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Hydroponics Made Easy

CHAPTER 10
POTTING AND PLANTING
If youre used to gardening, if you have had any sort of conventional gardening experience, you have a good background for hydroponics. In hydroponics there are some slight variations from conventional gardening depending on the medium used, the types of plants you want to grow, the size of the seedlings and the growing environment, but in general, hydroponic gardening should be like conventional gardening with all the hard

and heavy work taken out of it. The following will give you a few ideas of the variations.

Transplanting with larger seedlings


Lets talk tomatoes because they are the most common crop for home hydroponicists. And lets assume that you will be using a 10 pot thats a good size for tomatoes. When your seedling are about three to four inches high and looking great, its time to transplant. The first rule is that you have to get the tomato roots into the zone of the pot where they get the best moisture, and thats in the lower half, so you plant a lot deeper than you would in the garden. Now a four inch plant in the lower half of a ten inch pot would be growing sub surface if the pot was filled to the top with medium, so only fill the pot halfway for a start. When the tomato is well above the rim of the pot is the time to back fill the pot to the rim. Experience tomato grower will think Collar rot but no, this will not happen. Hydroponic media are more porous than conventional potting mixes or soil and do not promote collar rot. This technique actually encourages the stem section to put out more roots and accelerates growth. Tomatoes will certainly survive shallower planting but will be slower to get growing.
With larger seedlings, you can afford to plant deeper than normal planting. The idea is to ensure that the roots are within the moisture zone in the lower portion of the pot.

With smaller seedlings, it is better to plant into half filled pots as shown above. Then backfill later after the seedling has grown larger. For most seedlings, the ideal stage to transplant them is when they are about 2 inches tall. They will establish quicker than older and larger seedlings.

Transplanting smaller plants


Lettuces, carrots, spinach, silver beet, celery and such leafy plants like to be planted shallow. For this type of crop we suggest a maximum of 5 inches depth of medium. Therefore shallower containers are ideal. If
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Hydroponics Made Easy

youre into recycling, the round 5 litre ice cream containers could be good but make sure you have good drainage holes in the sides of the containers at the bottom. And that brings up a point. How do you stop the medium going through the holes into the nutrient ? A layer of scoria is a good answer. A couple of sheets of scrunched up newspaper is another. The water easily penetrates the paper but the medium cannot. Old net curtains. Panty hose. Anything you fancy. Plant the seedlings right up to the base of the leaves, gently, and thats very gently. Firm the media around the plant and youre done. If you think that in the shallow pot there is not enough medium, youre probably wrong. The Autopot System ensures that the plants get ample nutrient and its the nutrient they need, not the medium. Small pots can grow very large plants. A 4 x 2 punnet will grow huge bunches of silver beet to 2 tall. A 10 pot will support a 12 tomato plant.

Transplanting Potted Plants.

Transplanting from larger pots (e.g. from 5 pots to 12 pots)


You can do this very easily without significant set back to the plant. Fill the bottom of the new pot with one inch of medium. Carefully extract the plant from the old pot complete with its root ball. Place this on top of the medium in the new pot and back fill with medium. If the root ball is too deep, simply cut some from the bottom so that the top of the root ball is at least an inch below the rim of the new pot. If the new pot is smaller than the old pot, trim the sides of the root ball also. Dont worry even if you appear to be carrying out major surgery on the root ball, youre not likely to do much harm and most plants simply pick up where they left off and recommence vigorous growth almost immediately. But one very important rule to remember. If you reduce the root ball by half, make sure you reduce the foliage also by half. This will be quickly replaced by new growth.

To transfer plants in 3-6 inch pots, just remove the root ball and place it directly into the larger pot. Backfill with perlite or stone chips. It does not have to be the same growing medium used for the plant.

Place the plant into position half filled with the growing medium.

Transplanting seedlings established in rockwool cubes


Fill the bottom of your pot with an inch of the growing medium. Place the rockwool cube on the medium and backfill. Fill over the top of the cube and either to the base of the lower leaves of the plant, or the rim of the pot, whichever comes first. If you get to the lower leaves and you are still well short of the rim of the pot, wait until the plant has grown some more before completing the back fill. You should never attempt to remove the plant from the cube. That would surely cause damage. The procedure described above also applies to plants grown in jiffy pots, small containers and tubes. Naturally in the case of tubes and containers you remove them first.
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Then fill the pot to the rim.

Hydroponics Made Easy

Transplanting potting mix raised seedlings from punnets


These usually come from the nursery planted eight to a punnet. Divide the punnet into eight equal portions being careful not to break up the root ball. Rather than trying to tease out the roots, just cut straight through the root ball with a knife. Plant each of the seedlings exactly as described in the paragraph above. DO NOT ATTEMPT TO REMOVE THE POTTING MIX FROM THE ROOTS. To students of conventional hydroponics this may at first seem like heresy. But it is only necessary to prevent soil borne contaminants from getting into the recirculating nutrient and corrupting the bulk supply of nutrient. The Autopot System does not recirculate so theres no problem and with no disturbance of the root ball the plants will take off far quicker. NOTE: We have previously encouraged you to grow your own seedling from seed in hydroponic media to reduce the possibility of root diseases, particularly in tomatoes. This is a problem that is more prevalent in the tropics. But if the plant varieties are known to be resistant to root diseases, soil grown plants are every bit as good. Even if you should occasionally lose a plant to root disease, you do not have a problem that will spread throughout your entire system. Root diseases will not transfer from one growing container to another in the Autopot System.
Divide the seedlings as shown above. With the Autopot System, it is better to plant the seedlings without removing the potting mix from the root ball.

Plant the seedlings as shown above with 4 to 5 seedlings along the edge of the pot.

Planting Density
How many plants to a pot ? How many do you want ? Plant a number of plants in a single pot and you will get a lot of small to medium size plants. Plant just a single plant and that plant will grow relatively large. But if youre into spaghetti and you want to grow your Roma tomatoes in a 12 pot with some sweet basil, chives and parsley grown at the base, youve got all the ingredients of a great spaghetti sauce in one pot. Do it. The Autopot System caters very well for crowding at the base. If theres a problem of crowding it will be in the leaf zone and not at the roots. Good trellising or other support can solve that problem provided that all parts of the canopy of the plants get good light. All rules are made to be broken and the rules explained above do not apply to lettuces. Certainly they will grow more than one to a pot but they prefer to have their own space for their root systems, so instead of planting in a group in the centre of the pot, plant them spaced around the rim of the pot. And strawberries can be planted not only in the top of the pot, but you can cut holes in the side of the pot and grow from the sides too.

Removing the root ball from the pot.

Place the rootball into the pot and backfill.

Hydroponics Made Easy

Planting density in cool climate areas


Cool climate areas have a shorter growing season and if youre after the best yield from your plants this has a bearing on the density at which you plant. Once again, for the sake of illustration we will take the example of tomatoes. In a cool growing area it is better to have five plants in one 10 pot than it is to have a single plant in a 10 pot. The aim is to have those plants bear crops of tomatoes in a short period while they are relatively small as opposed to having the single plant mature and then have a number of crops. This is achieved by allowing the first series of flowers to develop and then to prune away the growing tips two leaves above the flowers the moment the second series of flowers start to appear. The plant will then produce two successive series of fruit, probably over a period of three weeks. Therefore you have 2 x 5 lots of fruit over three weeks compared to the crop of a single plant that will give you perhaps four series of fruiting over a 10-12 week period. The total yield tends to be in favour of the first method and the time frame is shorter. You may even use the pruned growing tips as cuttings and try to get a second crop in the time available to you. The total benefit include a possible second crop, shorter growing time, less use of chemicals, reduced risk of damage by pests (because they are less time growing) and less chance of loss of crop to climatic problems. In this situation you can increase the nutrient concentration to double the normal (to about CF40) which makes the tomatoes grow quicker, bigger and more intensely flavoured but does tend to reduce the yield a little.

Planting density in the tropics


Warm tropical conditions give plants a greatly accelerated growth rate. Often plants will grow in half the time that they take in cooler climates. There is no risk of adverse weather so you really have the option of growing single or multiple plants in each container. Single plants may be a little easier to look after and perhaps a little less work in spraying, staking or training and so on. We have slight personal preference to multiple plantings but there is not a lot of difference so its a matter of choice.

The growing medium aspect of potting


For this purpose we will separate growing media into four broad categories. 1. Coarse aggregates - including sand, scoria, gravels, pebbles, coarse coral pieces and the like. 2. Fine aggregates - including very coarse materials above but graded down to average 2mm particles as well as perlite and vermiculite. 3. Fibre materials - growool and similar materials 4. Organic materials - sawdust, peatmoss, mushroom, compost, hay, straw and similar material. When choosing a medium, remember the rule of thumb that the longer the expected life of the plant the coarser the desirable medium. Coarse media allows good aeration and ample spaces for roots to develop. It means that
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Hydroponics Made Easy

more time is available before the plant becomes root bound. The coarsest particles are used in larger containers for plants such as fruit trees. Coarse particles also tend to provide a degree of drought protection. Finer particles on the other hand are the most suited to rapidly growing plants like lettuces and annuals that have a rapid development and need to spread their roots very fast. Finer particles carry more water but also surrender that water to plants more readily so they are more drought resistant. These, as all broad generalities, will naturally have exceptions.

Using Coarse Growing Media.

Mixed Media
Quite often you can achieve a desired result by combining media with different characteristics or you can use one medium to supplement the deficiencies of another. For instance, perlite may not satisfy the moisture needs of some plants that have a great need for large amounts of water, but a mixture of 70% perlite and 30% vermiculite would certainly balance that deficiency.
Planting technique using a plant established in potting mix.

Characteristics of coarse media


If you are planting a small plant (say 4 to 6) with soft roots, in a coarse medium, it will need some initial help to get its roots settled in and through the medium. Several methods are satisfactory. You can use growool cubes on a base of coarse medium and then backfill with leca (see diagram). Or you can make a tube of newspaper, fill it with perlite and use this as a starting block to be back filled with coarse medium. The roots will establish in the perlite and then rapidly penetrate the decaying paper to establish in the medium. For larger plants, especially those that you buy bare rooted from the nursery or plants such as bananas that you are transplanting from a smaller pot, simply sit the root system or root ball on a base of coarse medium and back fill. A thin top covering of leca gives a very nice visual appeal.
Make a paper cone and fil with fine aggregates (eg. Perlite). Then plant bare rooted seedlings (preferably larger) in it and back fill with coarse aggregate.

Planting into fine media


Perlite is considered to be the all purpose, general purpose, fine medium. It can be used on its won for a wide variety of plants. Its main limitation is in its ability to lift water. Used in pots to 8 inches deep it is perfectly satisfactory but if the depth of the pot goes from 8 inches to 10 or 12 inches as it will for instance in a 20 diameter pot, it is advisable to add about 30% (by volume) of vermiculite. A good mulching of hay or some similar material on the top surface of the pot will also help to reduce the loss of moisture from the top of the pot and to overcome the water carrying limitations of perlite.

Planting into Fibrous media


Most fibrous media and particularly growool are highly absorbent but have a limited capillary ability. In other words they can lift a lot of wa
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Seedlings established in large grow wool cubes.

Hydroponics Made Easy

water but cannot lift it very high. Rockwool normally comes in a slab so there is no need to use pots. Some growool comes in loose form in a bag so it can be used to fill a pot. Fibres are most suited to short term crops such as tomatoes. It is difficult to mix and should not be mixed with other media except as previously mentioned in a block as a starter block for a transplanted plant. In Autopot System, growool is ideal to use on the capillary mat systems. The ideal situation is to raise seeds in small cubes of rockwool about 20mm cubes are good, with these cubes then being inserted into larger slabs or even simply placed on top of larger slabs. Alternatively, seedlings grown in other media or even in potting mix can simply be inserted into growool slabs. In planning what plants you will grow in a growool slab be aware that the plant supporting ability of a block of growool is not great and you may need some means of support for the plant as it grows.

Organic media
Organic media are most commonly by-products of forestry or agriculture. The most common as well as most commonly available is sawdust and this can be used in Autopot System to very good effect. Sawdust absorbs water very well and retains is just as well and is generally good for relatively short term crops such as cucumbers. Sawdust does tend to become too wet when it is used for a longer period and starts to break down further. The main disadvantage with sawdust is that it tends to compete with the plant for available nitrogen due to the high C:N ratio it has. This shows up by the plants yellowing but can be compensated by increasing the nitrogen (part A) portion of the two part nutrient mix. We suggest you use it for interest if you wish, but when a ready supply of alternate material is available, it is better not to rely on organic media. If you have to use an organic medium, then make sure it is well composted before use.

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