We Fertigate from Sunup to Sundown

As you know, Pedro and I grow our roses hydroponically, using an ebb and flow multi-bucket system with coco coir as our growing medium. Actually, cocopeat is what it says on the plastic wrapped bales of processed coconut fibre, but I’m told that’s just another name for coco coir.

Coconut husks are dried in the sun and half of the stuff is made into coco fibre used to fill mattresses, while the other half is processed and compressed into bales for horticulture. Recent studies have shown that rose producers can increase their cut-rose production by 15.6 to 18% if they grow in coco instead of rockwool.

Cocopeat is consistent and uniform in texture. It is composed of millions of capillary micro-sponges that can absorb and hold up to eight times their own weight in water. And yet even when thoroughly soaked, 40% of the cocopeat still contains oxygen, so our rose roots are never completely deprived of this vital element.

When using cocopeat, growers are advised to add Sensi Cal Grow or Sensi Cal Bloom to their nutrient mix on a regular basis. It seems that this grow medium needs the added Calcium to compensate for its tendency to deprive plants of this secondary macronutrient.

We bought our roses as our particular varieties grafted onto disease resistant rootstocks. By the time they reach our greenhouses, these young rose plants are about a foot high with an average of three branches each. We carefully make a large enough hole in the cocopeat to accommodate the young roots of each plant and the ebb and flow cycle begins.

You have to be extra careful not to damage the sensitive roots of these roses. In order to make sure that our flowers grow strong roots that absorb nutrients readily, we add the Advanced Nutrients root colonizing trio, Piranha, Tarantula, and Voodoo Juice, which supply beneficial fungi, bacteria, and microbes respectively.

Back in the days when I was still growing carnations in soil in my basement rec room, I grew ten pots of flowers with these colonizers and ten other pots without. My carnation plants with enhanced root systems grew about 50% larger than the untreated ones.

Submerged pumps in our large reservoirs flood each bucket at periodic intervals with our pre-mixed nutrient solution. Roses don’t particularly like standing in water, so the flooding of our mature plants is less than 5 minutes long. Inexpensive timers don’t give you an option—the flooding of your grow medium has to take 30 minutes or longer. Our quality timers allow us to choose the exact length of the “flow” cycle.

We don’t irrigate (I should say “fertigate” which is an awful sounding word that indicates feeding as well as watering) at night, but we do start about ninety minutes after sunrise. Initially, we set the timer to flood the buckets only four times per day for fifteen minutes each time. That gave the cocopeat about three-hours to dry out. It sounds like a lot, but it never dries out completely.

As the plants grow larger they require more solution, both water and nutrition. So we gradually changed the timing to once every three hours, then once per two hour period. Through trial and error we have decided that 5 minutes of flooding is plenty for our roses, provided we water more frequently. On extremely hot days we might have to flood our buckets once every hour, perhaps 15 times during the 15-hour daylight cycle in the summer.

Actually, the frequency of flooding depends on the electronic light readings and the PPM needs of our roses. All of these are measured and correlated by a wizard of a computer program that takes the growth or bloom cycle into account, along with the number of ingredients in our nutrient mix.

As our roses drink more and more of the nutrient mix, our fully automated system tops up the reservoir with fresh water. Since fresh nutrient mix is only added once a week, the rest of the time the solution is diluted more and more with water. This changes the pH and the EC and the PPM all across the board.

This used to worry us at first, but we were assured by the Advanced Nutrients tech advisors that even in nature, pH fluctuates a lot and as long as we feed our roses our target PPM for the week, they’re getting adequate nutrition for their growing and flowering needs. Besides, if the pH gets out of whack too much, it is automatically corrected by adding a small quantity of pH Up or pH Down.

Our basic 100% organic fertilizer is Iguana Juice Grow and Bloom, depending on the phase of plant growth or bloom. Currently, all of our roses are still going through their vegetative growth period. However, after about eight weeks, the biological mechanisms in each rose plant will signal the beginning of bud and flower production, then we’ll switch over to Iguana Juice Bloom, along with all the supplements and additives.

Scorpion Juice and Barricade figure importantly in the process of growing roses. Even though our plants have been grafted onto disease resistant root stocks, many roses are notoriously susceptible to Powdery Mildew, Botrytis, and Black Spot. In order to ward off these invasive pathogens, a regular spraying with Scorpion Juice is required, once every three weeks.

This very effective Advance Nutrients product impart induced systemic resistance in our roses, so they are able to fight off many insects and pathogens. Our roses are further bolstered by Barricade, which is added in powder form to our nutrient mix.

This Potassium Silicate product is designed to strengthen the cell walls of our roses, for additional protection. Since many insects that threaten flowers are sap sucking, if the cell walls are strong enough to withstand being penetrated, the insects will go elsewhere. Ditto for pathogens.

Pedro and I enjoy spending time in our Command Bunker overseeing the operation and making sure that our three Greenhouses are being heated or cooled, and lighted or shaded properly. Also, that the air in them is being CO2 enriched or ventilated in order to create the best ever environment for our potentially magnificent flowers.