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Archive for February, 2010

Sulfur Plasma

Posted by: Brett McCormick · Comments (0) · February 26th
Friday, February 26th, 2010

There is a huge up side to the future of indoor hydroponics lighting.  The technology is improving but it will come at a huge cost to the consumer.  The first lighting technology that will be profiled is the Sulfur Plasma lamp.  This technology, developed by Plasma International, a British/ German company., will not be in stores for 1-2 years and is projected to cost around $3500 per light.  The lamp and magnetron unit is an electrode-less lamp that includes an evacuated quartz bulb.  The lamps produce almost no ultraviolet light and little infrared.  It provides a full and continuous spectrum.  Full spectrum lighting is the is the best type of light for plants being that this is the type of light that they have evolved to exploit.

A study was conducted by Wageningen University using Plasma International’s Sulfur Plasma Lamp for cucumber growth.  They found that cucumbers grew 60% faster then they did under a traditional HPS bulb.  It was also noted that there was an increase in size of branches and leaves.  These lamps can easily cover the same area of a 1000W HPS lamp but because of the reduced heat, it could be placed closer to the plants.  These bulbs are currently available for research purposes only.

Article by, Brett McCormick, co-founder of Good Green Builders.  Good Green Builders is a grow room contractor in Oakland, Ca.  For more information or a free consultation all today, 415-246-8055.

Source: Urbangardenmagazine.com

Categories : Harvesting Tips
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Plasma Grow Lights: The Promises of Full Spectrum Plant Lighting

Posted by: Brett McCormick · Comments (0) · February 25th
Thursday, February 25th, 2010

The majority of indoor gardeners are using 1000-Watt High Pressure Sodium (HPS) lamps to light their plants and are still using magnetic ballasts.  Believe it or not this technology has been around for more than 30 years in its same form.  If you think of the computer industry a lot has changed in that same time frame.  This was because of all of the human ingenuity and the demand for more from the consumer side.  This is hopefully what will happen in the near future for indoor horticulture lighting.

We don’t need a Ph.D. in Photobiology to know that the sun is the only benchmark for new technologies in the indoor lighting field.  Plants have adapted over millions of years to best exploit the solar energy generated from the sun.  How plants relate to light can be related to how we as humans hear, by frequency.  One of the primary reasons that indoor gardeners have used HPS bulbs is because NASA did a study basically stating that plants are efficient at using red light.   HPS bulbs do a great job at promoting vigorous plants but they only provide plants with a limited light spectrum and a lot of heat in the infrared part of the spectrum.  As we all know, heat can be a nemesis to your indoor garden if not taken care of properly.

There are alternative lighting systems out there that will provide a fuller spectrum of light and produce much less heat but they are not very economical and in some case not even in the stores.   More information will be provided on the future of indoor horticulture lighting soon.

Article by, Brett McCormick, co-founder of Good Green Builders.  Good Green Builders is a grow room contractor in Oakland, Ca.  For more information or a free consultation call today, 415-246-8055.

Source: Urbangardenmagazine.com

Categories : Harvesting Tips, Indoor Grow Rooms
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Opinion: Why Water?

Posted by: Brett McCormick · Comments (0) · February 23rd
Tuesday, February 23rd, 2010

Many growers feel that the usage of natural mediums, such as coconut coir, is a sustainable way to grow considering that the coir is from the earth.  Although it is widespread and highly effective medium for hydroponic gardeners, many people don’t consider the extensive transportation costs that it takes to ship a bag of coir across the continent to its final destination.  Most people start their own hydroponic garden because they want to become self-sufficient or so the can produce their own foods and know what is going into their body.  It is important to do this in the most sustainable manner possible.

Water will be the medium of the future allowing growers to use fewer resources and reduce their carbon footprint.  Hydroponic systems use mineral salts to provide plants with the nutrition they require to grow and bloom.  Hyper-oxygenated water culture methods typically increase the efficiency of nutrient uptake in the plants root zone.  You can typically use a much lower concentrations, around 40%-70%, of the recommended dosage for a given nutrient.

The ocean is a circulating, well-aerated solution of H20 and dissolved salts.  It is also the birthplace of all plants and life forms.  So with that said plants have coded with in their ancient DNA to be able and willing to adapt back to living in water.  Water is the growing medium of the future hydroponic gardening.

Article by, Brett McCormick, co-founder of Good Green Builders.  Good Green Builders is a grow room contractors in Oakland, Ca.  For more information or a free consultation call today, 415-246-8055.

Source: urbangardenmagazine.com

Categories : Hydroponics
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Fresh Fruit and Vegetables

Posted by: Brett McCormick · Comments (0) · February 22nd
Monday, February 22nd, 2010

Everybody knows in the back of their mind that a healthy diet is the foundation to a healthy lifestyle.  Health Canada states, “Adequate nutrition is essential for proper growth and development …Healthy eating contributes to an overall sense of well being and helps people look, feel, and perform better.”  It is suggested that you should eat 5-10 servings of fresh fruit and vegetables daily.  If you are concerned about quality of what you eat you should consider growing your own food.  This is because recent food production has been shifted from quality to quantity.   As well as the fact that genetically modified foods are widespread throughout our grocery stores.   One of the best ways to cultivate your own food is hydroponically.

You can convert a basement, spare room, or garage, into a hydroponic grow room that will help you live a healthier lifestyle.  A study done by Plant Research Technologies in San Jose found that tomatoes and peppers grown hydroponically had dramatically higher vitamin and mineral content than that of its soil counterpart.   Another advantage to growing hydroponically is that you can have multiple harvests per year, opposed to only one harvest in soil.  Cultivating food in your own hydroponic garden can be a very fun hobby and very rewarding once things are up and running.

Article by, Brett McCormick, co-founder of Good Green Builders.  Good Green Builders is a grow room contractor in Oakland, Ca.  For more information or a free consultation call today, 415-246-8055.

Source: Hydroponics.com

Categories : Grow Room Development, Harvesting Tips
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Maximizing Nutrient Environment-Part 1

Posted by: Brett McCormick · Comments (0) · February 18th
Thursday, February 18th, 2010

Nutrient management can be a hard task to master however once you are dialed in; you will reap the benefits of enhanced plant growth, higher yields, and higher overall crop quality.   It is all bout understanding your equipment and your grow room environment.  It all starts with the water.  You need to know what is in your water.  Water with high levels of conductivity, or high salt levels, is not ideal for hydroponic cultivation.  It is important to constantly check your water source with a dissolved solids meter, also called an electrical conductivity (EC) or parts per million (ppm) meter.  By doing this you will be able to tell if your water source is consistent.  Consistency and keeping all grow factors in proper balance is key in an indoor grow environment.

Your nutrient solution temperature should remain in the 65 and 72 degrees Fahrenheit.  Also it is good to remember that plants roots evolved in soil where soil temperatures are slow to change.  With this in mind, extreme changes in temperature in the root zone can cause shock or invite root disease.  The next topic for maximizing your nutrient environment is maintaining your nutrient solution’s pH between 5.5 and 6.8.  You want to adjust your pH to remain in this range, checking it periodically.  But there is fine line that you don’t want to cross, maintaining a perfect balance of 6.2 can actually do damage.  A fluctuating pH is common and this just means that your plants are absorbing the nutrients from your solution.

Another important aspect in nutrient management is changing your nutrient solution.  The common question is when do you change the solution, but there isn’t a common answer.  When you top off your reservoir you should make note of how much water was added.  Top off the reservoir as needed and make sure you make a note as to how much water you are adding each time.  Once the amount of water added equals the total reservoir volume, it is time to drain and replace the nutrient solution.

Article by, Brett McCormick, co-founder of Good Green Builders. Good Green Builders is a grow room contractor in Oakland, Ca.  For more information or a free consultation call today, 415-246-8055.

Categories : Harvesting Tips
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Recirculation Basics-Part 1

Posted by: Brett McCormick · Comments (0) · February 17th
Wednesday, February 17th, 2010

Growing hydroponically drastically reduces the usage of various resources necessary for an indoor grow.  Water is one of them.  The days of run-to-waste or open irrigation have almost come to an end.  Pure water, which is essential in a hydroponic system, is becoming more and more scarce.   It is important for people to re-circulate their water and nutrients to limit the water usage.  When cultivating in your hydroponic grow room you can reduce water consumption up to 80% by using a water recirculation system.  A recirculation system will also allow you to save money on all of the nutrients and additives that make up the nutrient solution.  Water is the key to any hydroponic system.

It is very important to know what is in your water.  If you don’t know what is in your source water, and if the performance of your plants suffers, you will not know where to start to diagnose the problem at hand.  It is important to have a low EC water source so that the water can dissolve the required nutrients and so you wont have a build-up of nutrients.  When dealing with a closed or recirculation system it is important to top off your reservoirs to make sure that the nutrient solution is of the right concentration.  Plants will take up the water in the solution quicker than the nutrients in the solution. When deciding on reservoirs for your hydroponic grow room bigger is better.  This is because the nutrients will stay in balance longer, larger volumes of water helps stabilize temperature, and also enables the grower to make more subtle adjustments to avoid any spikes in EC or pH.

Article by, Brett McCormick, co-founder of Good Green Builders.  Good Green Builders is a grow room contractor in Oakland, Ca.  For a free consultation call today, 415-246-8055.

Source: urbangardenmagazine.com

Categories : Hydroponics
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Who’s Afraid of Hydroponics

Posted by: Brett McCormick · Comments (0) · February 16th
Tuesday, February 16th, 2010

There are many misconceptions that give hydroponics a bad name in the agricultural world.  The truth is that cultivating foods hydroponically is the way of the future and is already prevalent in the agriculture community.   The word “hydroponics” is derived from Greek, “hydro-ponos”.  This can be directly translated to water at work.  One of the main benefits to growing hydroponically is that the majority of the crops energy is put into the plants fruits and flowers and not the root system.   Therefore producing a much more vigorous plant with less resources used.   One of the main misconceptions of hydroponic cultivation is that hydroponics isn’t and can’t be organic.  That is untrue.

There are many different types of organic based hydroponic nutrients as well as organic mediums for growing crops.  Coconut coir, which is a favorite for hydroponic cultivators, is all natural.  Also, crops produced hydroponically, if fed the proper array of nutrients can be just as nutritious as organic produce.

There are many advantages to growing hydroponically, some of them are: Higher yields, increased growth rates, less labor involved in the maintenance, plants can be left un-attended longer, water usage is reduced when using a recirculation system, and finally many hydroponics systems provide plants with more nutrition while at the same time use energy and space.  These are just a few advantages to growing hydroponically.

Article by, Brett McCormick, co-founder of Good Green Builders.  Good Green Builders is a grow room contractor in Oakland, Ca.  For more information or a free consultation call today, (415) 246-8055.

Source: Urbangardenmagazine.com

Categories : Hydroponics
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Power Propagation

Posted by: Brett McCormick · Comments (0) · February 1st
Monday, February 1st, 2010

It is important that your plants are properly propagated to ensure that you are introducing healthy and vigorous plants to your indoor hydroponic grow room.  People are usually over anxious in getting their cuttings, or clones, into the hydroponic grow room.  Just because there are signs of root growth from your young plants it doesn’t mean that it is time to move them along to their next step.  A properly propagated plant with a highly developed root system will be extremely beneficial to the outcome of your crops.

The first stage of propagation is preparing your rockwool.  Your rockwool should be soaked in a low strength ‘grow’ nutrient or in a young plant nutrient.  This will balance the alkalinity and preload the medium with nutrients.  After you allow the rockwool to soak for 12-24 hours, it is important to allow them to fully drain.  The next process is called “hardening off”, this allow the plants to become accustomed to their future growing environment.  You do this by gradually opening the propagators’ vent over a couple of days.  During the propagation stage it is important to water your plants with care.  Your propagation blocks should never be watered on a daily basis, as it is important not to over or under water your young plants.   The next step, which is the most important step to the propagation process, this is air pruning.

Air pruning is a technique that stops root growth from extending out of the rockwool.   Basically, when the roots begin to grow the will grow all the way to the bottom.  As they reach the end of the rockwool they will dieback and begin to produce secondary roots. These secondary roots will in turn do the same thing as they reach the limits of the rockwool creating a well-developed root system.  Plants that are air pruned will take longer to propagate but will pay off in the long run.

Source: UrbanGardenMagazine.com

Article by, Brett McCormick, co-founder of Good Green Builders.  Good Green Builders is a hydroponic grow room contractor in Oakland, Ca.  For a free consultation call today, (415) 246-8055.

Categories : Harvesting Tips
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