
After that there is no maintenance in
any form at all. For the nutrient
formulation information you can
refer to the Hydroponic Cucumber
Production Part II

About two weeks after setting the

plant on the barrel the roots have
started to get a nice shape and are
already looking like Santas beard. I
am sure you might want to see how
the plant looked at the time, looking
at these healthy white roots.

Step 5 Forget about it

Now you might ask me, what

happens next? The answer is very
simple. The plant grows taking the
nutrients from the solution happily
and yields all it can. As the plant
grows, the nutrient solution level
goes down. As the nutrient solution

goes down, the root also reaches

down by growing deeper. Wanna
see?

In the above image, you can notice

the big cucumber in the bottom that
is ready for harvest and a fruitling
ready to become a cucumber one
day. The roots are no less, they grow
as vigorous as the shoot and the
following picture is the proof. It is so
awesome to see all of the roots of a
plant. I ended up showing this to
most of my friends and relatives who
come home and they were
speechless. With conventional
method of growing plants, uprooting
is the only way to see the roots and
that marks the end of the plant. Not
in Hydroponics.

After the roots entered into the

nutrient solution, I stopped taking
care of the plant. Totally. No
watering, No fertilizing. Just

observing the growth every day,

taking log of whole lot of parameters
and watching out for pests. How
cool is that? So how long can this
plant continue ?
The plant continues to grow as long
as the nutrient solution is present.
In the image picture on the right
above, you can observe that the
roots have almost touched the
bottom and there was only couple of
liters of nutrients. Even then the
plant showed no sign of stress
except in the middle of noon. At that
point, we got ~36 cucumbers from
two plants. This was with 2 plants
on a 75L barrel. If you double the
reservoir size and reduce the plants
to just one. You can reap the
benefits for another month. More
than the yield, I am impressed with
the low maintenance part of the
system. Especially when I started
this cucumber plant, we had a baby
and there was no time for gardening
and this system came to the rescue.

There is one important detail I must

mention. When the plant is growing
at a good pace, the nutrient solution
level goes down very rapidly. If you
are in a location that is very hot it

the nutrients can go down much

faster. You can increase the
reservoir size to suit your location.
200L is best if you can get one. One
thing you cannot do is to add more
nutrient solution when the tank
depletes. It will mostly kill the plant.
What happens is, when the level of
the nutrients go down, the roots
develop lot of hairs to absorb
moisture from the humid
environment. When you refill it with
more nutrient solution, it suffocates
the roots and they will rot due to
drowning. You can experiment with
maintaining the level same but dont
increase the level it will definitely
drown the roots.
Dont forget to check out
Hydroponic Cucumber Production
Part I & Hydroponic Cucumber
Production Part II
The items/raw materials required for
building such a setup can be
purchased from my store Garden
Guru

Expanded Clay
Cocopellet Rooting Plugs
Cucumber seeds

Net pots (small)

Net pots (Big) Available at the
store.

If you want more updates follow me on facebook.

On my next post, I will write about the Building
an Ebb and Flow system and growing gourds in
it( Bottle Gourd).
Happy gardening.
geekgardener

*Conditions apply Naah I am kidding it does work like a charm

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21 comments
article, greenhouse, Guide to Growing Vegetables,
Hydroponics, seedlings
barrel, european cucumber, geekgardener,
healthy roots, Hydroponics, hydroponics nutrients, in bangalore, in
india, kratky, nutrient formula, passive, soilless agriculture, zero
maintenance
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