Why do people still grow with NFT?

[AfricanHaze]

Don’t knock it until you’ve tried it holmes. ;) Now where can I get me some of this NASA grow juice? :D

 

[crazydude]

this is just fucked. and seriously hilarious. …but also very fucked

 

[Sativied]

Not really NFT, just wanted to share the awesome setup.

 

[Gandalfalfa]

That setup is nuts! Hard to believe lettuce makes enough money to justify the expense in setting something like that up.

 

[Tobor the 8th Man]

Because they are real good at it. Granddad always said if it at broke don't fix it. Usually right after I took apart an alarm clock or one of my toys.

 

[Sativied]

That setup is nuts! Hard to believe lettuce makes enough money to justify the expense in setting something like that up.

That setup is in Asia somewhere, some place where fresh lettuce wasn't that common and cheap labor costs probably. Although, it seems to be built to keep labor costs low.

Lettuce hydro setups are common in the dutch greenhouses as well though, major export product. The lettuce that is. My current setup is actually very similar to this.

 

[Coir]

I get $2 a head wholesale for my NFT lettuce. $2.75 a head at the farmers market. Easy to grow, fast turnaround. I think the question is why WOULDN'T people grow this way. Although, I do believe the OP was asking about NFT cannabis rather than lettuce.

 

[Sun Shadow]

Very true.
Stupid mother nature and her silly laws of chemistry...
Lucky intelligent human kind will save the day.
Don’t grow plants in water...
Grow in fluorocarbon (liquid oxygen) for demonic and unnatural growth.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquid_breathing

Has anyone even tried growing weed in this stuff? It may be economically impractical, but I wouldn’t dismiss on scientific grounds until someone does the experiment.

 

[Rosenberg]

That’s a rad idea. Could then grow the plants in warm water, metabolism would go though the roof, yields would be in the double digits per watt.. anyone here work for NASA?

 

[Fire Bean]

What's even more interesting is that I find the plants at the drain end of the system produce just as well as the plants at the feed end which is over 100'. If the nutrient solution was completely depleted of oxygen, then this would not be the case. Again, when people come to me with their scientific theory and textbooks, I love being able to show them real life.
Right now, I have 5 melon plants growing in the bottom row of a 100' long three tier system. All three tiers are the same length and all are fed from a 30 gallon reservoir. There is no added oxygenation other than the water falling back into the reservoir at the drain end. The top row is about 24 inches above the reservoir and it drains back in through a rain gutter downspout.
The melons are equally spaced out along the 100' row with basil in between spaced at 8 inch intervals and the very top of the row has 6 pepper plants which gives me 150 plants in the row(the other two rows are identical except the middle is all basil and top all lettuce). Checking brix level of melons from each plant shows identical levels of sugar. If your theory was true, then the melon plant closest to where the feed enters the system should be healthier and producing fruit of a higher quality which it is not.

I wonder if species makes a difference here? In my experience NFT doesn't work well for cannabis, although that is just my experience. It's possible that plants like melons and tomatoes are less sensitive to DO than cannabis.

 

[dmob]

this is just fucked. and seriously hilarious. …but also very fucked

i smoked some shit last night and i seriously had an experience like i was that mouse.

 

[Fire Bean]

Maybe you have emphysema bro. I’d contact your physician immediately.

 

[Prince Blanc]

I love watching these threads spiral off topic into the most interesting and informing reads on the net. Keep up the good work boys.

 

[Coir]

I wonder if species makes a difference here? In my experience NFT doesn't work well for cannabis, although that is just my experience. It's possible that plants like melons and tomatoes are less sensitive to DO than cannabis.

Cannabis is actually much easier to grow than melons and tomatoes. It is far less sensitive to everything(including DO) and has a much wider window of acceptable conditions. Like most things in life, practice and experience are needed to yield good results. I see so many people fail at something on the first try and give up claiming "it can't be done" when all it takes is a little perseverance! Fortunately for me, it eliminated nearly all of my competition early on in my farming career. I wonder if that makes me the smart one or them? After 26 years, I would really love to retire but it's not in the budget at this point. It would really piss me off to see all the people that gave up sitting on a beach drinking mai tai's why I still work this much! ;)

 

[Supercharge]

I love watching these threads spiral off topic into the most interesting and informing reads on the net. Keep up the good work boys.

Yeah, hilarious. :D

Back to O2 then. Cold temps slow root metabolism, high temps retard growth via O2 depletion, so you need to hit the balance. The same is true for ion concentration. And both are biologically linked.

 

[Sun Shadow]

I thought cold temps were good for growth.

 

[Supercharge]

Yes but only within reason. Below a threshold the lipid structure of cell membranes become less permeable to ion exchange and the kinetics of membrane bound enzymes and m-linked proteins and glycosides are dramatically affected too.

Also what’s happening above the root level will affect the plant too. If you have a high respiration rate in the leaves, low RH and high airflow will do this, then cold roots will not be able to support the draw. This is analogous to osmotic problems caused by high salts. Such phenomenon will cause deficiencies as the plant cannibalizes its own tissues for resources.

Keeping membrane machinery active is essential. These mechanisms are temp dependant. As an easy rule of thumb; OH- in, H+ out. That’s why a healthy root system will make a solution more acid over time. Without buffer pH will drop. If pH is going up then you’ve likely got some funky shit growing in your system competing with or necrotizing the roots.

 

[goliath]

I’m just curious why plants need o2 in the roots? Don’t plants breathe co2 and animals breath o2? Just want to know the factual basis for this.

 

[Supercharge]

Meh..it’s a very reasonable question. Firstly plants don’t ‘breathe’ CO2, they ‘eat’ it - or rather, they ‘fix’ it. Secondly, plants do breathe O2, just like us, they need O2 for oxidative metabolism. The electron transport systems they have for this are functionally the same as ours - mitochondria. In fact plants and humans share roughly 60% genetic homology, mitochondria is just one example of this, which also happens to be an example of the secondary endosymbiosis which led to the evolution of eukaryotes. So contrary to popular belief, the leaves of a plant are not its “lungs”, but rather, its roots are.

 

[goliath]

Man that explanation is awesome. i love how many people here are happy to debunk myths in a logical way that laymans like my self can understand. thanks very much