Growing Tomatoes Using DWC vs Ebb and Flow Air Cube from GrowAce
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- Опубликовано: 12 июл 2024
- Surprising results, and no...bigger is not necessarily better. Lots of leaves and no flowers does not equal tomatoes! I will continue to update over the growing season. Thanks for watching!
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Zone 4 Herkimer county here! Keep posting and let us know the taste difference. There's a great video out by a scientist that took a dive into various mediums and their outcome on peppers; Migro I believe.
I am in almost same situation. I used a tomato fertilizer with magnesium in, with less P than yours, but almost same N and K with same amount of Calcium 15/0/0. I have now bought fertilizer with 0/22/28 to see if only adding this will help. The plants is only 45 days old, so still pretty young.
coco should be kept close to fully saturated at all times. Never dry. The plant will then have its entire root system exposed to water and nutrients like it does in a DWC system. Even fully saturated coco will hold enough oxygen for the roots. thats why you dont need a dryback cycle like you do with soil.
Dwc nutrient should be half strength of whats in the ebb and flow bucket. Ebb and flow gets a meal every few hours but dwc is submerged all the time. Dilute it down and watch out for pythium!
Should be using hydroton with the air cube.... Yes coco and perlite 50/50... Hydroton allows best drainage and air exchange
Great experiment, I have found flood and drain is equally good as long as you wash what was used for medium off under running water and the toms go into a pond pot with clay pebbles-5minute flood every hour will give massive plants that will be equal to if not greater than dwc
Thanks Yan Gran for the feedback! I have flowers on all the plants now....just waiting for the tomatoes! Thanks for the comment!
This is not true. The flowering and maturity will be slower on the larger plant. Dwc produces amazing vegetative results but has not been proven to affect flower size or quality. You can put two smaller plants in place of the one larger plant and it will produce more mature flower than the single large plant. The vegetative matter to flower ratio will be poor on the larger plant. you can see this test on MIGRO where he grew chilies.
Even if they havent started flowering yet they still certainly will and they will catch ahead because it are much more established than the smaller ones. It is building up plant sugars, roots and vegetation and when it starts flowering the difference in maturity time will be evident.
I hope you are right Michael! I'm growing lots of tomatoes this summer, all different ways, and different varieties, so I do have backups, but still, I hope your analysis turns out to be right. Thank you for the feedback!
Tomatoes lookin great on the deck! Weird situation with the two hydroponic setups 🤔. I use the kratky method for cukes and melons outside. Never tried with tomatoes.
When I do, I’ll just watch your videos again👍🏾
Ha..thanks Courtney! The setup outside is not Kratky, its using an air pump (DWC). I have had success with cherry tomatoes and Kratky, so if you try, grow cherries, Tiny Tim is a winner. Good luck!
I just started some indoor cukes, any advice? Thanks!
@@sparkymikey25 I grow my cukes outside. I’m sorry I don’t have any advice to give. Only thing I’ve grown indoors is lettuce.
Good luck!
@@crtnyp doesn't have to be advice about indoor vs outdoor, just anything you know about growing
@@sparkymikey25 Fair enough
1. I spray paint all of my buckets and containers black or brown. Even blue Lowes buckets will allow ALOT of algae growth.
2. I use an empty bucket when changing solution to rest the lid with the plant and roots in until im finished.
3. I always dump out any remaining solution when refilling. This is so I won’t create too strong of a mix. I’ll just add straight water if it’s real low and I need to wait til the next day.
4. I have to use mosquito control or else I’ll have B-52 bomber sized mosquitoes all over my yard.
5. Indoors might not have to worry about when it rains lol. I always have to check all my water levels and empty any buckets a little bit where the air roots are submerged.
6. I use Masterblend for cukes and MaxiGro for lettuce and cabbages.
7. I successfully grew 2 ground cherry plants in an 18 gallon tote. I usually grow one Cuke per 2.5 or 5 gallon bucket but this year I’m trying 2 per 5 gal bucket to see what happens.
8. I place the cukes on the edges of my tomato trellises so they can be supported as well.
Hope it helps!
Tiki, do you have Gnats in your sun room from the soil tomatoes?
Hello Gerry, you are correct in guessing about the gnats, pesky little things! I have yellow sticky traps all over my sunroom, but I removed them for the video because they are ugly. I washed the soil off the tomato plants before planting it in the two systems, but still had the gnats....frustrating! Thanks for the question!
The deep water plant and the cloth pots are getting more oxygen to the roots. The coco and dirt is not allowing as much oxygen to the roots of the plants in the ebb and flow. You should have also put your ebb and flow plants in clay rocks as you did with the deep water plant. You can also run air stones in your reservoir to increase oxygen in the water.
Go figure, super-interesting result when you finally "slip up" and only have a sample size of one 🤣 If you decide to kick that plant's life cycle, I'd try witholding all nutrients for a day or three (RO flush) and bring it back up slowly. If you can shade it for that period, I think that would maximize the kick. Decisions, decisions. I don't think this is the last we'll see of those DWC pots 😄
Thanks for the suggestion...I've already started diluting the solution in the DWC bucket, but you are saying to flush completely. Big job....but I might do that. Thanks for the feedback!
@@TikkiOOO It's a desperation move for the impatient (drop nitrogen +🤞) ...If you go that route: Looking at the bucket, perhaps the lower fitting can be wrestled out to drain. However, I'd try a hose and siphon first to avoid damaging the rubber bung. I look forward to next year's replication -- battle of the hydro methods :)
I use Master blend, and I have to make up 2 separate mixes for it, the first is the normal recommended blend with the high cal nitrate, and the second has no cal nitrate, or 1/4 to 1/3 of the recommended cal nitrate added. If I use the first blend only I get high leaf production, and the plants eventually fruit, but the fruit stays green and doesn't ripen. I have to use the second, lower nitrate mix to get fruit production and ripening.
Re the ebb and flow, could it be the coir? I haven't heard that used in an ebb and flow before, and thought it was odd - though I don't claim expertise - but it seems like it might hang onto the nutrient when drained and keep things too damp. That would be my suspicion, anyway. If so inclined, I might test it by replacing the media in one bucket w/hydroton.
Interesting, no calcium nitrate, just the masterblend and the epsom salt....and you had similar results to mine when you used the calcium nitrate. I have the Vevor DWC buckets outside that I gave the full Masterblend formula, I hope those flower, so far they are green with leaves, but they were just planted, so time will tell. Someone else suggested the the coconut coir might be mitigating the pH. I'll keep watching....thanks for the feedback!
@@TikkiOOO Usually I go with about 1/4 to 1/3rd of the recommended cal nitrate, and that seems to work pretty well. Masterblend does have some N on its own, as you likely know, so I have used it that way some, but I do usually at least want some extra calcium from the cal nitrate since I grow peppers often.
The odd thing is that I haven't seen this problem mentioned before on the internet, so I dont know whats going on. An interesting effect of it, though, is that you get the opposite as well, that is the high P and K mix seems to encourage flower and fruit production.
Anyway, thanks for the interesting vids, and good luck with your system.
Wondering any reasons using DWC instead Kratky? Thanks!
Kratky vs dwc video on yt...
Could the plant in the DWC be sterile? It is a hybrid. Thanks for updating us.
I'm not sure what you mean...but the plant in the DWC came from the same pack of 9 Celebrity seedlings I got from Lowes. The ones in the ebb and flow are flowering. Could this ONE be a dud?
@@TikkiOOO What I mean is, is that since its a hybrid (been genetically modified)it might've gotten is signals mixed and just grows a vine but never flowers to produce fruit. Its just a thought. I'll be interested in seeing what it does.
Is it possible that the EBB toms flower due to stress?
Hello Bon Ho, yes you are right, stress can cause a plant to flower early, let's see what happens. But now the DWC has started to flower as well. And the outdoor tomato plants have also started to put out flowers, I have some in soil grow bags and some in DWC, they are all in the flowering stage now. So....hopefully I will have lots of tomatoes! Thanks for the question!
It’s simple dwc/rdwc is way faster
I can tell you why the dwc grew faster than the air cube system. You're not using the air cube up to its potential. Get that coco out of the air cube and use clay pebbles so you can use the system properly and flood it several times a day. I have mine set to flood every 45 minutes. You will see a difference when you do.
This is half correct but you dont need to flood that often unless each plant drinks over a gallon a day. 4 times during a daycycle is enough. You dont need to flood more than once at night