by Jason Bauman
Sudden raise in temperature killed my plants (or coincidence?)
12:19 am in Getting Started, made from scratch (without a kit), Nutrients, Seeking Advice, Starting Seeds, Version 2.0 airlift system by Jason Bauman
I have a three tier Windowfarm in my window. All three plants were grown from seeds placed in recycled tree-bark material in the center of the netcup/hydroton. At the top, I’m growing Peas. In the middle, Jalepenos, and on the bottom, Lettuce. They were all doing well until there was a day when the heat in my building kicked in. The pea stalk, formerly 2 inches and sticking straight up, tilted over the edge of the netcup. The Lettuce and Jalepeno babies wilted, and the Lettuce seems to have completely died. I replanted him today.
I did cut off some of the dead/wilted leaves from the pea stalk, but while it’s not “leaning” as bad as it was, it’s not sticking back up yet and it’s been a week (Maybe i’m rushing things?)
Since they initially sprouted out of the growing material, I’ve been adding recommended amounts of Pure Blend Pro Grow (3-2-4) in the reservoir water (Mixing 3 – 5mL in a 2L bottle before adding to/topping up the reservoir). I don’t yet have a way to measure the PH in the water, but plan to pick up a test kit during the week. (Would an Aquarium PH test kit work well?)
Any recommendations anybody has to save my plants would be helpful!
I had the same issue with dying plants and it was the Ph (had nothing to do with the temp). Switched out the water and added the new nutrient solution and the plants came back after a pruning.
You could make some kind of system like this:
http://wiki.biologigaragen.org/index.php/Projects
(The aquarium-pump under “Ecology”)
It has been running for more than 20 months now!
Best regards
Peter
Hi Jason,
Sorry to hear about your casualty. Yes. One of the hazards of indoor gardening is the few days of drastic temp change as we turn off and on the heat. At least we aren’t completely at the whim of mother nature; just “human nature,” haha.
Anyway, I was going to throw my two cents in for a lot of pruning and cleaning. Many plants are resilient enough to bounce back as long as their cores are in good shape, but you have to get rid of all the debris. cut off all the dead leaves, branches, and roots or they will attract disease. I would clean out the whole system (no soap!!) and consider even very gently pulling the plants’ main root ball out of the system, but leaving it attached to an clay pellets it still wants to hang onto. Let the dead roots fall away with the clay pellets they are attached to and boil those pellets before reuse. Mix up a new batch of nutes and maybe even use a little root growth hormone, if you are ok with that. Once you replace the plants in the system, consider moving them out of the light for a full 24 hours so they can have some extra “nighttime” to grow strong roots.
Best of luck and please come back and let us know what you did, what worked, and –even more importantly– what didn’t work.
-Britta
i would like to tell u a thing since the water drips from the top to bottom reservoir it wud be better to check on any search engine if the growth of one plant depends on the growth of the other the upper plant may be hindering the growth of the lower one, check for plant dependency since they are two complete different plants, n about using the NPK chemical , dilute the concentration so that they dont contribute to the drying of the plant