Hi, everyone! I passed the big 5 0 almost two years ago, and since that time I have been trying to learn how to take care of my body so that it can take care of itself. It is paying off. Wheat juice is the next step of my journey, and growing it is going to be a must, because I live a wee bit out off the beaten path. I have read about a variety of ways of doing this and have tried to put them together in a way that lets me use the materials I have at hand.

1. First of all, i want to take the soil-less route.

2. I am wondering if it is feasible to sprout the seeds in a "green soapless scrubbie"? Maybe you know them as plastic scouring pads. They are a fine mesh, fine fabric fiber and made without soap. They are either 1/16" thick or 1/8" thick. I thought about these because the are reusable, cheap, easy to find and should let roots pass through to grow. they will not fall apart with water or wear, so they can be sprouted on the pad, in a moist, dark environment. the pads would be sandwiched between (something like) two cake cooling racks. When the sprouting is done, the pad can be lifted up and placed in the growing tray. Harvesting is just a matter of lifting up the whole green pad and pulling the grass and roots out. I have heard that roots are also high in nutrition, so there is no loss if I juice the whole plant.

3. The tray they are grown in will have a 1" empty space at the bottom for the nutrient to drain into. On top of that is the growing medium. Some forums have suggested that wheatgrass, for the amount of time it grows, does not need a growing medium. Do you agree with that? If i need some kind of growing medium can I use a very small gravel? I would like to water the grass from below the surface to minimize the mold problem. I am guessing that for the first day or two, it may be necessary to water from above until the roots have had a chance to "dig in". Alternatively, could I just fill the tray to the bottom of the roots and leave it full, letting the grass drink up the water and allowing evaporation to lower the level?

4. I would like to put a couple of slow speed fans over the grass to help keep the blades dry, also to minimize the mold problem.

5. The nutrient would be released on a timer. I want to have a 5 gallon bucket full of nutrient that is stored a couple of feet above the plant trays. The tube going into each tray would have a relay controlling the valve, so different amounts of water and different watering frequencies could be managed with only one pump. Another relay might be used to control a valve that would open to drain each tray, if a soaking is deemed desirable. Each tray would drain into a sump. A pump would be activated by a float valve, and would pump the nutrient back to the top bucket.

In summary:

Day 1: in a sprouter, a dark moist place,

Day 2: in the "nursery", on the scrubbie in a dark place; sprouts are misted from above

Day 3: in the "nursery", " "

Day 4-10: the grass is given 14 hours of light a day and will be watered from below the surface. The fans will be turned on.

Day 11: the grass is harvested

This may seem overly complicated but one of my values was to automate this as much as possible and require little or no movement of the trays. The ideal scenario would be to find a way to start the raw seeds in the tray that they will eventually be harvested from. That might be possible if a super fine, saturating mist is used for a prolonged time for the first day - maybe 20 minutes at a time - and administered several times a day, or even continually. It is also probably a bit expensive - I haven't priced the relays yet or looked for alternative methods to control the nutrient flow. But a system that is fully automatic and made from locally available parts (so that I can fix something if it breaks or wears out) would be a far more useful option for me than something that requires daily attention, or something that comes premade encased in non-opening plastic cases. If they require no daily attention and I start 3 trays at a time, every three days, that means I can go away for the weekend and not have to worry about taking care of them.

Any thoughts?