creating novel hybrid hydroponic...
designing and building an optimal system on your first attempt
are infinitesimally small. It is imperative to recognize that improvement is always possible and the chance of failure shouldn’t
be a stumbling block. Through failure we can gain insights that
success does not yield.
Success is knowing the properties of your substrates—Knowing the
strengths and weaknesses of your media is of utmost importance.
There are quite literally dozens of tests you can perform on
your media to determine the properties of both the individual
components and total mixed substrate. While a number of these
tests require specialized, and often expensive, equipment to
measure a particular property, many cheap tests can be done to
an acceptable degree of precision to assure excellent growth
results. In my opinion, the variable of utmost importance is the
air-to-water ratio, which refers to the relative amounts of usable
oxygen and water a substrate makes available to plant roots.
It is important to strike a balance in the moisture level of the
substrate between moderate aridity and total saturation to avoid
root death due to lack of water or oxygen. As a rule, this can
generally be accomplished by combining media with high water-holding capacity (e.g., coco, peat or rockwool) with media
that have high air-filled porosity (e.g., expanded clay, glass foam
or perlite). If you are looking for a greater degree of precision,
a simple method for testing this ratio is to saturate your media
mix, allow for complete drainage and then record the length of
time it takes the media to dry to a certain standard (e.g., dryness
at 2 in. depth below the surface). This result will allow you to
gauge how often you will need to irrigate the media, providing your plant with a stage-appropriate nutrient solution. So,
whether you easily find success or struggle to make progress in
your attempts at hybrid hydroponics, you should always bear in
mind that the goal is to always learn from your mistakes and to
build a better growing system. MY
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Maximum Yield USA | September 2012