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pl4nb

Problems with Aeroponic Tomatoes and Lettuce

Pl4nB
11 years ago

hello everyone, i am new to this forum. so hello hydroponic community.

i recently started an aeroponic system for vegetables and until now it was running quite nicely but 3 weeks ago i encountered first signs of, lets say plant "discomfort". at first i was not too worried as i wanted to give them and me time to figure out what is going on but today when i checked on them i think the line is crossed far enough to start panicking :)

as i wrote i built up an aeroponic system for 40 plants with the following settings:

lights: led - running 18hours on/ 6hours off

temperature: 20 degrees C (68 degrees F)

irrigation cycle: 4 times a day (6h/12h/18h/24h) for 5 minutes each

ph: 7

medium: rockwool cubes

nutrients: a general hydroculture plant nutrient solution from the gardening store (500ppm)

plants: tomatoes, iceberg salad and normal salad (i know that tomatoes and lettuce have different requirements on the growing environment, but for the start i wanted to see what is growing and what is not)

at first all my plants were doing great and were growing like crazy, but after the first month, somehow there was a noticeable decline in growth and healthiness.

tomatoes: the plants start somehow wilting and curling down from the lower leaves. the top ones usually are ok, but when a new batch of leaves grows the same happens to them. after some time they turn yellow and die.

salads: the leaves are huge and deep green, but the new leaves in the middle start to have something like a leave burn and start wilting as well, even to the point that the whole core is rotting. they as well seem to have problems to build a "head" and somehow bolt rather than being compact.

i attach some pictures here: http://s1252.photobucket.com/albums/hh568/Pl4nB/

i was wondering what it could be, as they seem to have enough lighting, enough water (the cubes have time to dry between the cycles), the temperature seems to be ok.

currently my guess are the nutrients but i am not sure how to check on this.

i would be very grateful for any advice on this as i am quite lost right now.

all the best and thank you very much!

P.

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