I like stuffing a small wad of fiberglass wall insulation inside the bottom half of a plastic germination tray, then placing individual seeds (one each cell) inside. I leave them there until they germinate and grow to about 2 inches tall, then transplant them to any of several systems.

Currently I'm growing everything in 100% perlite using static culture technique, but have in the past used NST (my version of NFT with the tubes running half full 24/7). Lettuce does well in almost any system as long as it doesn't get too hot.

Thanks Freemangreens!

BTW:

What would you consider to be "too hot" for greens? I had to ask because I'm using a ultrasonic fog head in a 5 gallon bucket and the water temp will get into the 80's. If this is too hot, I'll need to use a larger container or lettuce varieties that are more heat resistant and bolt resistant. What do you think?

Not knowing how to do it, I started mine in rockwool and moved the cube to the net pot once I saw it had roots growing out the bottom. Stuck the bucket in an office window and let it grow. It got to a little over two foot tall before he fell over (I used a 2" pot - I had never grown lettuce that tall in dirt). It showed no signs of bolting.

This was taken about 10 days before it fell over:

{{gwi:1004345}}

Mike

bigbubbacain:

80 is pushing it. All you can do is try it for yourself and see if it works. If you notice the stalk growing to the sky, it's bolting! Lettuce, for the most part, is a low-growing plant.

wordwiz:

If asked, I'd say the lettuce in the picture is bolting. Whenever lettuce starts growing tall, it's the beginning of the end. Look down from the top of the plant to the center of the whorl (where the new leaves emerge) and see if there aren't maybe some little flower stalks forming. I could be wrong, but from here it looks like that's what's next. Once it bolts, the new hormones make the lettuce take on a very 'bitter' taste.

bigbubbacain, last year I used just vermiculite to germinate my lettuce. Since vermiculite is so loose, it is easy to transplant them without much root disturbance.

OK. Thanks everyone. I've gotten some good info here.

I also used rockwool to germinate. Everything was fine until the algae came along. Also, I'm trying to grow the loose leaf 'Mesclun' types. These are what some people call the "cut and come again" types because you can grow them and make multiple harvests, and I don't think the rockwool would give the roots enough room.
I'm going to try vermiculite tomorrow, and I'm hoping it will do enough on it's own to wick water into the root zone.

freemangreens,

Nope, it never bolted which really surprised me. I've never had lettuce get that tall before or even close to it without flowers. But this is the first time in hydro. In the past, it was always in dirt under a cotton canvas or old sheet.

Mike

My lettuce plants routinely get that big. I run higher temps than I'd like, but I haven't had any go to flower on me. I attribute it more to light than temp, perhaps a combination of both, but the plants I've got are looking for more and more light because they don't get any sun.

I've gotten a lot of comments over how good my lettuce tastes, so I don't think it's bolting.

To the question posed in the first post, I don't really understand the goal. Why do you find it undesirable to just start them in a rockwool cube and then transfer that to a net pot with clay pellets? That's what most do, just drop the cube and seedling right into the pellets, add a few more around/over it for stability, and go from there.

You never want to pull a seedling out of what it's growing in, you invariably damage the roots even if you think you don't. The important parts of the roots are too small to really see, so you can't be sure you're not hurting them.

Some ideas for lettuce. Lettuce can be grown away from the grow lights if you have HID lights like a 400 - 1KW MH or HPS light. I find that placing the lettuce about 4 feet away, and not directly under the HID lights work well. I use Hydogroton Grow rocks and had good luck. I grow Romain Lettuce and it works good. For the EC, .50 works well when the plants are adults, and they only need about .20 EC when transplanted. The PH can be anywhere from 5.8 to 7.5 and grow just fine. I start my seeds in the larger Peat Pellets so they can form good roots before transplanting into the grow rocks. I have harvested the same plant three times and they do not bolt or grow like yours.