Troubleshooting, hot peppers growing slower than in soil.

[kristerh]

Hi

All new to hydroponics, have some questions about growth.

I am up to my fifth week of hydrogrowing.

I grow Habaneros, bhuts, nagabon,cayenne and stevia.
Plants were started in soil.

I'm using a ghe aquafarm, perlite as medium, ghe flora series nutrition.

First 2 weeks I had not a ppm meter, so I mixed up a quit lean solution.
when I got my meter , solution measured 370ppm

week 2 I changed it and mixed up to the value 800ppm.

today, 2 weeks later it measures 720ppm.

ph has been steady between 5-6

I use filtered rainwater , as my tap water I 8,6ph

roomtemp ~21-23*C
humidity ~39-44%
water temp ~17-18*C ,don't know why the low temp? , the farm is up on a bench, not a cold floor

I have tested several different drip/dry time ratios, from constant drip to 1:8 drip/dry (30min:4h)
which makes no visible difference whatsoever

don't know how long I dare to extend the dry time? , perlite feels dry to the touch after appr. 1h






So , to the question.

With the information I provide , can anyone give me some clue why the plants grow (much) slower than their friends that grow in soil.

their friends are started the same time, in same propagator, and they share same lighting.

while these have more or less been having a standstill, their friends have growing appr. 30-40% since 5 weeks back.

plants are started between x-mas and newyear

They look nice, green and healthy, and showed no tranplant shock
after I pulled them from the soil,

so I can't really see what's holding them back.


I noticed the other thread below regarding slow growing habaneros,
But there was not really any solution provided.

ok , thanks

[applestar]

I don't know anything about hydroponics, but I had an idea -- let's see if there' s any bearing on this situation.

Are you circulating the solution? Where is the reservoir? If on the floor below and not heated, then the hydro plants maybe getting colder root environment than the soil ones. Aquarium heater?

[kristerh]

hi apple, thanks for answer, I was just editing my post, adding some temperatures
while you chimed in.

the issue you adresses is , actually what has been my highest concern too.

I just cant figure why my water temp stays appr. 5 degrees lower than room temp.
so I heater might be one solution,

let's see what others has to say.

thanks

[imafan26]

How much light do the plants get?

[kristerh]

145w actual draw led red:blue:white 5000K 5:5:1
(red 660:630 - 4:1) ( blue 430:450:470 - 1:4:1)
height ~70cm over plants
footprint ~100x100cm
reflective foil all around

[rainbowgardener]

Since all the plants are under the same light and the ones in soil are doing better than the ones in water, light is presumably not the issue.

Applestar was very clever to pick up on the temperature issue. I wouldn't have thought about that, but it makes sense.

I wondered about this: I grow Habaneros, bhuts, nagabon,cayenne and stevia.
Plants were started in soil.

Is starting them in soil a standard procedure for hydro? We had some one writing in here earlier who was growing plants hydroponically that he wanted to then plant out in his garden. We warned him that moving plants from the hydro system to the ground is very difficult. Water roots are different from soil roots. A plant that has been growing in water has only water roots, which are fragile and break easily and don't really help the plant get water and nutrients from soil. I would suspect there's also a problem going the other direction?

Here's a thread we had on this topic a few years ago:

https://www.helpfulgardener.com/forum/vi ... hp?t=20325

[kristerh]

I guess it's not the standard procedure.
But I didn't now I would become interested in hydro when I started those plants.

The only proper method I know is rockwool,
I have a couple of more bhut babies just sprouted in rockwool.seemes as a very good medium for germination. I planted bhut seeds both in RW and soil and put them in same propagator .
the RW seeds sprouted about five days ago , while the other bhut seeds in soil haven't showed any sign of life yet.

however I used very tiny cubes (1x1x2cm) as I think RW cancels out the purpose of hydro.

so to my issue now.

Have been logging temperatures in the perlite today,
and it hasn't dropped below 20*c , had the probe 5cm deep, and it fluctuated between 20-22
so, even if the reservoir is 17-18*C, the rootzone is 20*C+

so I suppose I can rule that out as the issue.

so my main focus now I think is the medium, and drip/dry times.

I know that the intended medium is clay pebbels, I chosed perlite instead cause I felt it gave more ,or better contact to the tiny roots when I transplanted my plants,

but I don't know if that was a good decission or not,

would like to have others opinion off this.
some kind of comparison between clay pebbels and perlite .

maybe I should switch some of them to clay just to test.


And also the drip/dry times, all advise would be highly appreciated as I have no experience here.

[leke]

I've never grown with hydro before, but I have looked into it. It seems the hydro folks that grow peppers, like to germinate in rockwool, and then transfer the rockwool plants (in the rockwool) to clay balls when the roots start to show. Ebb and flood hydro is also quite popular for peppers.

[Do It Yourself]

For now I see a problem, the light is far from the plants.
Put the lights closer to the plants leds will burn the leaves, and you'll be easier for plants to absorb light. Clay pebbels or perlite, and don't worry this is not your problem, it works with both.

The temperature is also not your problem.

I'd like you to show some pictures of your system, and what kind of nutrients you use.

[imafan26]

This is the Univ Florida formula for growing hydroponic peppers. Does your nutrient solution come close?
https://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/cv216

What is the water temp. Peppers like warmth. If the water temp can be kept at around 65 degrees and the water is well oxygenated they may be happier and grow faster. At lower temperatures it is easier not to lose too much oxygen, the higher temperatures have less available oxygen. The roots have to breathe but peppers grow better warm.

[kristerh]

I have done some small changes.

I have added a extra air pump to airate? the reservoir, not that I think I will see any significant any increase in growth since the roots are not down to reservoir yet, but I read that water keeps fresh longer time.

I have dedicated a new lightsource excl. to the aquafarm. its 70w with same spectra as mentioned earlier.
and the growth area is sealed with reflective foil so all the light goes to into that 40x40cm area

I have switched the top 2-3 cm perlite to clay pebbles, did not want to dig up the roots.
and I have slowly increased the dry periode at night, to 6h.

still no explosive growth with peppers, but the stevia plant seems to grow faster than, their soil opponents.

These are the specifics of nutes I use:

https://generalhydroponics.com/site/inde ... /floragro/

https://generalhydroponics.com/site/inde ... loramicro/

https://generalhydroponics.com/site/inde ... ts_buffers

/florabloom/

and the concentration of latest mix is quiet steady around 700ppm.

about light to high...I have lowered it a bit now to 35cm, but I actually wanted to keep a little height ,
cause all my plants tend to grow more at width than height , its so significant that I think I will start a new thread soon about that issue.

ok some pics..

hydro setup :

this is a example of strange growth that I think is due to close light, the plant is only 10 cm high , but have hundreds of leaves and a keeps producing a lot of flowers that I have to pinch every 5 or 6 days

the soil setup:

[kristerh]

A new question that crossed my mind is, if the roots has to grow down to bottom of pots before any serious growth kicks in?

I have those deep rose pots (25cm) in my reservoir ,and when I checked some plants , they had about 10cm yet to reach bottom.

I'm quiet sure I have seen such behavior with my soil plants , when the roots becomes visible and start to come out of drain holes,
the plants gets some kind of exploding growt for a while until its time to transplant.

any thoughts ?