by CC
HELP! My Plants are Dying!!!
8:09 pm in Completed Window Farms, Getting Started, Nutrients, Nutrition, Plants, Seeking Advice by CC
Hello-
My widow farm is built and water seems to be flowing well. I have a 4 column, 3 row system. I am having a hard time keeping plants alive however. I started out with plants from soil and after transplanting they seemed ok. Day 3 I had a system failure and they did not get water for a few hours and dried out a bit. After getting them going again I gave them some Bio Thrive Vegan Plant food and things seemed to get better. 2 Days later, however plants were starting to get a little fried and everything in the middle row died, the Oregano, Cilantro, and Dill. The top row, Parsley, all stems dried out but some new growth, (very little), Sage looks ok, Thyme and rosemary were fine, but not so much anymore. The only things that seem ok are the tomatoes on the bottom row, the strawberries and basil are alive but not doing very well. Most of my leaves are dried out and wilted. I changed my solution and went back to straight water to try to undo so of the fried but things are still not good. I hate killing so many plants!
Any Ideas? Thanks in advance.
P.S. I have an average of 30 foot candles of light, so that should be plenty.
Hi – my condolences on the widow farm.
Did you make any photos of how the leaves looked like when they died off ?
That vegan plant food comes with a warning to supply additional calcium, but I guess you used it after the system failure ocurred, right ?
How much sunlight do the plants get; how warm does it get; how close are the lights, and what type are they ?
Do provide a few photos of your WF; it’ll help.
Cheers
Hello and thanks for the help. I have added some pictures of the dying plants to the original post as I am not seeing where to add them here.
Yes, I added the plant food after the failure, no additional calcium.
The plants get a fair amount of sunlight, but most of the light comes from the CFLs I have added. There is a 2′ Floro tube in the middle with a plant spectrum bulb. Above that are 2 daylight 75w CFLs and another pair below the tube. On either side there are 4 CFLs, 3 Daylight and 2 Tungston. They are not very close to the plants, 8″-10″ away. As they are CFLs it does not get very warm.
Thanks again for your response. I really want to make this work!
You’re probably the only person I’ll ever be saying this to, but:
Your plants are getting too much light !
With several hundred watts of artificial light plus sunlight you’re creating desertlike conditions which’ll kill of your plants again should any part of the water circulation malfunction.
Try growing the plants without the lamps in the summer and see how you fare – and in the meantime:
Rejoice, you’re not alone !
—> http://www.homegrownevolution.com/2010/06/made-by-hand.html
Thanks. I dont get alot of sunlight in the window but I have remove 4 of the CFLs and hope it gets better. Thanks for the advice.
Hi CC! Congratudolences! You are a real farmer now that you can say you’ve lost a whole crop and learned from it. I’m very sorry though. It is very sad when all your hard work meets with fried little babies. Last summer, our small demo system died right in the front windows of Eyebeam and I came in one weekend to see all of my 3 month old okras, peppers, beans, and cheery tomatoes dead and shriveled on the vine. It had just gotten too hot in the little window gallery space when someone unplugged the fan accidentally. I gotta find the pictures Rebecca took of me on the verge of tears as I cleaned all the plants out. A few weeks ago, I was trying out a new nutrient mix on the system I had just gotten really going in our new windowfarms headquarters shop, miscalculated the measurements, and put in waaaay too much of the stuff. Totally burned the plants’ roots. A couple of apparently very hearty little guys survived but I lost 15 plants all at once, some of which were so beautiful as pictured in the NPR piece. If it makes you feel any better, we are all learning from your experience. We are about to release the version 3.0 windowfarm designs and you will see a lot of improvements that have been made to compensate for people’s windowfarm failures that have happened in the past. If over lighting really is your problem, i’m not sure how to combat that other than to get better air circulation, replenish water very frequently, and pick a plant mix that can accomodate hot conditions. Try a bunch of hot peppers and cherry tomatoes for your next crop. They do pretty well in hot conditions. Leafy greens are probably just not going to do well in your microclimate this season. Keep experimenting!!!! You are rad. Thank you so much for sharing your failure with the community and please create new posts elucidating your design solutions to combat these issues in the future. I will definitely keep an eye on your experience as a source of next gen improvements! -Britta
I must agree with others, too much direct sunlight will kill your plants.
(I onlly have experience with potted plants, yet, but I’m getting to be an expert at recognising plants that are beyond salvage… Green fingers? not me… )
One trick I’ve developed for my mini greenhouse is baking paper.
(you know the crinkly, white stuff you use on trays when making cookies, or sometimes wrap your lunch in)
Hang a sheet of that in front of the plants. It’ll cut down on the glare while still letting through enough that the plants thrive.
Sorry to hear about this. Over lighting is not your problem, but your lights may be. I think heat is likely the problem. Heat can cause many problems like wilt, and root rot. If root rot is happening, the roots will smell like feet.
The transplant to the system often shocks plants a bit, which can cause some death. Any other stress like; nutes that are too strong, or too much heat, can be disastrous. I would suggest adding lots of fans, and using less lighting.
Could you be overfeeding the plants? There is a lot of brown residue in the splotches on the reservoir and in the plastic martini glass part of the assembly. My experience is with little to no color in the nutrient solution, so take it as you will.
Damn, those are some dead plants. Hope you can figure it out! There are so many variables, it can be daunting…
Hi! It’s hard losing plants, but keep fighting the good fight. You have a lot of good ideas posted already, so I’ll try not to overwhelm you. When I read your original post; however, I was struck by the actual types of plants you’re growing because they have very different water needs. For example, several of the herb varieties prefer drier soil, sage for instance. One strategy might be to use plants with the same water needs and try again. If the strawberries and tomatoes are thriving, chose plants along those lines. Just a thought, though. Keep trying.
Thank you all for the advice. To address some of the statements:
Brita, Thanks for the encouragement. I am not giving up!!!
Owen, I am using CFLs they do not put out much heat at all. Where I agree that heat is probably part of the problem I dont think much is coming from the CFLs.
Jodeesss, I think I might have over fed them for a day, but I pumped out all of the water and am using plain water at this point with no nutrients to see if that was the problem.
Shannon, where I realize that different plants need different amounts of water I am really hoping to have mostly herbs growing in the farm as I cook a lot and love fresh herbs. I will try putting the “drier” herbs in the same column and see if I turn down the drippers level.
I have gotten some new plants that I will put in the system later this week and keep you updated.
Again, Thanks for all the advice. Keep your fingers crossed!!!
Did you ever figure this problem out? To me, it sounded like an overfeeding or ph balance problem. One thing about hydroponics is that the smaller the reservoir, the easier it is for the ph to off.