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Tabasco
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Is My Lettuce Bolting?

This is the Kratky lettuce I'm growing indoors.
75 degrees steady, regular window light and supplemental light a few hours at the beginning and end of day.
Looks like it's bolting, not sure though, first ever lettuce for me.
If it is, can I stop it?
I've read around, maybe give it less light?
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Tabasco
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They're 2 weeks old.
Maybe it's the variety?
It's Sylvestra.
Here's a Black Seeded Simpson right next to it...
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imafan26
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I think it wants more light so it is growing up. the inter nodes are usually short, but plants in low light will develop longer inter nodes.

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Tabasco
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I guess that's better than bolting. I just don't want it to go bitter.
People wanted to see more plants in each box and I understand that,
but at just two weeks look at the size already!
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imafan26
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Lettuce needs 8-10 inch spacing. I just found that out recently. I used to space them at four inches and I always got midgets. When lettuce seedlings start out the first three weeks or so the leaves are relatively flat. After that they start growing more upward to form the rosettes.

if the lettuce gets too much water, as in flooded with no air gap for the air roots they will turn yellow and look a bit like your first picture.

Heat and stress will cause them to bolt early, but two weeks is really early for bolting.

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Tabasco
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The roots look pretty good, with air exposure down past the bottom of the net pot.
Near the top you can see the tiny oxygen absorbing roots.
Plus I'm running a 4 inch air stone in each box.

The Black Seeded Simpson looks more normal.
I'll give this 2 more weeks and try again.

Maybe the butter types will like my particular set-up better than the Romain?

imafan26
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I know that there are some lettuce varieties that are more suitable to hydroponic culture than others. Most of the hydro lettuce are bibb types mainly because they get the best price at market. Red sails, oakleaf, lolla rosa, and butter lettuce. Romaine is grown in hydro culture too.

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Tabasco
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The bib types are way more fragile, probably why they cost so much.
I like the taste of them better anyway, so bonus for me!
I do like the extra crunchiness of romaine though.

It may be that my exact set-up, not hydro in general, favors the bib types.
I'm going to try the varieties you mentioned and probably every other one I can find.
This is the easiest thing in the world to grow, especially being inside.

imafan26
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It has been awhile since I tried to upload photos. I thought I could upload from my computer but I keep getting file too big error. I hope you can see this.

It should be pictures of Manoa lettuce. It is a cultivar of Green mignonette. It is a type of bibb lettuce that has some heat resistance although it will tip burn in summer. Anuenue and the red lettuce are more tip burn resistant
Seeds are started in flats with plugs of peat and perlite, foam cubes are also used to start seeds for the rail system

The seedlings in these trays are smaller than before. These are 240 cell trays. The seedlings and roots were larger in 90 cell trays. Seedlings are ready about 2 weeks after they are sown.

From the seedling trays they get planted out about 10 inches apart in the biofilter (black cinder is used as the media and they cinder is seeded with red worms). Lettuce or other plants planted in foam blocks can be put in the rail system and aeroponic tower.

The seedlings will double in size in about a week, but they remain relatively flat for about a month after they are planted out.

After that the rosettes start to grow upward. Around 6 weeks the lettuce rosettes are fairly upright. Harvesting is approximately 60 days from starting.

The lettuce in these pictures are aquaponic. This is not my set up. I work on this farm. They also have hydroponic crops grown on a rail system and on aeroponic towers. Those are grown in hot houses.

On this farm, tomatoes, cucumber, lettuce, Ung choy (swamp cabbage), water cress, beets, basil, kale, arugula, radish, carrots, eggplant, swiss chard, and blueberries are grown with either hydroponic or aquaponic systems. Catfish, swai, and tilapia are the fish used in the tanks. Other crops edible and ornamental are grown in pots and in the ground as well.

The aeroponic towers produce large heads quickly but they are very light.
The aquaponic beds that have an enhanced sprinkler system with water soluble fertilizer grows lettuce the fastest with the heaviest heads.
The fish cannot supply all of the nutrients to all of the plants. Iron is supplemented and the plants are given additional sidedressings of organic fertilizers. The fish are fed a special diet for aquaponic systems.

The hydroponic house has an automated controller that tests and adjusts the nutrient and pH automatically.
The fish are fed more than once a day and the water is tested daily and adjusted to keep the pH around 6.0. The fish are bred and sold to the local markets.

https://s1325.photobucket.com/user/imafa ... %20lettuce

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Tabasco
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That is beautiful.
All jobs are jobs, but wow, if you have to work somewhere, that's some nice setting right there.

Lots of great info, thanks.

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Tabasco
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Aeroponic is pretty cool, especially with respect to space usage.
My desire is to keep as off grid and simple as possible in every way.
I do love my dutch buckets and Kratky boxes. You can do both with zero power if need be.
Aquaponics and aeroponics probably not do-able totally off grid, but it sure doesn't rule them out completely.

imafan26
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I just got this job less than a year ago. I can't afford medical insurance so I needed to get a job after retirement to pay for it. I love gardening and the farm is literally 8 minutes away if I have to stop at the three traffic lights I pass, but I can make it in less than 5 minutes if I miss all of the lights. My boss is great. There are not a lot of workers so the boss/owner knows everyone's name. I can't work full days and I have all these other gardens, clubs and other social obligations so he was willing to let me choose my days and choose how many hours I work in a day. He only asked that it be under 19 hours and that I work set days. This is a no benefit job, that is why I am working for medical insurance. I make minimum wage which is considerably less than I used to make, but I have learned how to make do with a lot less.

The farm uses solar panels to supply nearly all of the electricity it needs during the day. The biofilters can stay off at night, lettuce can handle stagnant systems, but the hydroponic and aeroponics need to stay on.

There are solar panels for small scale hyroponic and aquaponic systems. If you use a raft or ebb and flow system and not a rail system or aeroponics, the pump does not need to run at night. The local aquaponics store has a demonstration tank that is run with a solar panel.

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Tabasco
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Nice work arrangement considering!

I may dabble with some solar, but my inclination is to go as "Stone Age" as possible,
so if societal things fall apart completely, most everything I set up will still work with no parts required.

But while technology exists I like messing with it and dedicating a portion of my experiments to it.
There are so many cool ideas out there.
Imagine if every person in the world did what they could to grow as much as they could.

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rainbowgardener
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In WWII in the US, most of the food for the cities came from Victory Gardens (people growing in their backyards) while the farm produce went to the soldiers. People don't remember that now. We had fewer people then, but some of our cities are pretty empty (think Detroit) and have tons of vacant lots that could grow things. Apt buildings can have roof gardens.

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Tabasco
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rainbowgardener wrote:In WWII in the US, most of the food for the cities came from Victory Gardens (people growing in their backyards) while the farm produce went to the soldiers. People don't remember that now. We had fewer people then, but some of our cities are pretty empty (think Detroit) and have tons of vacant lots that could grow things. Apt buildings can have roof gardens.
Instead people put up junk art exhibits and have rallies. They could actually DO something.
Man am I holier than thou :shock:

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Tabasco
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Here they are at 30 days. Time to start a new experiment...
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