Hydro System Choices--Go Organic, Stop Synthetic

Pedro and I had a long discussion about the pros and cons of each hydroponic system. Even though his English is excellent, there is still a slight communication problem when it comes to technical words.

It turns out that the Nutrient Film Technique system that his family’s greenhouses were using in Majorca (by the way, he says it’s spelled Mallorca, in Spanish) wasn’t exactly a pure NFT system.

NFT was the way hydroponics got started. It involves growing your plants in a constant flow of nutrient solution, a truly aquatic form of agriculture. You could call it aquaculture. There are two major drawbacks in trying to use this system to grow roses—the roots of rose plants don’t like to be continuously immersed in water and rose bushes would just topple over in water, without some means of support.

The way Pedro’s family got around this was that they converted their NFT system into a quasi Ebb and Flow system, by systematically draining and flooding the system using the pumps at periodic intervals.

The horizontal tanks of this system are placed on a slight slope on purpose, so the nutrient solution always flows in one direction. Then a pump at the deep end catches the overflow and recycles it back to the beginning.

The other major drawback for roses is the lack of support for the plants. Pedro’s family suspended some strong twine netting over the entire pond, so the rose bushes actually grew through the netting and were supported by it in their maturity.

I argued that it would be real difficult to adapt this system for the coco coir medium. I still thought that using the same Drip Irrigation System that I used for my carnations would be better. However there were several reasons why my idea wasn’t great either.

Small scale Drip Irrigation Systems, like the one I used, are geared to recycle their nutrient solution, which makes them highly economical. The same DIS setup on a large scale would have to run to waste, which means that the cost of replacing the nutrients each day would be very high.

They are also very tricky to maintain on a large scale, and need constant monitoring of the pH and CF levels. Since these levels differ from the reservoir to the centre of the growing medium, where the roots are, I had to use a syringe to take samples from deep within my rockwool slabs.

To do this on a large scale with coco coir would be unmanageable. So we were back to square one in trying to choose the most favourable hydroponic system for our three large rose greenhouses. (We signed the papers, btw., purchased the real estate, and construction has begun on the project.)

In a large Drip Irrigation setup you’d have to take levels perhaps several times a day and add pH Up or pH Down to your nutrient solution, then take another pH and CF reading, until you get everything just right.

Also, the pumps and drippers tend to clog up frequently, causing drought stress in the plants after the grow medium dries up. The need for constant maintenance and upkeep would just about kill any profits that Pedro and I might see from our rose growing operation.

We finally decided on an Ebb and Flow system, modular in design, where we could add as many buckets as we needed for our large rose bushes. The coco coir will sit well in the buckets for an extended period of time, and since 40% of this grow medium always stays dry, the roots of our rose plants will be able to breath.

The Advanced Nutrients tech guys told us to use airstones regardless in our reservoir, even though every time the system floods and drains, it sucks air into the grow medium, causing even more aeration. Ebb and Flow is the Rolls Royce of hydroponic systems and Pedro was impressed by that.

The nutrient solution is recycled, which was another point in the favor of choosing this solution to our dilemma. Now we had to finalize our plans for plant nutrients. Pedro had second thoughts about using Grow and Bloom, with a tiny bit of Micro. He said he had a dream and the way he interpreted it, meant that we have to use organic fertilizers and supplements.

Luckily, we figured out that if we use Iguana Juice Grow and Bloom, then supplement it with regular sprayings of Colossal Bud Blast, we could manipulate the NPK so that it becomes favourable for roses.

The NPK of Iguana Juice Grow is 3-1-3. If you add the NPK of Colossal Bud Blast (0-3-6) you end up with a combined NPK of 3-4-9, which is a good, low Nitrogen rose NPK.

Iguana Juice Bloom has an NPK of 4-3-6. When the NPK of Colossal Bud Blast is added, you wind up with a combined NPK of 4-6-12, which is very good for blooming roses.

Pedro was still complaining that this solution is the best, but it’s not perfect. Seems his grandmother had a special, organic food preparation for roses, which somehow got lost during the war and his family have been trying to recreate it ever since.

“Iguana Juice comes close, but I feel there’s something missing. I can’t quite put my finger on it,” said Pedro, and he had a sad look on his face.

I suggested we go have dinner in an Argentinian restaurant. They serve the best churasco, with roast potatoes swimming in butter and grilled red peppers to top it off. My mouth waters just thinking about it. Pedro cheered up and with the decisions we made this week, our rose growing operation is that much closer to becoming reality.