Hydroponic Lettuce

2011-04-18T09:14:00.000-07:00

Hydroponic Lettuce Gardening Made Easy

If you would like to receive wonderful hydroponics tips and tricks in your inbox, please sign up for the best hydroponics newsletter in the word!

Cheers,
Silvio

2010-06-05T03:27:00.000-07:00

Hydroponic Lettuce Greenhouse in Georgia

For the best organic nutrients for your hydroponic garden, check out Iguana Juice!

2010-04-28T10:17:00.000-07:00

Urban Farming: Hydroponics in the City

Found this great video on YouTube! It captures all the excitement of establishing a food source in the middle of a major metropolis. If all the rooftops in Manhattan were to be converted to hydroponic gardens, you could feed millions of people from the harvest! This type of vegetable production is all the rage from Tokyo to Rio to New York City!

2009-12-18T18:44:00.000-08:00

Window Farms in New York City

If you want to grow your own lettuce (especially if you live too far from us to buy ours) you may want to get in touch with this experimental group in New York City. When times are tough, growing your own food sounds much better than not being able to afford supermarket vegetables! But don't forget, when it comes to choosing your nutrients. always choose Advanced Nutrients!

2009-10-30T22:21:00.000-07:00

Hydroponics Grow Enhancers: The Answer to Getting Bigger Yields

Using an effective grow enhancer can definitely give you bigger yields and better crops. These products are also popular because they can be used through any stage of plant development such as germination, vegetation, and flowering. Grow enhancers are considered very effective because they contain a powerful combination of vitamins and other substances designed to help stimulate plant growth.

One of main reasons why these enhancers can give you bigger yields is because they provide your plants with essential B Vitamins. Using certain concentrations of B vitamins is a very potent way of stimulating plant growth. For example, vitamin B1or Thiamine helps promote the synthesis of sugars that your plants need to thrive. By adding this vitamin into your reservoir, you increase your plants’ ability to absorb these sugars, thus, giving you large, hearty fruits and vegetables. This B vitamin complex also contains vitamin B2 or Riboflavin that activates an enzyme to catalyze the ability of plant cells to turn oxygen and sugars into the energy that they need to grow.

Grow enhancers are also often packed with seaweed or kelp extract which contain powerful plant hormones designed specifically to encourage plant growth. These hormones send a signal to your plant cells to grow and divide very rapidly, which leads to faster growth, faster harvest time, and bigger yields. And to make these nutrients and vitamins as effective as possible, high quality grow enhancers come with a humic acid base. Humic acid has the ability to chelate, or bind positively charged ions that can allow your plants to absorb more nutrients than usual.

Hydroponics is easy to set up when you're a hobbyist, but if you have aspirations of becoming a master grower, you owe it to yourself to read the best hydroponics newsletter on the web.

2009-10-30T22:19:00.000-07:00

Hydroponic baby lettuce

Hydroponic Lettuce and Micro-greens test to test varieties and growing mediums. No electricity was used.

Watch the video from here...

2009-10-30T22:18:00.001-07:00

Hydroponic lettuce growing using CFL!

This is a video showing hydroponic lettuce growing under the lights that I made in my other video "How To Build a CFL Grow Light Fixture - CHEAP!". I've been making a video from seed to harvest using these lights along with a hydroponic system shown in this video. I'll post that as soon as it's all together after my harvest. Comments and suggestions welcome.

2009-10-30T22:15:00.000-07:00

The methods of growing commercial hydroponic lettuce.

Watch this video for incredible results....

Can it be too early to love hydroponics?

2009-08-07T13:08:00.001-07:00

Hydroponics is definitely the wave of the future. But it's nice to get proof of this once in a while. The Hooked-on-Hydroponics Awards were just announced for kids who are involved with growing fruits, vegetables, or flowers hydroponically, in a classroom setting. Read all about it at the following url. (For the best hydroponic newsletter on the web, please go to http://www.advancednutrients.com/newsletter)

clipped from www.kidsgardening.com

When children and
teens explore how to grow plants hydroponically (without
soil),
fruitful
questions
bloom,
and these
questions can lead to active investigations and problem
solving.
These studies may even lead to classroom business opportunities
or fuel student career interests. Not least among the benefits is the joy students experience harvesting a crop of their own incredible edibles or bounteous blossoms!

Wondering if a hydroponics unit
is right for your classroom?

Please visit our online Exploring
Hydroponics guide for
examples of topics and lessons you can pursue.

Urban hydroponics greenhouses to be located in high-rise buildings

2009-04-30T05:40:00.001-07:00

Our best minds look to a future of urban gardens that feature Controlled Environment Agriculture located in tall buildings which will eliminate the need to transport produce to market and provide much fresher fruits and vegetables (and flowers) to city folk than conventional field farming.

clipped from features.csmonitor.com

Cities may sprout vertical farms

Proposed high-rise greenhouses could help solve a looming food crisis, professor says.

The world is going to need vertical farms because conventional agriculture can’t handle what’s to come, Despommier says. By midcentury, the world is expected to add another 3 billion people, pushing its population close to 10 billion. Feeding all those extra mouths will require finding an area of agricultural land larger than Brazil – without cutting rain forests needed to stabilize the world’s climate.

And indoor agriculture is more efficient. One indoor acre of strawberries can produce as much as 30 outdoor acres can. In general, indoor acreage is four to six times more productive, in part because of the year-round growing season. “Outdoors, you might get one crop [per year]; indoors, you might get four or five crops per year,” Despommier says.

2009-04-13T09:06:00.000-07:00

Hydroponic Lettuce growing explained

We came across this Discovery Channel video on YouTube and thought that we would share it with you. It will give you an idea of what's involved in growing lettuce hydroponically:

For the best possible nutrients for hydroponic lettuce, check out the great products from Advanced Nutrients.

2009-01-31T09:17:00.000-08:00

Hydroponics Rocks!

The Nutrient Pond or Hydroponic Raft System

2009-01-14T16:32:00.001-08:00

We call it the Nutrient Pond technique, but it is also called the Hydroponic Raft System. It's the method that Chuck and I employ in all our greenhouses to grow our Boston and Specialty Lettuce plants, as well as our Herbs and Pak Choi. Crisp Salad Greens is surging ahead, supplying our local area with healthy salad greens and vegetables. I discovered this great website which explains how to set up such a system either in your own home or in a greenhouse of whatever size. In these tough economic times, growing your own food is becoming more and more attractive! (We don't mind the competition, as long as you eat healthy!)

clipped from www.howtohydroponics.com

An Easily Expanded Concept For Commercial Production

Many commercial greenhouses use the hydroponic RAFT system to grow lettuces and other short-stature salad bowl crops and flowers. Be building the hydroponic lettuce raft system in How-To Hydroponics, you'll gain an understanding for the techology which could easily be applied to a much larger area if so desired. The picture at left shows a medium scale hydroponic lettuce raft system at Epcot Center in Orlando Fl.

The hydroponic lettuce raft system is easy to assemble from inexpensive, household parts. The Hydroponic raft system operates by floating plants above an Oxygen infused bath of nutrients into which the roots grow. The hydroponic raft system is suitable for short-stature plants such as lettuces, kitchen herbs and other small varieties.

2008-11-21T17:50:00.000-08:00

Great video showing a much larger operation

Chuck and I and our new partners are busy trying to keep our business afloat in these tough economic times. Needless to say, we are too busy to do any extensive blogging. However, I did come across this great video recently. It shows a much larger operation than ours (with many more employees) but it will give you an idea of how hydroponic lettuce is grown, even in our modest greenhouses.

The nutrients in the Nutrient Pond are supplied by Advanced Nutrients.

2008-09-16T16:53:00.000-07:00

Chuck and I simply love Scorpion Juice. The name always involves a double take--but when you get to know the wonerful results of using it, the name ceases to be important. It immunizes our salad greens against all sorts of maladies (pests and pathogens) that tend to crop up when you least expect them. And it's perfectly safe to use on edible vegetables--in fact, it's organic.

So watch this entertaining video and discover more about Scorpion Juice by clicking here!

2008-08-25T19:34:00.000-07:00

Crisp Salad Greens (CSG) is a leading hydroponics supplier of healthy produce!

Chuck and I took some time off to watch the Olympics! Weren't they great? We were in awe of the opening and closing ceremonies and the variety of heroic efforts that graced these past 16 days.

Luckily, we have reliable staff, so that our Greenhouses kept running, while we were both glued to our TV sets. Now we decided to get into shape, so we ride our bikes to work and started getting up early to run a few miles each day.

We are equally zealous about growing our food hydroponically. The high cost of gasoline and energy in general makes us glad that we're close to our retail outlets and thus save on having to transport our produce out of State.

The old system where every vegetable and fruit was grown in either California or Florida is crumbling. Home hydroponics has taken off and we encourage it. It doesn't matter that householders seem to be going into direct competition with us. The more, the merrier. There will always be folks who are not able to grow their own food (or too busy relaxing or working to do so!) and for them, we'll always be there!

I'm making this a very short post, because having taken two weeks off, we have a lot of catching up to do with regard to the business. Our Boston and Specialty Lettuce, our Herbs, and our Pak Choi are doing really well and so far this Summer (is it almost over?) we've had no major problems (knock on wood!).

So please support our suppliers (Advanced Nutrients is our exclusive supplier for hydroponic plant nutrients--they can be accessed via their website at click here.)

Oh, and if you want to start growing your own food at home hydroponically, the first thing you should do is sign up for the best hydroponic newsletter in the business--just type in your e-mail at this url!

Signing off for now, I'm Silvio urging you to eat healthy and start exercising!

2008-07-10T14:35:00.000-07:00

Hydroponics is once again proven to be safer

You might have heard of the great tomato scare that hit the headlines in recent weeks. This is once again proof that hydroponics is a cleaner, safer method of growing vegetables than soil ever could be. Not to mention faster, more efficient, and able to produce more yield per square foot than conventional agriculture.

Chuck and I were chuckling (pun intended--couldn't resist) at yet another vegetable grown in soil that was making people sick. It would have been even more humorous if it had not been for that death in Texas, which involved a person on cancer chemo whose immunity had been compromised and could not ward off the e-coli bacteria.

It took investigators a full eight months to figure out how the spinach crop became contaminated some time ago (a cow pasture too close to the spinach fields). I wonder how long it will take for the tomato scare to be pinned on one type of pollution or another.

Our salad greens, herbs, and pak choi are selling well and Chuck and I with our other partners are contemplating building some more greenhouses to grow tomatoes. Of course, we are hesitating since tomatoes are having such a bad rep at the moment, it will take some time to restore the public's confidence in them. We've switched to eating cherry tomatoes with our salads, since that particular variety is not affected. And we're looking around for a hydroponic supplier even for that small variety.

Grow hydroponically--and that goes for all vegetables! We've found some excellent blogsites that are spreading the gospel of hydroponics, and they focus on leeks, soybeans, dwarf avocado trees, and peppers of every variety. Click on http://www.hubpages.com/hub/hydroponic_advanced in order to get an idea of what I'm talking about.

Another way to learn all about hydroponics is by subscribing to the Advanced Nutrients newsletter, simply by clicking here and filling out you e-mail address. It comes regularly into your mailbox and is filled with helpful facts about setting up your very own indoor hydroponics garden.

We hope to post more often in the coming months, but we are still extremely busy supplying our retail outlets with our outstanding produce.

2008-01-16T07:13:00.000-08:00

Hydroponics Gaining in Popularity

Our expansion activities are keeping us so busy, that we haven't had a chance to update this blog in a while. However, we are gratified to report that hydroponics is increasingly the method of choice for growers of vegetables and salad greens, like ourselves. Healthy competition has always helped motivate growers and the popularity of growing lettuce, herbs, and pak choi in greenhouses using hydroponics is spurring me and my partners on to a new level of productivity.

We're hoping to return to regular blogging soon. Until then, please visit a squidoo page that was just launched and promises to be great reading for hydroponics enthusiasts, like ourselves.

Oh, and Advanced Nutrients is sending out an important "Seven Secrets" report that every hydroponics grower will benefit from. Click on the link and increase your yields!

2007-10-19T15:35:00.000-07:00

Expansion successful, carbon footprint a concern

Wendy and Ernie’s company, We Promote, has done its job. Just as construction finished on our four new greenhouses and subsequent to our September launch, the increased orders that poured in justified the expansion.

One thing that Chuck and I weren’t too thrilled about was that some of these new orders were from countries such as New Zealand, where it is Spring now, instead of Fall. “Think of the carbon footprint,” exclaimed Chuck, “we’re helping the Globe go to hell in a handbasket.”

“It’s a fact of life that lettuce producers have to live with,” explained Wendy. When it’s time for rain and snow, instead of sunshine, people in the Northern Hemisphere stop eating so many salads and concentrate on hot soups, instead.

We tried to come up with alternatives to shipping our lettuce, packed in ice, to New Zealand, so Wendy promised that they will increase our promotional efforts in countries that are a bit closer, like Mexico.

“Yeah, well instead of jet fuel you’ll be increasing carbon emissions by burning diesel in those giant transport trucks,” countered Chuck. Wendy promised to look into transport by freight train, in refrigerated compartments. “Freight trains pollute much less than trucks,” asserted our new partner.

Chuck and I were hoping that we could sell all we produce in a hundred-mile radius, and one day we might actually accomplish that goal. We have to go on local media and extol the virtues of eating a lot of lettuce, even in Winter.

“Our pak choi greenhouses sell all of the vegetables they grow within the immediate neighborhood. So you could always convert every greenhouse to pak choi production,” said Wendy.

Chuck wasn’t too thrilled to hear that. We’re essentially lettuce producers, with sidelines in pak choi and herbs. To turn everything over to the Chinese vegetable would require changing our view of ourselves.

“Let’s stay with the business plan that we subscribed to when we signed our partnership agreement,” I said. “But let’s try to build customers closer to home and elevate people’s awareness of the health benefits of lettuce, even in Fall and Winter.”

A huge order arrived from Advanced Nutrients, and an entire storage shed got filled up with Micro, Grow, Humic and Fulvic Acids, Sensi Cal Mg Grow, Piranha, Tarantula, Voodoo Juice, as well as Seaweed Extract, Scorpion Juice, and Barricade.

“At least we agree on this,” said Ernie, “that Advanced Nutrients makes the best possible food for our produce, and may they live long and prosper and continue to provide us with them.”

“Hear, hear!” exclaimed Chuck, then rushed off for another radio interview about lettuce and its health benefits.

I’ve not been blogging regularly in recent weeks. There’s so much going on that I just don’t have time each week. Please bear with us until more time is available for this very valuable means of communication.

2007-09-06T16:55:00.000-07:00

Crisp Salad Greens (CSG)-- our Brand Name is launched

We Promote did it up really big. They invited a selected list of Grocers to a swank hotel and laid it on thick. The words “Crisp Salad Greens” were emblazoned across the wall behind the banquet table, which was laden with hors d’ouvres made in heaven and lots of bowls of the finest Lettuce our glasshouses can grow.

A variety of Paul Newman’s Own salad dressings—the smallish bottles—offered a choice to everyone.

A side table was devoted to our Herb selection, and another to displaying the healthiest, most robust heads of Pak Choi most people have ever seen. Chuck manned the Herb table, offering tasty tidbits to potential customers and handing out free recipe books.

Wendy and Ernie buzzed about enthusing about our produce and repeating our Brand name every chance they got. After all this was our Brand Name launch and the first step in making sure that Crisp Salad Greens will become a household name by 2008, at least in these parts.

I was busy pouring Champagne in crystal glasses and offering small iced bowls of strawberries with cream to anyone who looked interested. The bartender we hired for the occasion called in sick at the last minute, so we decided to stick to bubbly only, no mixed drinks this time.

Grocers are a straight nosed bunch anyway, they get up at the crack of dawn to buy their produce at wholesale markets and work into the late hours keeping their books up to date.

Were most of them impressed by the presentation? They liked the mixed salads and finished off all the canapés, but the order forms we handed out were slow in coming back to us. I drew Wendy aside to figure out her thinking as to why this was happening.

“Most grocers are either first or second generation immigrants,” explained Wendy. They are extremely cautious where hype is concerned. But you do have excellent produce, so don’t worry, we’ll get more forms mailed to us after they ponder how much to order overnight.”

“Instead of trusting them to mail the forms,” I asked, “why don’t we send a rep around tomorrow to all the businesses that attended today’s function as a reminder to fill out their orders and to pick up the forms themselves.”

Wendy, Ernie, and Chuck thought that was an excellent idea, and I was “volunteered” to drive around, starting early in the morning. (Whenever I open my big mouth, I get stuck with the joe jobs.)

Next to the Champagne table, we had a special display about Advanced Nutrients and their products. Ernie believes in this company so much, that he insisted we do this. Among large containers of Micro and Grow, artistically arranged by Wendy, were strewn colorful English daisies and bunches of Basil, Oregano, and Red Leafed Sorrel.

Smaller containers of Scorpion Juice, Piranha, Tarantula, and Voodoo Juice lined a side shelf and we received plenty of questions asking us to explain these exotic names. We had to reassure them that no carnivorous fish nor poisonous spiders were involved in making these products.

“How do you get your Lettuce so crispy?” asked one elderly grocer, and I showed him a container of Sensi Cal Mg Grow and explained that the added Calcium ensured the crunchiness of not just our Lettuce, but also our Pak Choi. Since the gentleman was Asian, he looked most interested.

“How do you make sure that all your Butter Lettuce tastes so sweet?” asked a lady in a honey yellow dress. “Glad you asked,” said I, being the closest to the Advanced Nutrients display. I picked up a container of Sweet Leaf and explained that the berry sugars and molasses is this product permeate the leaves of our lettuce.

“We also don’t allow it to bolt,” I added, since everyone knows that bolting Lettuce tastes bitter. “Why don’t you grow 100% organic?” a younger woman asked. I patiently explained that for our hydroponic setup, synthetic nutrients were more practical (they don’t clog up the pipes), but that we do add an organic touch by using such AN products as Mother Earth Super Tea Grow, Humic Acid, and Fulvic Acid.

The latter two are derived from an organic substance known as “Leonardite” that is mined from the top of coal beds deep within the earth. “This stuff has calcified,” I explained, “but still contains the organic ingredients to turn a hydroponic nutrient pond into a fertile, humus-like environment.”

Mother Earth Super Tea is brewed using Alfalfa Extract, Canola, Fish, Crab, and Shrimp Meal, Citric Acid, Earthworm Castings, and Sea Kelp. It provides that loving, organic touch, that synthetics need in order to provide full spectrum nourishment for our Crisp Salad Greens.

Now all we need is a catchy theme song that people could whistle while they’re buying our produce at their neighborhood market.

2007-08-23T19:07:00.000-07:00

Not Easy Being Green, Said the Lettuce, Ha, Ha!

Chuck decided to take a week off to get away from the construction noise. It is my turn to man the fort alone, or should I say with our new partners, Wendy and Ernie.

The owners of We Promote have convinced us that they could double our business by making our brand a household name. C and S Greens has been our company name since we first started. Get it? Chuck and Silvio Greens. But our new partners want to change it.

S and C Greens was suggested and that pleased me, since my name finally came first. But then Ernie pointed out that up on a big sign people might read it as “SandCGreens,” and sand is the very last thing you want people to think of when buying lettuce.

“I like the use of the word Greens,” said Wendy thoughtfully. “Green is the new buzzword, everyone wants to be green. But the C and S part is awkward.”

Chuck and Silvio was deemed to be too informal, Charles and Silvio, too snobbish. Chilled Greens was suggested, and I sort of liked the sound of it. But Wendy thought that it sounded not cool, but cold.

Finally we all agreed on Crisp Salad Greens, or CSG for those with abbreviated minds. I wish I could say it was my idea, but instead Chuck phoned it in while relaxing on a beach in Costa Rica.

“By the time we’re finished with this,” claimed Ernie, “CSG will mean Crisp Salad Greens and it will be etched into a million minds.” Now if they all paid three dollars for the etching process, we’d be off to a good start.

The four new Greenhouses are being built simultaneously, so there is a great deal of scurrying about and dust and noise everywhere. In the heat of summer, we had to close the vents facing the construction sites, in order to keep the dust from coming in and settling on our crops.

All this talk about the color green made me think about photosynthesis. Not that I’m a plant science wiz—far from it. But the process whereby the leaves of plants turn C02 and Water and Light into Glucose and Oxygen has always fascinated me.

What does this have to do with green? An essential part of this whole process is the pigment chlorophyll, which is a basic component of the leaves of most higher plants. Chlorophyll absorbs blue and red light, but reflects green light, so we perceive it as having the color green.

Chlorophyll molecules are an essential part of the photosynthesis process, involving an electron transport chain. The chlorophyll molecules “donate” electrons to a series of molecular intermediaries, which in turn help separate the H20 molecules into H and 02.

Of course, I’m oversimplifying, because the actual process is highly complicated. But the staggering fact about photosynthesis is that it is responsible for most of the Oxygen in the Earth’s atmosphere!

So as I marvel at the green leaves of our Lettuce plants as they float on our Nutrient Ponds, I offer a silent thanks to our Crisp Salad Greens and all plants, for working so hard to keep us all alive on this planet. Without chlorophyll-bearing plants, we’d be gasping for air.

With renewed reverence, I mix up another batch of our nutrient solution, using the best-engineered plant food on the planet. Advanced Nutrients Micro, Grow, and Bloom comprise their basic diet, without the Bloom to keep our Lettuce from bolting.

AN shares my reverence for plants, I’m certain of that. If they did not, they could never have developed such products as Grandma Enggy’s Humic Acid, Fulvic Acid, and Seaweed Extract.

These three throwbacks to a bygone era, help recreate that fertile, rich, black humus that our forebears grew their vegetables in. To duplicate this plant-sustaining grow environment in a hydroponic setting was a work of genius.

AN must know an awful lot about what plants really need to thrive. Otherwise, they would never have started manufacturing three products containing live microorganisms, designed to inhabit the root zones of our plants. Not just merely to live there, but to contribute to root formation, food absorption, plant growth, and yield in a major way!

Piranha, Tarantula, and Voodoo Juice should be used cautiously in hydroponics, since the beneficial organisms multiply like crazy in water. Better use it at half the recommended strength, and you’ll still have millions of fungi, bacteria, and microbes to go around.

Calcium and Magnesium should be taken by all of us daily as supplements, in order to maintain healthy bones, teeth, and joints. Plants benefit from these two, as well. Our Lettuce, Pak Choi, and Herbs are crisper and more robust than before we started using Sensi Cal Mg Grow in our mix.

Wendy and Ernie are planning a big Brand Name launch in a swank hotel with high profile media presence. Pretty soon Crisp Salad Greens will be asked for by name by consumers, who will point out to store owners that not any Greens will do.

I feel the same way about Advanced Nutrients products. Not any nutrients will do, thank you.

2007-08-09T08:25:00.000-07:00

Heavy Promotion Begats New Construction

It’s official, Wendy and Ernie are our new partners. We checked them out very carefully, and they are legit. We signed the papers on Wednesday, and construction has already begun on four new greenhouses.

I was reluctant to have us experience such rapid growth, but Chuck convinced me that if we can double our sales, we will be able to increase our staff and cut back the hours that he and I have been putting into the business.

We took a long hard look at our sales for the past year, and came to the realization that Specialty Lettuce was outselling our Boston Lettuce. This was due partially to our first greenhouse being smaller than the others, but also to changing public tastes.

Bits of Red Sails, not just on account of the color but also its frilly edge, look more exotic in a salad, than do leaves of Boston or Butter Lettuce. I prefer the taste of the latter, but our visually oriented society is more into looks than anything else.

So the partnership had a heated meeting, and we decided to devote two of the new greenhouses to growing different types of Specialty Lettuce. Based on extensive market research conducted by Wendy and Ernie (their company is called We Promote) now we have an official Market Plan.

Greenhouses Number Five and Six will grow Lollo Rossa and Royal Oak—two very popular hydroponic lettuce varieties—while Greenhouse Seven will produce nothing but Basil, the best-selling Herb. I guess Mr. Wong was right, because according to the Market Plan, Greenhouses Eight--the largest of the four new ones-- will be devoted entirely to growing Pak Choi.

“Let’s face it,” said Wendy, “China is the wave of the future. 1.3 billion people comprise such marketing clout, that they influence everything from the food we eat to the movies we watch to the cars we drive. Did I mention that China is starting to manufacture its own line of cars?”

Chuck wasn’t too happy about the Pak Choi, but figures don’t lie, so he went along with the Plan. “At least we don’t have to buy the cheap plant nutrients from Mr. Wong’s family,” said I, always one to count my blessings.

“Speaking of nutrients,” said Ernie, “I’ve contacted Advanced Nutrients and told them of our expansion plans. They were very glad to hear it and offered us a good deal on future bulk purchases.”

That was a bit of good news, indeed. This meant that regardless of how big our operation grows, we can always be assured that we feed our plants the best nutrients possible.

Micro and Grow, even without Bloom, provide our Lettuce, Herbs, and Pak Choi with all the macro and micronutrients that are necessary for any plant to thrive. The quality ingredients in these AN products ensure that our crops are nourished superbly, from seed to harvest.

“They told me,” Ernie went on, “that with our new greenhouses, we’ll join their group of elite customers, especially with the amount of Sensi Cal Mg Grow that we’ll order.” Salad greens, Herbs, and Pak Choi all require more than the usual amount of calcium.

We checked our supply room for how many products we needed to re-order, and discovered that our Fulvic and Humic Acid supply was low. “Don’t forget,” said Ernie jokingly, “no Humic Acid in the Herb greenhouses. People won’t want our Herbs with black roots!”

Humic Acid is such a great product, but one side-effect is that it colors the nutrient solution along with your roots a rich black color. Sort of like the rich, black humus that it helps to recreate in a hydroponic setting.

For Lettuce and Pak Choi, which have their roots cut off at harvest, this is not a problem. However, customers want to buy Herbs with their roots on, because some of them put the Herbs into pots at home or even plant them in their garden, until they’re ready to use.

“Speaking of roots,” said Wendy, “I’ve been reading about Piranha, Tarantula, and Voodoo Juice on the AN Advancedpedia. Do you guys use it at half strength or full strength?”

I explained to Wendy that an AN tech guy told me to use it at half-strength for hydro, because the beneficial fungi, bacteria, and microbes might multiply too rapidly in a water setting, causing the roots to clump together.

“In soil, full strength is okay,” I said. “But in hydro, even half of the millions of microorganisms those products contain are enough to colonize our roots and assist our plants to fight off harmful fungi and bacteria.”

Wendy and Ernie gave us the thumbs up sign, and the four partners toured the construction site of the four new greenhouses, right next to our existing ones.

2007-07-26T23:21:00.000-07:00

Promote Our Brand, Keep Expanding?

Our heads were still reeling from the suggestions put forth by Wallace and Mr. Wong, when Wendy showed up at our door. What is it with the letter “W”? Three strikes and you’re out? Or is it third time lucky?

Wendy had an entirely different approach from her two predecessors. She didn’t want us to change a thing—she likes the operation as is. So what did she want, you ask?

She promised to put our brand name on the map.

Whereas now only a handful of retail outlets buy all of our produce, she proposed that through the magic of marketing and publicity, she would make the average consumer aware that our Lettuce, Herbs, and Pak Choi were absolutely the best, and that they should clamor for more.

“How can we possibly produce more? I asked naively. “Our four greenhouses are working to capacity; we have trouble fulfilling all the orders that come in.”

It seems that if the demand is created for a certain brand, by the rules of the marketplace the brand has to expand production to meet the demand.

“We’d have to double our greenhouse space if demand doubled,” said Chuck, “and that would mean putting the cart before the horse. Would the banks lend us the money to expand, on the possibility of future orders?”

“Not possibility,” answered Wendy, “certainty. By giving your brand name my treatment, I guarantee that demand for your produce will double in three months and exponentially increase over the next year.”

“What if you’re wrong? What if we expand and the market for fresh salad stuff and vegetables collapses? We’re left holding the bag and the bank has us on the hook for a huge amount,” countered Chuck.

Sounded like another pie in the sky venture to me. I drew Chuck aside and whispered in his ear to help me get rid of her. Chuck, however, had other ideas.

“Is your marketing company ready to come in as partners and take the risk with us?” he asked the visibly surprised Wendy. She hemmed and hawed but then she speed dialled a number on her cell and stepped outside to talk to her partner.

When she came back, she said that her partner had thoroughly researched our business and that he liked what he found. “He especially liked your use of Advanced Nutrients products,” she added.

Her partner turned out to be an avid gardener, who has used AN products for years. In fact, he applied the same fertilizer we did, Micro, Grow, and Bloom, even though he has an outdoor garden. AN products can be used equally well whether you grow in hydro or in soil.

“Ernie says that if that’s the way you want it, he’ll go for it. He’s tasted your Boston and Specialty Lettuce and he says it is the best of the lot grown in the area. He’s not too fond of Chinese food, so he passed over the Pak Choi tasting to me, but he loves your Herbs.”

So once again we’re consulting lawyers and drawing up partnership papers. I’m not so sure about all this, but Chuck was persuaded by the marketing company’s willingness to put its money where its mouth is.

Part of the 38-page contract is our solemn promise that we will use no other fertilizer, vitamin supplement, calcium additive, or root colonizer, other than the products made by Advanced Nutrients.

The contract even names the products—Micro, Grow, and Bloom (without the Bloom), Sensi Cal Mg Grow, B-52 (B-complex vitamin supplement), Grandma Enggy’s Humic Acid and Fulvic Acid, Piranha, Tarantula, and Voodoo Juice (root colonizers), Mother Earth Blended Super Tea Grow, and Grandma Enggy’s Seaweed Extract.

Wendy’s partner doesn’t miss a thing. The contract even mentions that Humic Acid is not to be used on the Herbs, which are marketed with their roots on. The rich black, organic additive colors the roots of plants black. For the Lettuce and the Pak Choi, whose roots get cut off before marketing, this is not a problem.

“It is imperative,” reads the contract, “ that Mother Earth Blended Super Tea Grow be added to the nutrient mix in all of the greenhouses, present and future, since the 100 % organic ingredients of this product will help balance the synthetic nature of the basic fertilizers used in this horticultural operation.”

“The alfalfa extract, canola, crab, fish, and shrimp meal, along with the citric acid, earthworm castings, and sea kelp nourish the Lettuce, Pak Choi, and Herbs in such subtle and tangible ways that synthetics are just not able to duplicate.”

“We, the undersigned, promise to keep on using all of these products and not take any shortcuts for cost-cutting or any other reason. The present high quality of our produce is to be kept intact, otherwise this contract becomes null and void.”

Chuck and I have a few days to consider all the angles before we sign on the dotted line. We are researching their company, just to see whom we’re considering as future partners. Wish us luck!

2007-07-12T19:33:00.000-07:00

The Art or Artifice of Chinese Persuasion

I don’t know what it is about our four-greenhouse operation that attracts strange people, but we sure get our share of them. First there was Bjorn, the zealot Swede, enemy of polyethylene, friend of glass and herbs.

At least he spurred us on to expand from three to four greenhouses. And our herb producing operation is going really well, so we should be thankful to him. But he was still an odd bird, as my mother used to say.

Our latest arrival in that category was a Chinese-American gentleman, let’s just call him Mr. Wong. He knocked on the door of our Greenhouse Number One, the one that grows Boston Lettuce.

Mr. Wong tried to convince Chuck and I that lettuce is on the way out in terms of popularity, and that we should switch all four greenhouses over to Pak Choi production.

He went further than that in the persuasion department. He offered to sign a contract guaranteeing that he personally would buy every pak choi plant that we grew for the next five years!

He told us he was from Hong Kong, so we checked around with our Chinese customers to see if anyone had heard of him. Our main contact in the Chinese community said that he might be the offspring of the Hong Kong “Wong” family, who are super rich and—true to stereotype—inscrutable.

Pak Choi (Brassica chinensis) is also known as Bok Choy in Cantonese or Bai Cai in Mandarin. It is a member of the Mustard family and can be added to almost any dish. Also, every part of the plant is edible.

The four types of Pak Choi are:

Chinese White Bok Choy, which has thick green leaves and white stalks and grows to the height of 30 cm.

Shanghai Bok Choy features light green leaves on the same colored stalks, is usually 15 cm high at harvest.

Soup Spoon Bok Choy has cupped leaves that look like ladles on white stalks. This is the tallest of the four, it can reach 45 cm in height.

Canton type is short, with dark green leaves that appear convoluted on white stalks. This type is often harvested early as Baby Bok Choy.

Part of the deal with Mr. Wong would be that we grow all four types, one in each greenhouse. Chuck was tempted, but I guess I’m always the defender of the status quo, so I opposed the plan.

“I happen to like growing a variety of things,” I said to Chuck. “Besides, Chinese food is not bad occasionally, but I wouldn’t want to eat it every day.”

Mr. Wong wanted to know every single detail of our operation. Before we shared any of our secrets with him, we asked him for some references.

He had letters of introduction from the head of the Hong Kong Bank, from the Chinese-American Benevolent Association, and from Connie Chung, the well-known Chinese-American newscaster.

So we told him that we modeled our hydroponic greenhouse operations on the Cornell University Controlled Environment Agriculture (CEA) Model and that we’ll think about his offer and get back to him.

Then he started quizzing us about the nutrients we put into our Nutrient Ponds. We enthusiastically said that all the products we use come from one Canadian company, Advanced Nutrients.

Our base fert is Micro, Grow, and Bloom, without the Bloom. “We don’t want our lettuce to bolt,” we said with a laugh. He replied, quite seriously, that certain types of Pak Choi like cooler temperatures, while others prefer warmer ones.

“For instance, Canton ones, which are grown generally for Baby Bok Choy, like warmer climates. In the cooler areas they bolt too easily.”

Then we told him that in order to ensure crisp, crunchy leaves on our lettuce and Pak Choi, we use Sensi Cal Mg Grow, with its high level of Calcium and Magnesium.

He countered that Bok Choy has a high level of Calcium in each plant (10.5%), along with an elevated level of Iron (8%). “Bok Choy leaves are always crunchy,” asserted Mr. Wong.

We tried to tell him that Humic Acid and Fulvic Acid provide a fertile growing environment for our salad greens, even though Humic Acid colors the Nutrient Pond black. “We cut the roots off before we sell our produce, so it doesn’t matter.”

We also said that we make an exception for our Herbs, which we sell with their roots on. So we don’t use Humic Acid in our Herbal Greenhouse. “Fulvic Acid is okay, since it is Golden yellow.”

Then he said that his family is also in the import business and that they actually supply his other operations (he was fairly vague about these) with plant nutrients.

So part of the deal was that we’d have to buy our fertilizer and other additives from his family business. All made in and imported from China.

Now we’ve all heard about the tainted pet foods and the toxic toothpaste as well as the dozens of other examples of recent recalls and bad products involving Chinese ingredients.

Besides, Advanced Nutrients has always been loyal to us, so Chuck and I decided to stay loyal to Advanced Nutrients. We officially declined Mr. Wong’s offer.

As I mixed up another batch of our root colonizers, Piranha, Tarantula, and Voodoo Juice (at half=strength for hydro) I thanked our lucky stars that keep us safe from gigantic schemes that all seem to have a catch.

2007-07-05T23:31:00.000-07:00

Growing Bagged Salad, Instead of Head Lettuce?

Consumers are becoming more and more health conscious. Health and well being are uppermost on people’s minds, that is when they’re not fretting about climate change. Well being is the new buzzword that has replaced fitness.

You’d think that by growing and harvesting hundreds of heads of lettuce and pak choi each and every day, Chuck and I are on the cutting edge of the health conscious market. Not to mention the thousands of herbs that come out of our fourth greenhouse, the one that Bjorn helped to build.

Chuck suggested contacting a business guru to make sure that our operation meets the changing needs of our customers. The efficiency expert-looking individual with a buzz-cut and buttoned-down shirt collar finally sat down with us, after spending a week studying our four greenhouses and our methods of conducting business.

“You’re absolutely right in growing health-conscious foods,” he began. His name is Wallace, which I presume is his last name. That’s how he introduced himself. “But you’re ignoring the latest buying habits of consumers who have less and less time to feed themselves.”

Wallace informed us in no uncertain terms that whereas people want to eat healthy, their penchant for fast food has not diminished. Therefore, instead of buying heads of lettuce, which involves making the salad yourself, more and more people are grabbing a bag of salad off the supermarket shelf.

Prudent companies, especially the large ones, have anticipated this trend and they’ve switched from growing heads of lettuce hydroponically, to harvesting the leaves of the lettuce and allowing the plant to grow more leaves.

Then, as a value added measure, they triple-wash the lettuce leaves and cut them up into small pieces. By combining different varieties of lettuce with some herbs, or even radishes and shredded carrots, they create 150 gram packages of ready-made salads which can be sold for triple the price of a head of lettuce.

He suggested switching our Boston and Specialty Lettuce Operations to this multiple-harvesting model, then combine our herbs with the lettuce to create interesting salads. “I don’t know how the pak choi fits into this, but you might want to switch that greenhouse into growing Iceberg Head Lettuce, which is still a favorite of American consumers,” concluded Wallace.

After he left, Chuck and I had a few heated discussions about his proposal. “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” was my position. “We can’t ignore the changing face of the marketplace,” iterated Chuck.

I figured out how to bring him over to my side. By looking at the figures as to how much changing our entire operation would cost, I was sure he would see it my way and give us the green light to continue with the tried and true.

“We have loyal customers,” I reminded Chuck, ”and our orders for the three varieties of Lettuce, the Pak Choi, and the Herbs are well into 2008. Finding new customers for bagged salad would require market research and hiring some more sales people.”

“Besides, Wallace admitted that the processing operation would be labor-intensive, so our costs for wages would skyrocket,” said I. “Also, buying brand new machinery to process our produce would put us back into a debt position, just when we’re within sight of the end of red ink for a while.”

Chuck pointed out that by harvesting the leaves of each head of lettuce three or four times, we would reduce our costs by not having to start so many plants each and every day. “Yeah, but it would stop the flow of our assembly line type of operation,” I retorted. "You can’t stop young lettuce from growing, so there would be a logjam at the harvest end of the operation.”

He suggested that by using VHO, Very High Output, we could keep our lettuce in the vegetative stage for an extended period. “We would still use Micro and Grow and Sensi Cal Mg Mix Grow and all the other additives, supplements, and root colonizers that we use now,” he said.

These Advanced Nutrients products have been largely responsible for the success of our operation. Grandma Enggy’s Humic and Fulvic Acid, which recreate the rich, black, fertile humus-like environment that our forebears used to grow their food in--in a hydroponic setting, guarantee that our synthetic basic ferts are tempered with organic goodness.

I don’t want to mess all that up, just because a business advisor with a brush-cut says that we should do things differently. “Who’s to say that the older the lettuce gets, the quality of the leaves will remain high,” I asked Chuck, rhetorically.” Also, older lettuce is more prone to disease, is it not?”

“You really don’t want to do this?” asked Chuck. He finally caught on, I thought. “How can we guarantee that the bagged lettuce will stay fresh?” I wanted to know.

“The processing takes place in a temperature-controlled environment, from harvest to cutting to bagging to transport, all the way to the customer. The processing room temp is kept at 5° C (41° F) and the product is carried in refrigerated delivery trucks to the customers.”

“The cost of air conditioning and refrigeration has to be factored in,” I said. “I know that we keep the temp of our packing rooms down low even now, but by being able to pack the heads of lettuce in ice, we save on the air conditioning,” I added.

The salad leaves are placed in baskets and washed three times in water that has an additive designed for washing vegetables. Then an automated Flume takes over and washes the lettuce leaves again in almost freezing water (1-2° C) after which a draining rack and a centrifuge are used to get rid of the water.

Modified Atmosphere Packaging (MAP) is used to pack the salad into a plastic bag. The machine removes most of the air from the bag and replaces it with food-grade Nitrogen, before sealing it. The environment in the bag is 95% Nitrogen and 5% Oxygen, and the bags are permeable for gas exchange.

“There you go,” I jumped in, “don’t you think our customers would object to having their salads bagged this way?” I asked, but Chuck countered with stats to prove that sales of bagged salads are increasing all over the developed world.

So we took a survey of our customers and the majority said that they would prefer to continue buying entire heads of lettuce, rather than pre-packaged salads, since they were suspicious of how long the bagged salads have been on the shelf. With our hundreds of heads of lettuce delivered daily to stores in our region, our customers are assured that they were harvested in the morning of the same day.

Thanks to Barricade, Scorpion Juice, and Protector, our Lettuce-Pak Choi-and Herb growing operation is relatively pest and disease free. By going from seed to harvest in 35 days, we only deal with young lettuce, as opposed to older, disease-prone plants, which is the most persuasive argument against switching to a bagged-salad operation.

2007-06-21T18:41:00.000-07:00

Pests, Pathogens, and too Little Phosphorus

Before planting, California lettuce fields are often chemically fumigated to get rid of Nematodes. Chuck and I wish that the public were made aware of the major differences between buying field lettuce and our purer, crisper, hydroponic varieties.

In addition to Nematodes, lettuce grown in soil is prone to a number of other major pests. Black Cutworms, Beet Armyworms, the Cabbage Looper Caterpillar, and the Corn Earworm plague field-grown lettuce crops.

Aphids, Mites, Thrips, and Whiteflies can also infest greenhouse-grown lettuce, but only if common sense sanitary procedures are ignored. As well, Chuck and I make sure that our four greenhouses are equipped with fine-mesh screens at every opening, to make sure that flying insects do not invade our bread and butter crops.

Two species of Aphid especially like to munch on lettuce. The Potato Aphid (Macrosiphum euphorbiae) and the Green Peach Aphid (Myzus persicae) feed on plant sap found in lettuce leaves and their feeding habits will certainly reduce plant vigor.

These Aphids may vector the Lettuce Mosaic Virus (LMV) and introduce toxins into plant tissue which may necrotize the tissue in that particular area. Aphids also excrete a honey-dew-like substance that attracts ants to soil-grown plants.

Since both Chuck and I are committed to Integrated Pest Management (IPM)—meaning that we choose to exhaust every natural method of disease and pest prevention, before we would ever consider the use of chemicals to fight or prevent infestations—we prefer prevention to allowing a problem to invade our greenhouses.

Barricade is usually the first product to go into our Nutrient Pond pre-mix tank, since it takes a while to dissolve. Many growers mix it in hot water and shake it vigorously, and still pour it in the night before so it can blend into the other ingredients of our nutrient solution.

Barricade is a potassium silicate product which fortifies the cell walls of our lettuce, pak choi, and herbs. Stronger and thicker cell walls are able to withstand potential assaults by insects or pathogens much better than unfortified cell walls.

Another product that we use both as a foliar spray and a root zone additive is Scorpion Juice. This Advanced Nutrients formula imparts an induced systemic resistance to all our plants which is akin to giving them an immunization prior to any harmful microorganisms or parasitical insects making contact with our produce.

One year the Aphid infestation was so great in our original greenhouse, the one that grows Boston Lettuce, that we purchased a quantity of lady beetles and tiny wasp parasitoids to help us get rid of the Aphids. Natural predators work much better in a greenhouse setting rather than out in the field, where they can scatter and thus be ineffective.

Any kinds of pests or diseases have to be dealt with prior to harvest. I never forget biting into an apple when I was a child and being greeted by a cheerful green worm coming out of the apple’s core. It was an organic apple, no doubt, but allowing a parasite or a malady to proceed with your produce to your customers is a sure-fire way to lose them.

A word about Protector is appropriate here. This AN product was reintroduced recently after sales of it were stopped for a time, while the company negotiated with the government whether or not it was a fungicide.

Designed to fight and prevent Powdery Mildew, Protector is a highly effective product but it is not a chemical fungicide. So now it’s back on the market and it is very useful to have in our arsenal, especially during the potentially high humidity of the summer months.

Protector is accompanied by a word of caution. For flowering plants, do not spray after week 2 of bloom. For plants that will be consumed, such as our lettuce, pak choi, and herbs, do not spray within a few weeks of harvest.

It seems that Powdery Mildew needs a specific pH range to thrive and survive. The potassium bicarbonate in Protector changes the pH of the surface of your plants, making it an inhospitable place for this insidious fungus to grow.

However, the same properties that cause the pH change could also alter the colors of your flowers or impart an odd taste to your consumables. So be forewarned and use Protector wisely.

I recently came across an eye-opening statistic. A pound of lettuce contains 95% water, 56 calories, 3.9 grams of protein, 0.3 grams of fat, 86 milligrams of Calcium, 2.2 milligrams of Iron, 1,420 milligrams of Vitamin A, and 54 milligrams of Ascorbic Acid, otherwise known as Vitamin C.

Optimum lettuce growth occurs between 60 and 70º F (15 to 20º C) but the night temperature has to be kept much cooler in order to ensure the production of good quality lettuce.

Another trick of making sure that the lettuce you grow is of good quality is feeding your crop the best fertilizer available in just the right quantity. Studies have shown that using too little Phosphorus will reduce lettuce yields, for instance.

Using too much fertilizer—feeding your lettuce too often—may result in a soluble salt buildup. This could have phytotoxic effects on plant growth, you could pollute the groundwater in your area with your discharge, and your budget will suffer since you’re paying for unnecessary plant food.

By using a scientifically measured amount of plant nutrients, clearly explained and demonstrated by the Advanced Nutrients Nutrient Calculator, my partner and I avoid the obvious pitfalls of too much or too little. Our basic fert is the AN 3-part, Micro, Grow, and Bloom, only without the Bloom for obvious reasons.

Lettuce has low salt tolerance. Soluble salt injury is manifest in poor germination and the diminished size of the harvested heads. We try not to go above 1.71 EC in our parts per million count, because if the electrical conductivity of the suspended particles exceeds that rate, yield losses can occur.

So when we mix in our supplements, additives, and root colonizers (at half-strength only!) we make sure that the PPM doesn’t exceed 1200 in each batch. We had to recalculate the figures given by the Nute Calc, not just by eliminating the suggested quantities of Bloom each week, but also by slightly cutting back on the quantities of the other ingredients.

For pak choi and the herbs we can get away with slightly higher densities of dissolved solids, but lettuce prefers lighter meals. We’re constantly re-evaluating what we’re doing and the recent bolting episode opened our eyes to the importance of protecting our investment.

Growing outdoors, higher fertilizer rates are required during the cold, winter months, but in our environmentally controlled digitally monitored greenhouses we tend to keep the rate of feeding the same year-round. This uniformity of effort is reflected in the uniformly high quality of our produce, much to the delight of our regular customers.

2007-06-07T16:02:00.000-07:00

Bolting Lettuce, Chuck and I in Panic Mode

Chuck had to go to Colorado on business, so I stayed behind to man the fort—I mean greenhouses. Now that we have four to look after it’s quite a bit more work, and frankly, it’s much easier when Chuck is around. Then I got a phone call from my ex-wife asking me to come to California to sign some papers.

“Why can’t you fax them to me?” I asked. She explained that because of the confidential nature of the business transaction, the other party specifically asked that they’d be signed in person, in front of a witness.

I spoke to the senior staff-member who has been with us for years, and she assured me that since most of the functions of our four greenhouses are automated, she and the others could look after the operation. She promised that they will harvest and deliver the quota of Butter Lettuce, Pak Choi, and Specialty Lettuce to our clients daily.

The Herb-producing greenhouse hadn’t yet reached the harvest stage, but she would look after that one, as well. In the face of such assurances I felt better and headed to the airport for a quick trip to San Francisco.

After a day spent signing the papers, I had a couple of hours to kill before my flight back, so I went down to the waterfront and decided to have some dinner. I found a small bistro with great food aroma surrounding it, so I went in. At least I thought I entered an eatery. That’s the last thing I remember until I woke up the next day.

A sharp blow to the head knocked me out and my wallet was gone. I was lying on the floor of the entrance to a dilapidated flophouse. Without any money or credit cards it took me a visit to the police station and several frantic calls to the person I left in charge at our greenhouses, in order to have her wire me some money so I could get back. As it was, I could only get a flight the next day.

When I did get back, I found out that they’ve been having some problems. They had an unexpected heat wave and several bright, sunny days in a row, and the shading mechanism on the Specialty Lettuce greenhouse refused to work. No matter how many fans they ran at top speed, the temperature in the greenhouse kept rising and rising.

They tried to cover the greenhouse on the outside with a large, dark green tarp, but the sun kept changing its position and they couldn’t shade the Lettuce properly. They even got some ice cubes and put them in the Nutrient Pond to keep the temperature down.

Intense light for extended periods, coupled with the high temperature (anything above 85º F) will cause lettuce to bolt. Even though we’re very careful to feed our produce with Micro and Grow without the Bloom, the mature Red Sails and Green Ice Lettuce on the Pond bolted.

Bolting lettuce means that it goes into flower production prematurely (i.e. before being harvested), and thus becomes unmarketable. Its taste turns bitter and unappetizing. So not only was my trip disastrous, but I returned to a disaster, as well.

I called Chuck and he took the next flight home. He was mad at me for leaving the greenhouses in someone else’s hands. We both started to panic, but the senior staff member redeemed herself by finding a solution. We lost at most four days worth of produce. At 600 heads per day, that meant we had to replace 2400 heads of Specialty Lettuce. Otherwise we’d be letting our customers down.

She phoned around to other suppliers, some of whom she had worked for in the past, and managed to piece together the order, all 2400 heads. We had it all shipped to our greenhouse, where the produce was repackaged with our logo on it and the trucks arrived to take the first 600 to their destinations.

The other 1800 heads of lettuce are stored in our refrigeration room, standing in ice water. Ice water rejuvenates the cells of the lettuce and allows for a slightly longer storage. Our customers were totally unaware that the quality lettuce we substituted for our own wasn’t exactly harvested that very day.

We had to clean up our Nutrient Pond, thought. Because of the high heat, the humidity increased so I actually discovered signs of Powdery Mildew on some of the bolted lettuce. This insidious fungus will spread very quickly unless it is dealt with right away.

Luckily, Advanced Nutrients has started distributing Protector again, their miracle product which both fights and prevents Powdery Mildew. Not a fungicide, nevertheless it takes care of the problem on edible vegetables much better than using sulphur. Besides, dusting with sulphur leaves a residue and an odor, which is hard to get rid of.

Even though it is not a pesticide, it is not advisable to use Protector beyond the second week of flowering for fruits like tomatoes, where flowering is involved. The ingredients that inhibit the fungus can also change the color of your blooms as well as their aroma.

Chuck and I use it sparingly on Lettuce that is at least 7 days from being harvested. We hadn’t had any discolored leaves or noticeable changes in the aroma of our plants.

The extreme heat also caused some semi-wilting of our younger plants, so we used Advanced Nutrients Revive in order to restore their vitality. This truly remarkable product contains Calcium, Iron and Zinc Chelates, Magnesium, and Nitrogen. It perked up our Lettuce instantly.

We used Revive as a foliar spray, and mixed 5 mL of it per Liter of water. It is absorbed by the leaves of the lettuce and restores not only their robust demeanor, but also imparts a rich, green color, which is desirable in our type of produce.

We also feed our lettuce Mother Earth Blended Super Tea Grow on a regular basis. This 100% organic product enhances our base fertilizers, which are synthetic, with that highly nutritious, organic touch. It contains canola, crab, fish, and shrimp meal, as well as alfalfa extract, citric acid, earthworm castings, and sea kelp.

Sea kelp is rich in natural hormones that promote cell division, root and plant growth, and the distribution of nutrients throughout our Lettuce plants. Enhanced taste and fragrance are also imparted by this product.

Finally, we always add Sensi Cal Mg Mix Grow to our Nutrient Pond, since Lettuce always requires extra Calcium. It is this element that gives Lettuce its crunchy texture. This product is specifically designed for the vegetative growth phase and contains three kinds of Calcium, which are easily absorbable and help our lettuce grow large, healthy, and tasty.

2007-05-25T04:28:00.000-07:00

We buyout Bjorn, a Greenhouse Collapses

As it often happens with partnerships made in heaven, hell soon rears its ugly head. Bjorn became more and more argumentative in the past week and he made it very plain that he regrets becoming our business partner.

Chuck tried to be very diplomatic with him since that first flare up, but to no avail. Bjorn started talking more and more about returning to Sweden, “where greenhouses are made of glass and herb growers have common sense.” The personal digs aside, we decided that the situation could not go on.

So Chuck and I stuck our heads together and Chuck did some budget figuring. We approached Bjorn with an offer to buy him out, and—not surprisingly—he accepted. As of yesterday, it’s back to a two-way partnership for us!

It’s much the same as before, except now we have four greenhouses. Our very first one still grows 400 heads of Boston lettuce each and every day. The second one produces 600 heads of Pak Choi per day, while the third greenhouse turns out 600 heads of Specialty Lettuce on a daily basis.

The fourth greenhouse is now up and running, growing 2500 single herbs and ready to harvest them when they mature and thereafter per each 24-hour period. We should thank Bjorn for shaking us up a bit and getting us into herb production. We have advance orders for our herbs well into 2008.

The nutritional mix for the four greenhouses is pretty much the same. Our basic ferts, as well as all our supplements, come from Advanced Nutrients, a Canadian company with an excellent reputation in greenhouse hydroponics.

We use two elements only of their standard 3-part fert, Micro, Grow, and Bloom. We never use Bloom, since we don’t want our Lettuce, Pak Choi, or Herbs to bolt and go into flower production.

In addition, we use Grandma Enggy’s Humic and Fulvic Acids, as well as her Seaweed Extract in each greenhouse, except we don’t use Humic Acid in herb production, since the herbs are sold with their roots attached and this particular additive turns the roots of our vegetables black.

There is a reason for that. The word “humic” comes from humus, which is the rich, black, fertile organic substance that our grandmothers grew their vegetables in. Humic Acid manages to recreate that fertile growing mix in a hydroponic setting.

The only drawback—and it’s not really a drawback if you cut the roots off the lettuce or pak choi before marketing—is that Humic Acid turns the hydro nutrient mix deep black and it does stain the roots.

Since the roots of our lettuce and pak choi are immersed in our Nutrient Pond underneath the polystyrene boards that they grow in, this discoloration of their roots is not a problem. The roots get cut off and discarded during the processing of the harvested produce.

Herbs, on the other hand, sell better with their roots still attached to show how fresh they are, so we just skip using Humic Acid in greenhouse number four. Golden Honey Fulvic Acid is perfectly fine to use, as is Seaweed Extract.

The cytokinins, auxins, and gibberlins in seaweed are plant hormones governing many biological processes in our plants, such as cell enlargement, cell division, differentiation of vascular tissue, root growth and intercellular communication.

Most greenhouses these days are actually polyhouses, being that they are constructed of a double layer of air inflated polyethylene which provide better insulation during the cold winter months then does a single layer of glass.

Glass, however, does have its advantages, and this was at the crux of our argument with Bjorn. Glass lets in more light. A glasshouse is less humid. And glass is more durable during adverse weather conditions.

Wet snow, for instance, could cause a polyhouse to collapse, while it might just damage one or two panes of glass in a glasshouse. I don’t know of any studies done on the seismic durability of polyhouses versus glasshouses, but luckily we don’t operate in an earthquake zone.

The life expectancy of the covering of a polyhouse is only three years. This crucial fact somehow escaped our attention, with regard to our Greenhouse number one.

We built our Boston Lettuce greenhouse over five years ago and I didn’t pay much attention to the details of construction, I left that up to Chuck. Well, to make a long story short, the polyethylene fabric of our outer covering gave way and our greenhouse deflated.

Luckily, the material is not only supported by air but also by steel tubing. So this saved our Boston Lettuce crop from being squashed. But it was quite costly to hire extra help for removing the collapsed material without damaging the lettuce growing operation underneath.

We had to truck in brand new polyethylene sheeting and replace some damaged inflating fans. Our Nutrient Pond had to be drained and flushed and refilled with nutrient solution, since some dust and debris fell into it from the collapse and the renovation.

So I mixed not only our basic ferts and the Grandma Enggy products, but also Piranha, Tarantula, and Voodoo Juice at half strength. Using these root colonizers at full strength in hydroponics might result in too much of a good thing.

They add live microorganisms to the root zone of our Boston lettuce. Piranha provides beneficial fungi, Tarantula contains helpful bacteria, and Voodoo Juice supplies friendly microbes to strengthen the roots of our plants, make them grow big, and aid the absorption of vital nutrients.

Studies have shown that plants treated with these three products grew one and a half to twice the size of untreated plants. Since our customers appreciate large, zesty heads of lettuce, we are grateful to Advanced Nutrients for providing us with the tools for growing them.

We also add Barricade to our nutrient mix in order to strengthen the cell walls of our lettuce plants, enabling them to ward off pests and pathogens of many different kinds. Bacterial, fungal, and viral infections cannot penetrate the tougher cell walls. Neither can the sap sucking mouth parts of invasive insects.

We managed to handle this emergency quite well and hopefully with Bjorn gone now things will return to a calm, productive normalcy which will ensure that we meet our daily quotas and keep our retail outlets and customers happy with the quality produce that our Nutrient Ponds grow.

2007-05-10T21:44:00.000-07:00

Greenhouse Construction Costs Rising

Every partnership must have its first argument. With the three of us, it happened sooner than later. Chuck and Bjorn were at each others’ throats with regard to the construction plans for our fourth greenhouse.

Bjorn, coming from Europe and being a traditionalist, wanted us to build an old fashioned glasshouse to house our herb-growing operation. Chuck, being a frugal man, wanted us to go the cheaper route and build an air-inflated, double layered polyethylene, Quonset-type greenhouse, the same as our other three.

Glasshouses cost a lot more to construct, but they also last longer and protect whatever you’re growing from the elements to a greater degree. Glass also lets in more light than polyethylene, although it increases your heating costs since it usually is a single layer of glass.

I threw my vote behind Chuck, not only because I’ve known him longer, but also thinking of the costs and the risky nature of branching out to grow cooking herbs. “Why don’t we grow medicinal herbs, like monks in medieval times?” I asked, only half facetiously. My question was ignored by both of them.

The argument was rekindled the next day when we received the quote from the construction company that built our previous three greenhouses. Their quote was a full 20% higher than before, essentially for the same job.

They defended their quote by pointing to the skyrocketing cost of gasoline and the corresponding price increases in steel tubing, the polyethylene covering, the boiler, cement, electric power, and labor.

Bjorn argued that since the polyhouse is now more expensive, we should reconsider glass. Another day wasted in useless argument.

I distanced myself from the two of them and occupied my time mixing up a new batch of our nutrient solution for the pak choi greenhouse. Our supply of Grow and Micro is running low, so I contacted Advanced Nutrients to get their distributor to ship us some more.

Grandma Enggy’s Humic and her Fulvic Acid we seem to have plenty of, but her Seaweed Extract has been all used up. We have to go without it until the next shipment arrives. Luckily, we still have a lot of B52, so our pak choi plants won’t have to go without vitamins.

We sprayed the pak choi with Scorpion Juice just last week, because our yellow sticky traps caught a few whiteflies. I suspected the staff of leaving the greenhouse door open. I had them tape vertical strips of plastic on the outside of the door that would keep most insects out, if the person entering was careful enough.

We use so much Barricade, that we have to keep reordering more and more. It is a very effective product, since (knock on wood) we haven’t had any bacterial, fungal, or viral infection in any of our greenhouses in a long time.

The few whiteflies that flew in got captured by the sticky traps. I told Bjorn that there used to be a really effective Advanced Nutrients product called Bug Away that they temporarily discontinued, since the government wanted them to label it an insecticide, which it isn’t.

Bjorn once again toured our other three greenhouses and was finally convinced that a polyhouse has its advantages and therefore agreed to have our fourth growing facility built just like the other three.

We sealed our newfound spirit of cooperation with a pitcher of Czech lager in our neighborhood pub.

2007-05-03T22:32:00.000-07:00

A Swedish Partner--We Decide to Grow Herbs

The negotiations with Bjorn have come to an end, resulting in a brand new, three-way partnership. This Swedish man who wandered in off the highway has purchased a third of our three-greenhouse lettuce and pak choi growing operation, and we are jointly building a fourth greenhouse to grow nothing but choice, gourmet herbs.

As you may have guessed from my name, my family is originally from Italy. Chuck is Anglo-Saxon, mainly of Scottish background. Now we have Bjorn. It’s almost like a joke—did you hear the one about the Italian, the Scotsman, and the Swede who set up a hydroponic herb-growing operation?

I only hope that the punchline is a good and profitable one. One thing we did convince Bjorn about. We’re going to attempt a Nutrient Pond technique, instead of the Winding Canal technique that he uses in Sweden.

The reason for this is that the contractors we work with here are used to building this type of greenhouse and the learning curve would be time consuming and expensive getting them to change the specs. One change will be that the Ponds have to be narrower so the workers can reach each individual herb more easily.

The three of us agreed that Basil should be our primary herb, since it comprises a full 40% of Bjorn’s profits in Sweden. Basil has a funny history. In many cultures it used to be reviled as being in league with the dark powers, but in India a strain of Basil is revered as a sacred herb and used in Hindu funeral rites.

In Italy, Basil is considered the herb of love. It is liberally mixed with Oregano in many tomato based recipes. It has a pungent taste and a strong fragrance and prefers warm temperatures. It can’t stand being cool.

In addition to Basil, we went through the whole list of herbs and came up with Oregano, Marjoram, Dill, Cilantro, and Mint as profitable herbs that lend themselves to hydroponic production. I wanted to include Coreander, but it seems that it is a difficult herb to grow profitably.

The herbs we plan to grow all prefer a warm greenhouse (70 to 80º F) with moderate humidity. Some herbs are more susceptible to fungal infestation than others, so we have to keep the humidty down.

We’ll be using Advanced Nutrients base ferts Micro and Grow, and pass on the Bloom, since we don’t want our herbs to go to seed. The different germination times for each herb will be handled in the incubation room.

Basil takes 7 days to germinate; Oregano, 7-15 days; Dill, 7 days; Marjoram, 10-15 days. The temperature and humidity in the incubation room will be higher. Temp at 75-85º F, while the humidity will be in the 70 to 80% range.

Seedlings will be nourished with a half strength fert and vitamin mixture, the vitamins being supplied by B52, an excellent product containing all the essential B vitamins to keep down plant stress.

The rooting and initial growth period will be approximately 2 to 3 weeks for most of the herbs, while the mature plant’s growth period to harvest will be an additional 2 to 3 weeks, depending on the specific herb. This is much faster in a hydroponic setting, than in soil.

Basil will require additional Magnesium, which is contained in Sensi Cal Grow. The Calcium will help all the herbs develop crunchy leaves. The Potassium Silicate in Barricade will strengthen the cell walls of the herbs and help them resist insects and pathogens.

Additional induced systemic resistance will be supplied by regular sprayings of Scorpion Juice. This will be done every three weeks in order to inoculate the herbs against the major bacterial, fungal, and viral infections that some of them are prone to.

For instance, Basil is susceptible to Pythium, which is an insidious fungus, as well as to aphids, which can vector many viral diseases. When not receiving full sun, Basil is especially vulnerable to pathogens.

We plan to augment sunlight as needed with a bank of 600W Metal Halide lights, arranged in such a pattern as to maximize the area covered and the lumens supplied. In the winter, this artificial, very powerful lighting will be on 14 hours per day.

Whiteflies, leafminers, and spider mites like to munch on Oregano, so an ultra fine mesh screening will be in place on each and every ventilation opening in the greenhouse. In additon, yellow sticky traps will be hung at regular intervals and these will be monitored daily to detect any bugs before the infestation reaches a serious stage.

Our fourth greenhouse will be fully automated in terms of temperature, humidity, pH and EC of the nutrient solution, heating, cooling, lighting, and slight corrections in the acid alkaline-balance, for instance, by the addition of small quantities of pH Up or pH Down, depending on the circumstance.

2007-04-25T21:29:00.000-07:00

A fourth greenhouse growing herbs?

I didn’t post last week because Chuck and I were involved in deep negotiations with a young man named Bjorn. He is from Sweden and is a health food addict. He loves to cook wholesome, mostly organic food, using fresh herbs and spices. He noticed our three greenhouses driving by and he came in to see what we were growing.

Our greenhouse number one grows nothing but butter lettuce. We harvest 400 heads of crisp, tasty lettuce each day and deliver them the same day to local grocers. Greenhouse number two produces 600 heads of robust pak choi each day, which is delivered along with the lettuce. Finally, greenhouse number three was designed to grow 600 heads of Red Sails and Green Ice specialty lettuce, ones with the crinkly leaves.

Bjorn said that was all well and good, but warned us against putting all our future into our conviction that the lettuce market will stay healthy forever. “I used to grow nothing but hydroponic lettuce in Sweden, until some multinationals set up a hydro-lettuce growing operation just across the highway from my location. I had two greenhouses, so they built four giant ones. That’s when I looked around for something else to grow.”

It took him forty days to go from seed to harvest, since his operation wasn’t fully automated. He figured out that if he started growing herbs instead of lettuce, he could produce 5000 herbs per day, instead of the 800 heads of lettuce he was growing and harvesting each morning in his two greenhouses.

When you consider that pre-packaged small bunches of herbs sell for a higher price than a head of lettuce, the decision to switch made sense. Chuck thought about this for a moment, then bombarded Bjorn with questions. He wanted to know every single detail about the operation. How many people did he need to harvest and package the herbs? Three full-time employees, was the answer.

Did her use an organic fertilizer? No, because Bjorn is convinced that plants absorb inorganic nutrients, even from organic fertilizers. By feeding them inorganic nutrients to begin with, he’s just saving some time that it takes an organic fertilizer to break down into inorganic components.

We were glad to have found a like-minded person, who understood that our basic ferts, Advanced Nutrients Micro and Grow, were just as healthy for growing our vegetables, as any high-priced organic product. The expertly designed macro and micro nutrients in two-parts of the very popular hydro three-part (we don’t use Bloom because we don’t want our lettuce to go to flower and seed) provide our leafy crops with just the right nourishment to grow into large and beautiful salad ingredients.

Chuck and I showed Bjorn around our specialty lettuce operation, and he was really impressed with our Nutrient Pond. “We use a different hydroponic method. Our herbs grow in Styrofoam blocks, just like your lettuce, but the blocks are then placed in a long, u-shaped receptacle. These receptacles are designed to move smoothly along much narrower canals than your pond. The roots hang down into the space under the receptacles, which is flushed once every ten minutes with a recycled nutrient solution.

“Herbs get water stressed easily, so this way the roots never hang in water for too long. It’s almost like a combination hydroponic/aeroponic system. The roots breathe in between flushes—they appreciate these periods of oxygenation. Every two weeks the nutrient solution is discarded and the system of canals is flushed with plain water for a day."

“This cleansing with plain water is necessary to prevent diseases and allows the plants to concentrate essential oils,” explained Bjorn. “These oils are responsible for the strong taste and fragrance of my herbs.”

We told Bjorn about Sensi Cal Grow which ensures that our lettuce will always be crunchy and fresh, and Sweet Leaf, which is an Advanced Nutrients product designed to enhance the taste and fragrance of each plant. “The berry sugars and amino acids in Sweet Leaf load up the cells of the lettuce with carbohydrates, which in turn get rid of that slightly bitter taste that untreated lettuce sometimes has,” said Chuck.

We were reluctant to use Sweet Leaf, at first, since it is normally used during the flowering stage of plant growth. However, we tried it and it works equally well during the vegetative stage of our lettuce by enhancing the production of fragrant oils that in turn make our lettuce sweet and irresistible.

“And even though we use a synthetic base fertilizer, we do add an organic touch by using three Grandma Enggy products: Fulvic Acid, Humic Acid, and Seaweed Extract. The first two re-create that rich, black, organic topsoil that grew all those tasty vegetables in our grandparents’ day.”

Bjorn lifted out one of our Styrofoam squares with a Red Sails lettuce plant in the middle and had a horrified expression on his face when he looked at the black roots. “This would not be good for my herbs,” he said with a sigh. "We package them in hard plastic containers, with their white roots intact. If we allowed them to become black, we would lose half our customers.”

I explained that we cut the roots off at harvest time, so for us having the rich, black, organic Humic Acid coloring our nutrient solution is no problem. “You could always just use Golden Honey Fulvic Acid by itself,” I said, “and still get good results.”

“You can also use Mother Earth Super Tea Grow for that organic touch. It is a great complement to synthetic fertilizers, because even though you’re right that plants absorb inorganic nutrients even from organic fertilizers, there is something to be said for those age-proven organic ingredients that add something extra to any vegetable.”

“What herbs are the most popular?” asked Chuck, and I could see that he was already building the fourth greenhouse in his imagination. "Marjoram, Mint, Oregano are all popular, but Basil sales account for 40% of our profits. Lately, we have grown a lot of Cilantro, since the local Italian community has increased its demand for this herb."

“How long does it take to go from seed to harvest?” I asked. “Anywhere from 28 days to 42 days, depending on the specific herb. Our crops mature 25% faster than herbs grown in soil. Thanks for telling me about your plant nutrients. When I go back to Sweden, I must order some samples from Advanced Nutrients.”

We told Bjorn that the company’s online store would make that easy. “Be sure to contact the very helpful tech guys at Advanced Nutrients,” we told him. It’s a toll-free call and when you’re on their website, check out the Advancedpedia and the Nutrient Calculator, as well. They are very useful tools in deciding how to put together the perfect diet for whatever you grow.”

Bjorn thanked us and handed Chuck his business card. “If you ever want to get into the herb growing business, give me a call. I’m always looking to partner up with bright, enterprising young men, such as yourselves,” said Bjorn, with a charming Swedish accent. I knew that it wouldn’t be too long before Chuck would be dialing Bjorn’s cell phone number.

And so he did, and now we’re knee-deep in negotiations. Stay tuned to this blog for further developments.

2007-04-12T17:08:00.000-07:00

The Path of Specialty Lettuce, Part Two

On Day 11 of the growth process of our Specialty Lettuce, the day temperature of our 5500 square foot greenhouse is set at 24º C (75º F) from eight in the morning to six at night. Just before our day staff leave at 6pm each night, the temperature in the greenhouse automatically drops to 19º C (65º F).

Our three greenhouses are set to run automatically, but we still have an employee on duty at night to make sure that all goes smoothly. Chuck and I often drop in at night in order to safeguard our investment.

All of the Red Sails and Green Ice plants in our Specialty Lettuce greenhouse have been moved to the Nutrient Pond by Day 11. The nutrient solution in the pond consists of purified water with our main fertilizers, Advanced Nutrients Grow and Micro, as well as all the additives, supplements, and root colonizers called for by the Nutrient Calculator on that company’s website.

The pH of the Nutrient Pond should always measure 5.8. If there is any deviation, a valve opens on a side tank and small amounts of pH Up or pH Down are added to the Pond, depending on which way the correction is required.

The total dissolved solids (TDS) of the solution is 1200 parts per million (PPM), or 1.71 EC. To give you an idea of quantities, our Nutrient Pond contains 2000 Liters of liquid. Dissolved in the solution are 3200 mL of Micro, 3200 mL of Grow, 4500 mL of Mother Earth Super Tea Grow, 2500 mL each of Humic Acid and Fulvic Acid, 12500 mL of B-52, 374 mL of Barricade, 20000 mL of Scorpion Juice (once every three weeks), 12500 mL of SensiZym, and during week 11 and 12 only 600 grams each of Piranha and Tarantula, topped off by 3000 mL of Voodoo Juice.

When we stop adding the root colonizers, we adjust the quantities of the other ingredients accordingly, to maintain a uniform ppm level. We also add Sensi Cal Mg Grow, which completes the total dissolved solids picture.

We never add Bloom into the mix, since we don’t want our lettuce to bolt and go into flower and seed production. Just to refresh your memory, on Day 11 our Specialty Lettuce plants are situated in the middle of Styrofoam squares that are floated on our Nutrient Pond.

By Day 18, the leaves of our lettuce plants have grown to cover most of the Styrofoam floaters. The roots have grown into the solution extensively (especially after being treated with the root colonizers) and the surface of the Pond is entirely covered with either green or green with red borders heads of lettuce.

By Day 21 the lettuce leaves are overlapping and re-spacing is necessary. Additional Styrofoam squares are added as spacers in between the head of lettuce on the Pond, to reduce the number of plants from 90 per square meter to 35 per square meter.

By Day 32 the Pond is completely covered with lettuce plants, but the leaves are not overlapping and there is adequate room for each plant to develop to its fullest capacity.

Day 40 is Harvest Day, and each head of Specialty Lettuce should weigh 5 oz. (150 grams). These last days of growth will eventually be reduced so that it will take 35 days from seed to harvest, rather than the 40 that it will take initially.

Harvesting will take place early in the morning to take advantage of the cool temperatures, and the 600 heads of leaf lettuce per day will be packaged and stored in the harvest room of the greenhouse, in which the temperature is kept at 0º Celsius. The cooling will ensure that the lettuce will stay crisp and crunchy, until it gets to market.

We store our lettuce in polyethylene head wraps that have ventilation holes in them so the plants can breathe. The individual heads are carefully placed in boxes and taken to local supermarkets as quickly as possible. So the lettuce that we pick in the morning will be on neighboring store shelves after lunch.

It is important to market freshly picked lettuce the same day, even though with cooling and proper storage Red Sails and Green Ice lettuce can stay fresh for 3 or 4 days. With consumers becoming ever more conscious of healthy eating, we pride ourselves on delivering fresh, crunchy, extremely tasty produce from our hydroponic Nutrient Pond to your table as quickly as possible.

Lettuce should never be stored with apples, pears, tomatoes or other produce that give off ethylene. Ethylene can cause russet spotting on midribs of lettuce leaves. A great trick for reviving slightly wilted lettuce is to place it in ice water. This treatment will restore its freshness and crunchiness.

One of the reasons that our lettuce is so crunchy is because we feed both our Specialty Lettuce and our Butter Lettuce with the micronutrients of Sensi Cal Mg Mix Grow. Calcium is the secret ingredient in lettuce crunchiness, and Magnesium is necessary for the absorption of Calcium.

Sensi Cal Grow has Amino Chelated Calcium, which is the highest quality available and is readily absorbed by our lettuce plants. But it also has four other forms of Calcium (Calcium Acetate, Calcium Chelate, Calcium Nitrate, and Calcium EDTA), as well as compounds of Boron, Cobalt, Copper, Iron, Manganese, Molybdenum, Zinc, and the aforementioned Magnesium.

This full spectrum of micronutrients means that there is no lockout of Calcium or Magnesium. The ingredients of Sensi Cal Grow are all pharmaceutical grade precursors and reagents, as well as high quality chelators. It is the best quality product of its kind on the market.

Calcium is essential for both humans and plants. Our Butter Lettuce has benefited from our use of Sensi Cal Grow for a number of years, and now our Specialty Lettuce can look forward to a crunchy future, thanks to this excellent Advanced Nutrients product.

2007-04-04T21:03:00.000-07:00

From Seed to Salad: the Path of Specialty Lettuce

Our Specialty Lettuce greenhouse functions much the same way as our Boston Lettuce operation, except that right now it will take forty days to go from seed to salad, using the Controlled Environment Agriculture model.

This tried-and-true system was designed by a professor at Cornell University—in upstate New York—in order to be able to bring crisp, crunchy lettuce to your table year round.

The Cornell model produces 1,000 heads of lettuce per day. Our more modest operation on a slightly smaller scale will have an output of 600 heads of specialty lettuce each and every day, 365 days a year.

A special area of our 5500 square foot greenhouse is dedicated to seed germination. An automatic seeding machine places one seed each into 10 plug trays of 100 plugs each. (The reason we start off with 1,000 potential plants, instead of 600, is to allow for attrition and the selection process that takes place later.)

The trays are misted with water to soak the media thoroughly then they are placed in the ebb and flow bench. Here they are periodically flooded with a very mild solution of Advanced Nutrients Scorpion Juice (to impart induced systemic resistance to pathogens and pests), as well as Organic B, which gives them a boost of B vitamins for stress relief.

This sub-irrigation is only for a quarter of an hour, every 12 hours. It is important not to over-water the trays at this point, but the plugs should not be allowed to dry out completely either, since that will also kill the seeds.

Lighting is provided by fluorescent tubes and is on 24 hours, at the strength of 50 micromoles per square meter. The temperature of the germination room is set at 20º C (68º F) and the seed trays are equipped with plastic humidity covers to maintain the high level of humidity required for germination.

A half-strength solution of our base fertilizers (Grow and Micro) is added to the sub-irrigation water 24 hours after sowing. The EC of the water is set at 1.71, or 1200 ppm. The pH is adjusted to 5.8 pH, with the possible addition of Advanced Nutrients pH Up or pH Down.

Since the day of sowing is considered Day 0, this is actually Day 1. The temperature is raised to 25º C (77º F) and the lighting is increased to 250 micromoles per square meter. Sub-irrigation continues for 15 minutes every 12 hours, for the first six days.

The humidity covers are removed on Day 2. The seeds have germinated (hopefully) and the radicle root has started to penetrate the soil of the plug. The high humidity levels for the first two days of seeding were maintained to ensure that the seeds would not dry up. This is also why low light levels were maintained during day 0.

No matter how accurate the seeding machine is, double seedlings are sure to happen, so on Day 3 these are removed to guarantee a uniform crop. Consistent environmental conditions are absolutely essential at this stage.

Seedling selection takes place on Day 5, and this is a labor intensive process. Seedling are judged by the size of their first leaves. Those inordinately large, as well as those too small, are discarded. We are prepared to discard 20-30% of the seedlings at this time.

On Day 6 the seedlings have grown to a sufficient size to require more frequent feeding/watering. The ebb and flow sub-irrigation system is set to flood the trays for 15 minutes, every 6 hours (four times per day).

From Day 6 to Day 11 the seedlings are allowed to grow in the trays, with the roots coming out the bottom of the plugs. The leaves eventually start overlapping, which is a sign that it’s time for transplanting.

At this time, our seedlings are treated with No Shock and Jump Start, which are Advanced Nutrients products specifically designed to reduce the shock of transplanting and give a boost to the young plants so that they are able to thrive in a new setting.

Transplanting normally takes place right after a sub-irrigation interval, to ensure that the seedlings to not get desiccated during transfer. Also, one has to be very careful with the exposed roots.

The seedling plugs are placed into pre-cut squares in Styrofoam floaters and placed on the Nutrient Pond. The Pond contains a pre-mixed solution of our base fertilizers, Micro and Grow, as well as vitamin and growth supplements and root colonizers, that are designed to nourish each seedling so that it can grow into the healthiest, crispiest head of lettuce possible.

The ingredients in our nutrient solution include Sensi Cal Mg Mix Grow, since research has indicated that lettuce plants not only require extra Calcium to ensure that crunchy texture, but also Magnesium to facilitate the absorption of the Calcium. The synergistic effects of these two elements play a vital role in plant growth.

At this point our specialty lettuce seedlings are introduced to Piranha, Tarantula, and Voodoo Juice. No, we’re not shooting a horror movie, these are very effective root colonizers made by Advanced Nutrients.

Used at half-strength in a hydroponic situation, these phenomenally effective products permeate the roots of our lettuce with beneficial fungi, bacteria, and microbes respectively. Their presence not only ensures root growth, but it also wards off harmful fungi, bacteria, and microbes, as well as facilitates nutrient absorption.

It’s all right to use Piranha, Tarantula, and Voodoo Juice at full strength in soil, but in a hydro grow it is advisable to cut back to half the suggested strength. The living organisms in these products do their job so enthusiastically, that they might multiply so fast that your roots are overwhelmed.

We had this happen with our Boston Lettuce crop. I noticed that the roots became slick and slimy, showing symptoms of root rot. I alerted my partner, Chuck, who phoned the Advanced Nutrients tech guys immediately.

They advised us to stop adding the three root colonizers and flush to system with a weak solution of HyOx, which killed off about half of the enthusiastic microorganisms. Then we re-introduced Piranha, Tarantula, and Voodoo Juice at half the suggested strength and we had no problems ever since.

In fact, a larger healthier root system has ensured that our Boston Lettuce is consistently of high quality. We are hoping to produce our Red Sails and Green Ice specialty lettuce crops to the same high standards.

2007-03-30T00:52:00.000-07:00

Crinkly Specialty Lettuce, Red Sails and Green Ice

Specialty lettuce production in our second brand new 5500 sq. ft. greenhouse is finally under way. We had a minor delay involving the pumps for the Nutrient Pond. It seems that the first batch of pumps were of inferior quality. For some reason they worked fine in our Pak Choi greenhouse, but when we tested the equipment in the Specialty Lettuce one, they clogged up.

All of our pumps have been replaced by quality ones, including the ones in the Pak Choi facility, just in case. When you’re relying on everything from lighting to feeding and irrigation being done automatically in a computer-controlled environment, the hardware must measure up to the standard of excellence that was the intention of the system designers.

We decided to grow two crinkly leaf lettuce varieties, Red Sails and Green Ice. These are especially well suited to hydroponic production. The first one is red around the fringes, with a green base, while Green Leaf is a shiny, crinkly loose leaf that is firm and crunchy in salads.

Both of these varieties are slow to bolt, which means that they won’t surprise us by going to seed. Green Ice is a cross between a compact butterhead type and large, loose leaf varieties. It was one of the first to be patented after the passage of the Plant Variety Protection Act of 1970. The patent has since expired.

In the field, both of these varieties take 45 days from seed to maturity. We will, however, accelerate their growth initially to 40 days from seed to maturity, and then hopefully to 35 days, to match the production rate of our butterhead lettuce.

Red Sails is an All-American Selections Winner, and is considered a superior loose leaf lettuce. The seeds for both varieties should be refrigerated until they’re ready to plant. Germination should take place in a cool environment, 55º to 60º F (12.7º to 15.5º C) which must be gradually raised to 60º to 70º F (15.5º to 21.1º C) during daytime production. Nighttime temperatures should revert to the cooler levels.

Higher temperature than that will make the lettuce bitter. Tip burn might also happen due to higher temperatures. This illuminates the great advantage that greenhouse growers have over field growers. By being able to control the temperature, humidity, lighting, and feeding, along with all the other variables, we are able to accelerate the lifecycle of the lettuce to get it to market that much faster.

Nutrition is of optimum importance. Phosphorus deficiency, for instance, may result in the increased likelihood of bacterial infections. By using a well-balanced nutrition source, such as Advanced Nutrients Grow and Micro together, we eliminate the symptoms of macronutrient deficiency, such as stunted growth.

Nitrogen deficiency shows up as light green leaves, as opposed to the rich, shiny green leaves of a well-fed plant. These deficiencies can be corrected by feeding with adequate amounts of Phosphorus and Nitrogen, but they will cause a three to ten day delay in the time that the lettuce will be ready for harvest.

Adequate levels of Calcium are also essential for growing lettuce. For this reason we mix in Sensi Cal Mg Grow into every new batch of nutrient solution in our Nutrient Pond. The NPK of Grow is 2-1-6, that of Micro is 5-0-1, and Sensi Cal is 2-0-0. So the combined NPK of the three products is 9-1-7.

We’re only using 2-parts of the classic Advanced Nutrients 3-part, in order to keep our lettuce from bolting. But by not using Bloom, we are depriving our lettuce plants of Phosphorus. Therefore we use No Shock (NPK: 8-6-12) when we transplant our seedlings from the germination room to the Nutrient Pond. This provides an infusion of Phosphorus, which helps to ward off bacterial infections.

Other ingredients in our Nutrient Pond that have an NPK are Grandma Enggy’s Seaweed Extract (1.5-1.5-1.5), which is like a multi-vitamin, natural anti-biotic combination, and B-52 (2-1-4) which contains pharmaceutical grade B vitamins that combat stress in our lettuce plants.

The suggested ppm amounts for commercial hydroponic lettuce production are: N, 150; P, 50; K, 200; S, 45; Cl, 35; Ca, 175; Mg, 45; Mn, 0.5; Cu, 0.1; Zn, 0.3; B, 0.5; Mo, 0.1; and Fe, 3.

By combining these excellent Advanced Nutrients products we come close to this suggested ratio. But we must remember that plant science means nothing, unless it results in tasty, crunchy, nutritious salad greens to be enjoyed by our customers.

2007-03-14T21:47:00.000-07:00

Three greenhouses going full tilt ahead!

The two brand new, 5500 square foot greenhouses are finished and in operation. We have gone through the first ten days of pak choi and specialty lettuce production. In this blog posting, I’ll concentrate on what we do with the pak choi.

Day 10 is for transplanting. We’ve treated our seedlings with No Shock and Jump Start, in order to minimize the stress of moving them from the germination area to the main Nutrient Pond.

Each seedling gets 42 square inches of space to grow in, with 37 pak choi plants per square meter polystyrene board.

Daytime temperature in the greenhouse is kept at a steady 25º C (77º F), and at night the temperature is allowed to drop down to 20º C (68º F).

The pH of the Nutrient Pond is automatically adjusted to 5.8 by adding small quantities of pH Up or pH Down, whichever is necessary. The EC of the Pond should measure 1.2 and the dissolved oxygen should be 4 mg per Liter.

Relative humidity goes from 30 to 70%, depending on the respiratory cycle of the plants, as well as the amount of CO2 being generated. Since the ppm of the solution is kept at 840 ppm (equal to EC 1.2) the computer-controlled system automatically sets the CO2 generator to 840 ppm as well.

These growing condition remain the same from day 10 to harvest, for the pak choi.

On Day 17 the leaves of the pak choi plants have filled the canopy and respacing is required. Polystyrene boards with 18 three inch holes are used to put half as many plants per square meter as before.

Piranha, Tarantula, and Voodoo Juice are added regularly at half strength to the pre-mix tank and then the reservoir, in order to colonize the roots of the pak choi plants with beneficial fungi, bacteria, and microbes, respectively.

In addition to their basic diet of Micro and Grow, we also add the usual supplements to the nutrient solution.

These include Grandma Enggy’s Humic Acid and Fulvic Acid, as well as her Seaweed Extract. They add the all important organic ingredients that simulate the composition of a rich, black, humus-like soil, only in liquid form.

Seaweed Extract is like a shot of multi-vitamin (as well as natural antibiotics) while we also add B-52 which is a B-complex for plants designed to reduce stress.

Sensi Cal Mg Mix Grow adds the vitally important Calcium and Magnesium, which help to grow robust, crisp vegetables (as well as salad greens). This is a proven recipe, we’ve been using it on our Boston Lettuce for a long time, and it always results in healthier produce.

Relatively low light levels for the pak choi might be 200 micromoles per square meter, while on sunny days the light level may be increased to 400 micromoles per square meter. The bank of 55 600W Metal Halide lights will be automatically adjusted to compensate for these levels by the computer system. There are also shading mechanisms built into the roof of the greenhouse to reduce the impact of sunlight, when necessary.

From Day 29 to Day 34 the plants continue to add weight and on Day 35 (from the time of seed germination) they will be harvested.

Since these greenhouses are larger than our original one, we had to hire extra staff. Instead of two full timers, plus two part timers, each new facility requires four full timers to run it properly, not counting Chuck and myself.

2007-02-15T19:56:00.000-08:00

Back to Basics with Seeds and Seedlings

The exterior work on the two additional greenhouses is nearing completion, so this is the time to make choices in terms of the interior work that needs to be done. Chuck and I keep referencing Dr. Louis Albright of the Cornell University Controlled Environment Agriculture (CEA) experiments.

Dr. Albright did some experiments with a CO2 generator in a lettuce growing facility and found that when the extra heat produced by the unit kicked in the ventilation system to cool things down, much of the CO2 escaped through the vents.

He recommended a closed system, cooled by an air conditioning unit, rather than venting to the outside, in order to keep the much needed CO2 in the greenhouse. I proposed this to Chuck for both of our new facilities, but he balked.

He priced the most popular air conditioning systems and found them to be too costly. I, however, urged him to do more calculations. He should take the cost of the CO2 generating unit as well as the speeded up growth rate of the crops into account, before making his decision.

Following the model of the Cornell experiments, we plan to grow Brassica campestris L., cv Hypro, which is a type of pak choi that produces plants that weigh a pound each. Using CO2 regularly during the growth process, the lifecycle of this plant can be shortened to 35 days, from seed to harvest.

Seed germination takes place in a separate room of the greenhouse, where the temperature is set at 20º C (68º F). We use trays with plastic humidity covers and one inch rockwool cubes to hold each seed. Since we plan to produce 600 heads of pak choi per day—in order to compensate for losses, we use 14 trays that fit 50 cubes each tray.

The trays have drainage holes on the bottom and are immersed in an ebb and flow hydroponic apparatus. The trays are submerged in pure water for a 15 minute period, every 12 hours.

For the first 24 hours lighting is maintained at 50 micromoles per square meter and left on for the entire 24 hours. This will help germination immensely. The humidity covers make sure that the growing medium never dries out.

The day after a half-strength fertilizer solution is added to the germination system. In our case, this is Advanced Nutrients Micro and Grow, without the Bloom. The pH of the solution is adjusted to 5.8, using a small quantity of pH Down, since the pH of pure water is usually neutral, around 7.0.

The temperature of the germination room is raised to 25º C at this point and the light intensity is increased to 250 micromoles per square meter. These are the settings that the computer controlled environmental system maintains for the rest of the germination period for the pak choi.

On day 3 the humidity covers are removed—the seeds should have germinated and the radicle has penetrated into the grow medium. The high humidity levels for the first two days are necessary to make sure the seed doesn’t dehydrate. This is also the reason for starting with a low light level.

Possible double seedlings should be removed on Days 4 and 5 to ensure the uniformity of the pak choi crop. The uniform environmental conditions and growth progress are essential if a consistently uniform pak choi crop is to be produced.

Day 6 is set aside for seedling selection. Depending on the size and expansion of their first true leaf, only those that have reached at least 1 cm in diameter are allowed to continue. About twenty percent of the seedlings will be discarded at this stage.

On Day 7 the watering frequency is increased, since the seedlings have grown to a size that requires more water and nutrition. The system is adjusted to flood the grow medium in the trays four times per day for 15 minute periods each time.

The roots of the seedlings are sticking out on the bottom of the cubes. At this time, we hand dip each seedling into a mild solution of Voodoo Juice and add B-52, an excellent vitamin supplement to the nutrient mix.

On Day 10, the seedlings are ready for transplanting. Since this process usually involves some stress, we will use two outstanding Advanced Nutrient products—No Shock and Jump Start—to give our pak choi seedlings a head start and a smooth transition.

We place the seedlings in the rockwool cubes into our grow medium, taking extra care that the tender roots are not damaged in any way. Our grow medium consists of polystyrene boards with square holes cut into them to accommodate the rockwool cubes.

These boards are designed to float on the surface of our Nutrient Pond. The plants are given a 42 sq. inch space in which to grow and each square meter of board holds about 37 pak choi plants.

The day temperature in the greenhouse is kept at a steady 25º C (77º F) and the night temperature is allowed to go down to 20º C (68º F). The pH of the pond is automatically adjusted to 5.8, either by using pH Up or pH Down, depending on the circumstances.

The EC of the Pond should measure 1.2 and the dissolved oxygen should be at least 4 mg per Liter. We are going to position air stones at periodic intervals on the bottom of the Pond in order to make sure that the root systems get enough oxygen.

The relative humidity fluctuates between 30 and 70%, depending on the respiratory cycle of the plants, as well as on the continuous CO2 generation. Since the desired ppm of the nutrient solution is 840 ppm which equals the EC reading of 1.2 milliSiemens/cm, we are generating 840 ppm of CO2 to fill up the greenhouse and accelerate growth.

We will be working with the Advanced Nutrients Nutrient Calculator in order to make sure that our basic fertilizer plus root colonizers plus supplements when mixed together do not exceed this level of parts per million.

Our pre-mix tank is where we concoct our nutrient recipe for the optimum health and growth of our pak choi plants. Micro, Grow, B-52, as well as Sensi Cal Mg Grow go into it, as well as Barricade the night before, to ensure a thoroughly dissolved solution.

Barricade is a potassium silicate that is designed to strengthen cell walls and provide great resistance to pests and pathogens. Sensi Cal Grow is necessary to provide for the extra calcium needed to grow healthy leafy vegetables and salad greens.

Chuck relented and agreed to purchase two large size air conditioning units for the two new greenhouses. This way the CO2 will stay where it’s needed the most to help produce extra sugars for the enhanced growth of our pak choi crop.

2007-01-31T22:58:00.000-08:00

Expanding to Pak Choi and Specialty Lettuce

The fast-talking potential partner vanished as quickly as he came, and Chuck and I were once again left to our own resources in the expansion process. Luckily, Chuck had done his homework. He had purchased an adjacent property that was big enough for two slightly larger greenhouses. He had checked with local authorities, to make sure that it had the proper zoning for agricultural use.

Then he approached the same greenhouse construction company that had built our Boston Lettuce greenhouse some time ago. They were still in business, in fact they were thriving. Regardless, they managed to fit us into their busy schedules, and construction on the two additional greenhouses is well on its way.

Instead of 100 feet by 30 feet, as this one is, the new ones will be twin Quonset Huts joined together, 110 feet by 25 feet each. So from a 3,000 square foot greenhouse, we are expanding to two more greenhouses, each 5500 square feet in size.

This will enable us to produce 600 heads of pak choi, as well as 600 heads of specialty lettuce per day, in addition to our daily quota of 400 heads of Boston lettuce. This will position us as major players in the local fresh produce market.

Construction is progressing at a spectacular speed, considering that it is still the middle of winter. In fact, the builders had to employ two large outdoor heaters equipped with blowers to keep the concrete foundations from cracking.

Galvanized steel pipes, curved appropriately, will hold the double-layer of polyethylene sheets, that will have heated air forced in between them for rigidity and insulation. The long, winding system of tables and tanks will comprise and hold the Nutrient Ponds which will be supplied with nutrient solution through an intricate system of pumps and pipes.

Light, heat, EC, and pH sensors along the way will report back to the central computer system, which in turn will govern the lights, central boilers and heating pipes, nutrient feeds from the reservoir tanks, and the acid-alkaline balance of the nutrient solution.

Small tanks on the side will be attached to the automatic system, enabling the immediate correction of any acid-alkaline imbalance, for instance, by adding pH Up or pH Down in minute quantities (but not at the same time). These very helpful agents are made by Advanced Nutrients, the company that supplies us with all our nutrients, root colonizers, supplements, and additives.

The twin greenhouses will both house a bank of 55 600W Metal Halide lights with electronic ballasts, equipped with appropriate bulbs on the blue end of the spectrum for the growth stage of our vegetables, which will be harvested before they have a chance to enter the flowering stage and go to seed.

Chuck contacted all of our local produce outlets and gave them an idea of when they can expect our first expanded delivery. With California produce having become more scarce and pricey, the merchants were more than eager to sign up to receive our shipments.

We have alerted Advanced Nutrients as to our increased need for the appropriate products. They advised us to stick with Micro and Grow as our basic nutrients, and continue to supply the roots of our new plants with Piranha, Tarantula, and Voodoo Juice. These provide beneficial fungi, bacteria, and microbes respectively.

By colonizing our root systems, these helpful microorganisms enhance the growth of our root balls and facilitate nutrient absorption. In addition, Sensi Zym provides over eighty types of enzymes to our root zone, which are living organisms that munch on plant debris and turn this debris into easily absorbable nutrients.

Additionally, we use Grandma Enggy’s Fulvic Acid and Grandma Enggy’s Humic Acid, which provide much needed organic growth enhancers, much like the content of humus, from which the name of Humic Acid is derived. Despite the name, Humic Acid is not overly acidic, so it doesn’t throw off you pH.

B-52 and Grandma Enggy’s Seaweed Extract supply the vitamin needs of our produce. The first product contains all the major B’s, along with natural hormones that increase the plant’s energy through increased metabolism. It has an NPK of 2-1-4, since part of its content is Potassium Nitrate, Magnesium and Potassium Phosphate, as well as Magnesium and Potassium Sulphate/Sulfate, and Urea.

Seaweed Extract is like a multi-vitamin. I’ll never forget when our Boston Lettuce crop all of a sudden looked weak and anemic and I called the Advanced Nutrients tech line in panic. The very helpful voice at the other end of the line asked if we were feeding our lettuce with vitamins.

To make a long story short, we started mixing Seaweed Extract into our reservoir, and almost immediately the lettuce leaves recovered their vigor, their overall health improved and their growth increased tremendously.

Seaweed Extract not only contains very specific growth stimulants, but also natural antibiotics, immune system boosters, as well as two vitamin A precursors, vitamin C, Vitamin K, and Vitamin E.

For that extra organic touch, we also feed our lettuce Mother Earth Blended Super Tea Grow, that is made from Alfalfa Extract, Canola Meal, Citric Acid, Crab Meal, Earthworm Castings, Fish and Shrimp Meal, and Sea Kelp. It has an NPK of 4.8--1.8--4.3, so be sure to calculate your total EC or ppm accordingly.

Anytime an additive or a supplement has an NPK rating, it is necessary to calculate your overall NPK for your nutrient solution. This is crucial, since too much Nitrogen can cause the tips of your leaves to turn yellow, while too much Phosphorus or excessive Potassium have other adverse effects.

In order to ward off pathogens, we always add Barricade to our nutrient solution, usually the night before in our pre-mix tank. Although it takes a little extra time to dissolve, Barricade is an excellent product that uses potassium silicate to strengthen cell walls and make your plants immune to many pathogens and pests.

A very important additive where lettuce is concerned—and I’m sure the same goes for pak choi—is Sensi Cal Mg Mix Grow, which provides three types of much needed Calcium, including a Calcium chelate, helping you grow crunchy, robust heads of lettuce that will sell very quickly off your grocer’s shelves.

A vital ingredient in lettuce production is the repeat customer. Once your lettuce is allowed to grace the salad plates of the purchaser, the taste and freshness and vigor will convince him or her to seek out your produce again and again.

2007-01-17T22:30:00.000-08:00

California Deep Freeze, EC-PPM Discrepancy

With the deep freeze hitting California, that state’s vegetable and fruit crop has suffered a billion dollars worth of damage. Governor Schwarzenegger declared a state of emergency and asked for federal aid.

One man’s disaster is another man’s opportunity. Chuck was excited when he heard the news and immediately began contacting our outlets to see how many additional heads of lettuce they required.

Prices of leafy vegetables are going to skyrocket, since California is North America’s major producer of lettuce and salad greens.

The plans for our expansion have moved ahead and another possible partner has appeared, who would like us to build not two but ten new greenhouses, along the lines of the controlled environment experiment that our 3000 sq. foot Boston lettuce growing operation has perfected.

Instead of producing 400 heads of lettuce per day, once the ten greenhouses are built on a slightly larger scale, they could each produce 600 heads of lettuce or pak choi per day. Chuck is still reluctant to grow spinach, since according to Cornell University, it is a difficult crop.

Indoor hydroponic horticulture is definitely the wave of the future. I see on the web that the Saudis are doing it, they’re growing tomatoes and cucumbers in the desert in Controlled Environment Agriculture (CEA) fibreglass greenhouses in the desert.

Chuck always finds something new to worry about, even though our business future looks rosy at the moment. He noticed on the Advanced Nutrients Nutrient Calculator that their EC and PPM numbers didn’t match our EC and PPM numbers.

We called the tech guys at that great Canadian company, and they clarified the discrepancy. It seems that there are different standards in converting EC to PPM, and that our metering system was using a different conversion standard from theirs.

EC or Electrical Conductivity measures the ability of the Total Dissolved Solids (TDS) in our Nutrient Pond to transmit electricity. Depending on how quickly the charge is transferred from one electrode to another in the meter, results in a reading of EC 1, EC 2, EC 3, etc.

The German-made Utech EC meter which we had incorporated into our computer controlled setup converted EC 1 to 640 parts per million (PPM). Electrical Conductivity is measured in microsiemens (mS) per centimetre (cm).

Advanced Nutrients, on the other hand, is using a Bluelab Truncheon meter that is manufactured in New Zealand, and it reads EC 1 as 700 PPM. Volia! Thus the discrepancy.

Chuck contacted our computer whiz immediately and had him rewrite the code for the logarithms that control the interconnected metering system that runs our mostly automatic hydroponic grow operation.

The whiz was burning the midnight oil for several days and nights in a row, until he managed to incorporate the new conversion data into the system. The hardest part was compensating for the extra 60 PPM that the German meter omitted to count.

Advanced Nutrients told us that they find the EC measurement much more reliable than PPM so they are emphasizing that reading in the future. Their Nutrient Calculator will carry both numbers, however, since so many people are habitually using PPM-counts and are not yet thinking purely in EC.

Since because of the discrepancy our PPM readings were now slightly off, we decided to flush our entire system and remix our nutrient solution which we then feed into our Nutrient Pond.

In addition to our basic fertilizer, the best hydroponic plant food for our crop, Micro and Grow (without the Bloom factor), we mixed in SensyZym, Piranha, Tarantula, and Voodoo Juice to strengthen the roots of our lettuce with beneficial enzymes, fungi, bacteria, and microbes respectively.

Since we experienced some root problems previously, due to the overly zealous root colonization of these very effective products, we now use them at half strength. Their own technical guys recommend this for hydro, but you can still go full strength in soil.

Then came the ever-important Scorpion Juice, which imparts what we call Systemic Acquired Resistance (SAR) to our lettuce. It enables our precious crop to fight off invading pathogens and pests very effectively, indeed.

Barricade is a potassium silicate product that we find takes a bit of extra time to dissolve but it’s worth the wait. It strengthens cell walls and imparts another layer of immunity to the plant. Diseases, bugs, invading parasites are not allowed to enter the cells, thus saving the lettuce from many possible maladies.

As Kermit once said “It’s not easy being green,” and I’m sure our lettuce would echo this sentiment. In order to ensure the bright green appearance of our crop and thus make it more marketable, we mix in Grandma Enggy’s Humic Acid and Fulvic Acid into our Pond. These very special ingredients aid the photosynthesis process in chlorophyll formation, among their many benefits.

B-52 is administered to reduce plant stress, much the same way that my B-Complex 50 reduces my stress and elevates my ability to cope with the daily grind.

Mother Earth Super Tea Grow enhances the organic nutrients that are contained in the Grandma Enggy products. All vegetables benefit from rich organic food, such as that contained in humus, which is where Humic Acid derives its name.

Sensi Cal Mg Grow is included in the mix, in order to ensure that our lettuce receive the much needed Calcium that they require for good health. The Magnesium aids in Calcium absorption.

Chuck is running around with all these business plans in his attaché case detailing Capital Requirement Estimates, Annual Production Cost Estimates, Estimates of Construction Costs, Market Patterns, Price Charts, etc.

It seems that Fuel and Energy Costs add up to a large percentage of running a large-scale operation that is proposed, so Chuck is being true to his visionary self and exploring alternate fuel possibilities.

Sharp Instruments sells large format solar panels that could supplement our electrical requirements and ensure that in case of a power failure, we could rely on an alternate source of energy.

I wonder if after all this hoopla about frozen California produce dies down, whether our new quasi partner will still be as enthusiastic about our expansion plans. Only time will tell.

2007-01-04T21:21:00.000-08:00

The Mighty Force of Nature vs. our Greenhouse

You’ll never hear Chuck or I speak disparagingly about the scientists who are trying to warn us about climate change. Especially not after what Mother Nature had in store for us this past week.

It started off very reminiscent of that Winnie the Pooh cartoon, “Blustery Day.” Dried leaves started blowing all over the place and the occasional small tree branch was seen flying.

It grew into a full-fledged windstorm with hurricane-strength winds gusting to 65 miles per hour. Our poor greenhouse had withstood a snowstorm, a power outage, and torrential rains, but this was to be its true test of endurance.

You might remember that we produce 400 heads of Boston lettuce a day in our 3,000 sq foot Quonset-type greenhouse, which is covered with a double-layer of polyethylene. I thank my lucky stars that I stuck to my guns during the planning stages and insisted on galvanized steel supports. Chuck wanted to save money and go with aluminum.

The other thing I made sure of was that the foundation anchors went extra deep into our concrete flooring, even though our neck of the woods doesn’t usually get winds over 50 mph. The poly fastening system used to attach the greenhouse covering to the computer-bent framework had to be extra strong as well.

You have to make sure prior to the strong winds that your door and any openings are firmly shut. Otherwise, the wind grabs the entire structure and your covering becomes a sail.

I’ve seen glazed glass covered greenhouses with half their panels missing after a storm, with the materials strewn as far as 60 feet away.

The other danger is knocked-down trees. In spite of the temptation to surround your greenhouse with shade trees, it’s best to be at a distance from them. Nothing ruins your business quicker than a fallen cedar destroying your greenhouse and with it your cash crop.

A large branch did fly and hit the side of our greenhouse, but luckily it had soft needles instead of sharp protrusions, so it did not puncture the polyethylene. Besides, the material is pretty tough, even though the projectiles in this devastating storm were flying around like pieces of shrapnel.

I heard mention of the impending storm on the 11pm TV news so I drove immediately to the greenhouse to make sure that all the openings were properly fastened.

Also, I thought it prudent that the water and the power should be temporarily shut off, in order to prevent a surge of electricity from frying our sensitive equipment or a rush of water coming in to create havoc on our Nutrient Pond.

I had about an hour before the storm hit, so I decided to make sure that the feeding of our lettuce continued uninterrupted while this emergency was taking place. So before I shut of the electricity, I measured the parts per million of our nutrient solution.

At this stage of their vegetative growth (our crop is in perpetual vegetative phase) the mature plants near the harvest end of the pond require a ppm reading of 1300, but the solution at that point only read 1100 ppm. So I had to add some ingredients.

Our basic fertilizer is Grow and Micro (without the Bloom—we do not want our lettuce to start flowering). I added some of our basic fert, plus Humic Acid and Fulvic Acid, two dynamite supplements that mimic the rich humus of the world’s best soil, since they are derived from a layer of dense, organic “leonardite” that is mined from on top of some coal beds.

I measured again, and found that this manoeuvre raised the ppm of this section of the Pond to 1250, still not quite enough. So I poured in enough Scorpion Juice, to raise the level to the desired 1300 ppm.

Scorpion Juice imparts induced systemic resistance to many pathogens and pests, and thus is an invaluable tool in a horticulturalist’s satchel.

Prior to shutting off the reservoir pumps, I made sure that the pH level of the pond was at the desired level of 5.6 for our hydroponic crop. The reading showed 5.0 pH, which is too acidic, so the number had to be raised by adding the proper amount of pH Up, a very fine Advanced Nutrients product.

By this time the wind was literally howling outside and I shut off the power just in time. You never know with these freak storms, some electrical charge could build up and lightning could strike the sources of our power, so it’s best to be on the safe side.

It was almost two in the morning and Chuck arrived, out of breath. I only opened the door a crack to let him in and shut and locked it immediately after. We watched as Mother Nature gave us a spectacular show.

We also prayed. Although Chuck professes to be a non-believer, from the corner of my eye I saw him make the sign of the cross as the fierce winds shook our greenhouse to its very foundations.

As it is, we are very lucky. Aside from a few minor rips, no major damage was done to either the structure or the double-layered covering of our greenhouse. But you can bet your fresh-picked salad that I insisted on galvanized steel construction for our two planned greenhouses, and Chuck didn’t fight me this time.

I also won with regard to growing pak choi in one of them, while Chuck decided that specialty lettuce should be grown in the other one, instead of spinach. “No use growing a difficult vegetable,” was his entire argument.

Specialty lettuce is the crinkly kind, usually with a red tinge around the edges. Some people add it to their salad to provide color. Since many people consider Boston lettuce as part of the specialty family, Chuck felt more comfortable deciding to grow another type of “specialty lettuce,” rather than yet another unknown vegetable.

Pak Choi, sometimes known as Bok Choy, is also called Chinese mustard cabbage. It can be sautéed for five minutes and with the addition of stir-fried tofu, it can make a complete meal.

It is a popular vegetable in the ethnic Chinese communities in many cities around the world, including the urban center in our vicinity. I’ve researched the market thoroughly and have already lined up buyers for 600 heads of pak choi per day.

Our planned greenhouses will be slightly larger than our present one to enable us to produce 50% more of our cash crops. We’ve done the math, and our daily sales will make the construction of the new facilities cost-effective.

But you can firmly bet that the anchors securing the framework—the bow, rib-brace, purlin, and cross-brace—of our planned greenhouses will be sunk extra deep into their solid concrete foundations.

We inspected the entire structure the day after the storm and found that some of the locking pieces had come loose, while a few scrapes and tears needed patching. The framework withstood the onslaught quite well, only some nuts and bolts had to be tightened afterwards.

Also, every time the power is shut off the computer-controlled timers and logarithm calibrations have to be reset. It’s like having to reprogram your DVD player and VCR after every power outage.

Brand new pH and ppm and EC readings had to be taken to make sure that the continuous operation of our Boston lettuce production line was not impeded. I’m glad to report that with the help of the irreplaceable Advanced Nutrients products that we use, our daily output of 400 heads of lettuce was not interrupted—neither did the quality of our produce suffer.

A lucky start to the New Year, indeed.

2006-12-22T15:29:00.000-08:00

Plans to Expand, Using Guano Productively

Chuck and I had a brainstorming session the other day, trying to figure out how to expand our business. We’ve reached our goal of producing 400 heads of Boston lettuce a day, but given the size of our greenhouse, that is the maximum number we can produce.

I suggested branching out, building two more greenhouses, and growing spinach in one, and pak choi in the other. This would continue to follow the model set by the Cornell University Controlled Environment Agriculture experiment, that was the inspiration for our hydroponic lettuce-growing venture in the first place.

Chuck argued that Cornell tried growing spinach, but found it to be more of a difficult crop than lettuce. I countered that pak choi, on the other hand, was found to be an easy crop to grow.

Given the large ethnic Chinese population in a nearby city, pak choi would be a profitable vegetable, to be sure. But since Chuck is not as enthusiastic about Chinese food, as I am, our pak choi plans fell by the wayside.

“Why don’t we just build two more greenhouses and expand to grow different types of lettuce?” asked Chuck. It was a good question. Further market research is needed, before we can decide on such a major investment however.

Consumers are increasingly interested in healthier foods. A crisp, fresh salad has replaced the fatty lunches of the past. We are riding the crest of this new wave of wiser nutritional decisions. We need to do better than what we are able to today.

Just as our customers are keen to add better nutrients to their diet, Chuck and I are constantly thinking of how to improve the nutrient intake of our lettuce plants. We consult the Advanced Nutrient technical guys on a weekly basis, in order to ask their advice with regard to products that grab our attention, when we browse their Advancedepedia.

Grandma Enggy’s Fish Stew looked promising, but alas it’s been discontinued. Mother Earth Blended Super Tea Grow had a short write up last time I checked, then the other day I discovered that more information had been added, so the product description now totals 12 pages.

We’ve been using this product to add that organic touch to our basic synthetic ferts, Micro and Grow, since the Super Tea has alfalfa extract, canola meal, citric acid, crab meal, earthworm castings, fish meal, sea kelp, and shrimp meal in a blended, organic mix.

The new product description lists as additional ingredients: leonardite, sea weed meal, and two blends of guano. According to the write-up, “some of the richest bio-materials found on Earth” are included in Mother Earth Super Tea.

Guano, for the uninitiated, is excrement or manure. Both seabird guano and bat guano are included in the Super Tea mix.

Bats eat a lot of insects, so their guano contains chitin and has a higher percentage of nitrogen. I never heard of chitin, so I had to look that one up in the dictionary. Chitin is the principal constituent of the hard covering of insects and crustaceans. Sort of like grinding up sea shells to feed the powder to your plants.

Seabirds eat a lot of fish, so their guano contains copious amounts of phosphorus, as well as other biologically available nutrients that come from the sea.

We always knew that Mother Earth Super Tea Grow helped us grow better heads of lettuce, but little did we know why.

Further in our research, we found that triocontanol is a lipid in alfalfa meal that speeds up the metabolic rates of certain, membrane-bound enzymes. This process helps to increase photosynthesis in plants by a significant percentage.

Okay, so photosynthesis according to its abbreviated definition is the process by which plants turn light and CO2 into sugars and oxygen. These carbohydrates are the nutrients that cause a plant to grow.

Naturally, since we know that lettuce requires extra Calcium to be healthy, we apply Sensi Cal Grow regularly. In addition to calcium, this Advanced Nutrients product contains its sister element, Magnesium, as well as many other micro-nutrients necessary for optimum growth.

Compounds of Boron, Cobalt, Copper, Iron, Molybdenum, and Zinc complement the SensiCal Mg Mix Grow. We don’t use its other version, SensiCal Mg Mix Bloom, since we definitely do not want our lettuce plants to go into flower.

Chuck and I are still debating whether to proceed with producing more lettuce or to branch out into some other vegetable. The fact remains that with increased fuel costs, transporting fresh produce great distances to distant markets will become less and less economically feasible.

Hydroponic greenhouses, such as ours, located near the market they serve, are the way of the future.

2006-12-08T19:16:00.000-08:00

NPK ratios and the magic of Humic and Fulvic Acids

Compared to the weeks immediately previous, this past week was uneventful in our computer-controlled greenhouse. As you know, it all started off with murky water, progressed into an all-out power failure, and climaxed in a giant snowstorm that knocked out our computer system.

Thank goodness all that is (hopefully) behind us. This past week of calm has allowed us to catch our breaths. Chuck remarked that things were positively boring at the greenhouse, which is just the way I like it. (But I didn’t tell him that.)

“How can you say it’s boring?” I asked, playing the naïve ingénue. “We’re producing 400 heads of Boston lettuce per day, using the energies of two full time and two part time people. The rest is all done electronically, provided the system doesn’t conk out like it did last week.”

“Where’s your pioneering spirit?” I asked, wanting to get his goat. “Don’t you realize that this is the wave of the future? When people discover that we can produce massive amounts of vegetables year-round with a much smaller footprint than the field-farms of California, and we can provide much cleaner, healthier vegetables to boot, they’ll be building greenhouses like ours all over the place!”

Grudgingly Chuck agreed, and proceeded to mix this week’s nutrient mix with a big smile on his face. I think I managed to rekindle his enthusiasm. As he poured Micro in first, then Grow, he informed me that the Advanced Nutrients Nutrient Calculator actually suggests to additionally pour in a small quantity of Bloom, even at the vegetative stage. We choose not to do that, since we definitely do not want our lettuce to start flowering, under any circumstances.

“They do this in order to correct the NPK balance of the 3-part fertilizer,” said Chuck. “But I’ve figured out how to compensate for that by the other ingredients that I add to our nutrient mix. I add a larger quantity of Mother Earth Super Tea Grow, for instance, which has an NPK of 4.8-1.8-4.3. This boosts my Nitrogen to a level that is helpful for plants in a stage of vegetative growth.”

He went on to explain why Grandma Enggy’s Humic Acid and Fulvic Acid are both necessary to produce crisp, bright green lettuce. It seems that these ingredients are both derived from a richly organic substance known as “leonardite,” that is found deep within the earth. It has to be mined.

Grandma Enggy is a legendary figure, whose family has known the secrets of leonardite for generations. Their Extra Pure Humic Acid has grown award-winning flowers and vegetables for nearly 80 years. It is best to use the two products together, in order to obtain maximum benefit from both.

Used in conjunction with Grandma Enggy’s Seaweed Extract, these products add the best components of a rich organic soil to your soilless horticulture. Your hydroponic nutrient mix will buzz with organic joy when you add Grandma Enggy’s not-so-secret ingredients.

Humic acid derives its name from humus, the rotten organic material in rich soils. Humankind has known this “secret” for centuries. Rich, organic soil has always grown the best flowers and vegetables.

Chuck becomes enthusiastic as he describes the benefits of humic acid on our lettuce crop. “Humic acid helps increase the synthesis of chlorophyll, thus accounting for the bright green color of our butterhead lettuce plants. It helps the accumulation of reducable sugars, increases both nutrient uptake and the growth rate of our lettuce, increases root respiration, and enhances the protein and mineral content of all crops treated with it.”

“Fulvic acid is a nutritional substance that accelerates cell division, increases root formation, helps plant respiration, facilitates nutrient uptake, and increases the permeability of plant membranes. The three Grandma Enggy product used together have a synergistic effect that multiplies the individual benefits to a great extent.”

“Any draw backs?” I ask Chuck, who is by now bubbling with enthusiasm. “Well, humic acid is rich black in color and has the ability to stain. With our floating polystyrene boards separating the nutrient solution from the growing heads of lettuce, the black solution stains only the roots of the lettuce, which is not a problem.”

“Occasional splashing might result in a head of lettuce being stained and discarded, but with extra care this kind of spoilage can be avoided.”

I am very glad to hear that even the perfect products sold by Advanced Nutrients can have an occasional imperfection, albeit a minor one.

2006-11-30T22:33:00.000-08:00

Unexpected Snowstorm Causing Computer Breakdown

The algorithms that govern the computer-controlled environment of our greenhouse were developed under the supervision of Dr. Louis Albright, professor of agricultural and biological engineering at Cornell University in upstate New York.

His brilliant scheme involves running the lights, the Nutrient Pond, the heating, the cooling, the sun shading, the solenoid cells measuring the amount of sunlight—in other words the whole enchilada—off the same master program on our state of the art super-server running Linux as an operating system.

Being a Windows acolyte, while Chuck is of the Mac persuasion, we had to hire a knowledgeable individual to set up our Linux system and to show us how to run it, tweeking it when necessary. We taped his business card to the side of the server, with his cell number highlighted in green.

Green being the color of hope, and also that of lettuce, we figured that we could handle any minor glitches on our own, while for the major ones our Linux genius would be at the other end of a cell phone.

Then came the snowstorm of a few days ago. The computer system managed to survive the invasion of murky water and the subsequent power outage. However, when the unexpected snowstorm dumped an unprecedented two feet of snow onto our Quinset-hut type greenhouse, our Linux system, nicknamed Linus by Chuck, got totally garbled and confused.

Being the practical member of our partnership, I made sure that backup measurements could be taken of the vital signs of our hydroponic lettuce operation. Old fashioned mercury thermometers took the temperature in the greenhouse as well as that of our Nutrient Pond. The digital ones that were hooked up to the computer only showed gobbledygook.

Chuck ran around taking pH readings at different points in the Pond and manually administered a small amount of pH Up in order to correct the acid alkaline balance. I took light readings with a cinematic light meter and adjusted our lighting according to my readings.

Figuring that our lettuce could use an extra boost of immunity, I mixed up a new batch of nutrients, headed by Barricade, a potassium silicate product made by Advanced Nutrients. It strengthens the cell walls of plants and stimulates their immune systems.

I also included Calcium Mg Mix Grow, as well as Mother Earth Super Tea Grow, to fortify our lettuce plants with chelated calcium, magnesium, as well as easily absorbed 100% organic nutrients, that serve the same function as a herbal tea on a cold, winter night.

The Hot Water Boiler had to be run manually, as well, while I put Mr. Linux on speed-dial and bombarded his voice mail with my loud pleas for help.

The polyethylene covering of the greenhouse started to sag under the weight of all that snow. Even though the roof is curved, the snow stuck to it—it was an extra adhesive variety.

Luckily, this type of emergency was anticipated in the design of the structure, so all we had to do was to heat up the forced air in-between the two layers of polyethylene and when it reached the optimum temperature, the snow just slid off the roof and its sides.

The new seedlings had to get an extra treatment with No Shock, and Wilt Stop, since the automatic system failed to deliver their nutrient solution to their holding tanks on time. I also immersed all of them in Scorpion Juice, in order to impart induced systemic resistance, which wards off all sort of pathogens.

After running the greenhouse on manual for the whole afternoon, Mr. Linux was rousted up and spent a couple of hours fixing and recalibrating the automatic system. Afterwards, we presented him with his very own pager, so that when he’s away from his cell phone, he will still be reachable by these intrepid lettuce growers.

Then we had to deal with the delays that the heavy snow caused in our delivery schedules. As the tardy trucks arrived to pick up their daily load of hydroponically-grown Boston lettuce, we slapped chains on their tires so they wouldn’t have any excuses for being late next time.

2006-11-23T21:19:00.000-08:00

Polyethylene Covering with Boiler Heating

Some greenhouses are covered in glazed glass. Ours is a more economical model. It is a polyethylene-covered Quonset-type structure, one hundred feet by thirty feet, giving us 3,000 square feet of workspace underneath.

Since a single layer of polyethylene would not protect our hydroponically-grown lettuce from the vagaries of the outside temperature, we’ve used two layers of plastic to cover the structure, then forced air between the two layers to create a four to six inch airspace. This is an excellent insulating barrier; with the onset of winter fast approaching, that is an important consideration.

In the plastic area, several other possible coverings had to be considered. We could have covered our greenhouse with acrylic sheets, polycarbonate plastic, or fibreglass. Polyethylene won out, largely because it is the most cost-effective.

With nighttime temperatures increasingly dropping below freezing, once again we’ve become very aware of how we chose to heat our greenhouse. First, we had to figure out what the anticipated coldest temperature was that we had to deal with, while maintaining an even 68º F (20º C), which is the optimum indoor level for our plants to thrive.

After poring through data going back many years, we found that it rarely dropped below 23º F (-5º C) in our neck of the woods. Most of the time during winter, the thermometer hovered around the freezing point. So we had to purchase a system that could easily deal with such temperature drops, and the occasional dip below the norm.

By a complicated set of calculations involving exchange, conductive, and radiation heat loss, as well as a heat loss coefficient, we arrived at the conclusion that at an outside temperature of 23º F we would need to generate 1,484,861 British Thermal Units per hour (Btu’s) with whatever system we installed.

Of course, our system of 45—600W High Pressure Sodium lights also generates quite a few BTU’s per hour, so that heat had to be factored in.

In addition, we not only had to heat the circulating air around the lettuce, but also the Nutrient Pond, which is their growing medium. Given that many growers urged us to buy a central Boiler and use Hot Water Heating throughout the greenhouse, that’s what we did.

Even though the initial cost outlay was more than using a number of space heaters or forced air ones, the convenience of running hot water pipes underneath the surface of our growing medium, convinced us that this was the way to go.

We chose finned-tube convectors around the walls of the greenhouse, as opposed to straight steel pipes, since they provide four to five times the heat transfer capacity of bare pipe. They’re harder to keep clean, but much more efficient, reducing our heating bill.

In light of the mishap that happened last week, we’re grateful to have a central Boiler system, since in the case of power failure, the water stays hot for a couple of hours, until an alternate source of power can be hooked up.

After the HyOx flush, we administered not only Piranha, Tarantula, and Voodoo Juice, but also SensiZym, Sensi Cal Mg. Mix Grow, and a new batch of our primary nutrients, Micro and Grow.

Our lettuce are well taken care of, and that includes keeping them warm in the winter, and cool in the summer. A number of fans help to circulate the air above our Nutrient Pond, so that no pockets of hot or cold air can damage the sensitive leaves of our lettuce plants.

2006-11-16T22:37:00.000-08:00

Howling Winds and Backup Power

Our greenhouse is located near the foothills of a large mountain chain. As a result, it can get windy sometimes. However, we were not prepared for the windstorms of this past week. Up to 62 miles per hour winds howled across this part of the state, accompanied by inches upon inches of deluge type rain.

Roads were blocked by fallen trees and many power line were down. It’s a risk that greenhouse owners have to deal with—our power went out two days ago. A potentially costly disaster, unless one has an alternate plan ready.

As I’ve stated before, Chuck is the visionary. Of the two partners, I’m the practical one. In our initial financial outlay I tried to warn him that something like this might happen. He agreed to spend money on water filtration (see last week’s blog) but when it came to the purchase of an electrical generator, he vetoed the cost.

Everything in our greenhouse runs on electricity. Just to run our 45 – 600W High Pressure Sodium lights for an average of 15 hours a day during winter costs $1,125 per month on our electric bill. And that’s not counting all the other electrical equipment that are necessities in a greenhouse such as ours. Pumps, timers, fans, heaters, etc. all need power.

Please remember that we’ve committed ourselves to producing 400 heads of Boston lettuce a day. Our clients are expecting this output. We can’t just say to them sorry, the lights are out, the pumps aren’t working, our lettuce plants are stagnating, come back next week.

Silvio the practical one jumped into action and grabbed the last available generator at an equipment rental house. I practically had to fight another greenhouse owner for it. We had to hire an electrician to hook everything up to the new power source. We were sweating as hours passed and the greenhouse was still dark.

Since the water in our Nutrient Pond was not flowing for a couple of hours, as soon as the rental generator kicked in, I flushed the system with a weak solution of HyOx once again. The whole area was asked to boil its drinking water, since turbidity in the system was the highest ever recorded. We didn’t want our lettuce plants to soak up potentially harmful bacteria, thus the need for the flush.

I also had to empty our pre-mix and reservoir tanks once again, since the pumps weren’t working and some bad water backed up into them. We had to augment our 180-mesh filter cartridge with a Dacron filter, in order to keep out the newly discharged sediment.

In addition to their regular diet of Micro and Grow, we had to mix in Piranha, Tarantula, and Voodoo Juice, in order to replace the beneficial microbes killed off by the HyOx. I decided to add Barricade powder and agitated the pre-mix like crazy, to make sure it dissolved properly.

Barricade contains potassium silicate, that strengthens the cell walls of our lettuce plants, so they can become resistant to pests and diseases, literally from the inside out.

It was time to give our plants another dose of Sensi Cal Mg Mix Grow, in order to replenish their dwindling supply of calcium. They always perk up after we administer this incredibly nutritious product. In addition to the right types of calcium, it has magnesium, easily absorbed iron, plus essential micronutrients necessary for the enhanced growth of our delicious lettuce.

For the second time in two weeks we all had to work overtime and our shirts were soaked after all systems were humming again. Once the power is restored to the regional grid, we’ll have to have the electrician out again to reconnect our equipment to the main power source.

Then I have to convince Chuck to invest in an alternate system all our own so we won’t have to spend big bucks to rent a generator next time. The system I have in mind includes a wind turbine and solar panels, so we can stop burning fossil fuels in order to supply our customers with healthy, nutritious salads.

2006-11-10T14:15:00.000-08:00

Murky Water, Increased Filtration, Frequent Flushing

Don’t know how you’re faring weatherwise in your part of the country, but we’ve been having torrential rains continuously for the past week or so. The water supply for our greenhouse comes from a reservoir in the nearby mountains, which is open to the vagaries of the weather.

At certain times of year, usually during periods of heavy rainfall, the sediment at the bottom of the reservoir is stirred up and the water that comes out of the tap turns murky. This can easily be solved for your drinking water by adding a purifying filter in between your intake pipe and the faucet. It’s not so easy when you’re running a large greenhouse, with an extensive Nutrient Pond.

We can’t afford to let flow any impurities into our system, since they not only throw off the ppm count, but also tend to clog up the pumps and the system of pipes that circulate our nutrient solution.

Imagine how upset we were when we noticed that murky water was flowing into our pristine Nutrient Pond. My partner and I panicked, but soon regained our usual logical approach and realized that our filtration system had to be upgraded, pronto!

We called our supplier and had him rush over a finer mesh screen for our Y-type in-line strainer that we had installed on our main water supply line. 100 mesh screens normally provide adequate filtration for sediment contamination, but we needed a 180 mesh one on account of the heavy rainfall.

Usually daily flushing is necessary with one end of the Y open to wash out any sediment accumulated in the filter. Under heavy rain conditions, more frequent flushings are recommended.

We also flushed our entire Pond with a weak solution of HyOx, in order to get rid of any unwanted bacteria that might have come in with the sediment. This process also killed off a lot of beneficial fungi, bacteria, and other microorganisms living in the roots of our lettuce plants, which then had to be replaced in the next batch of nutrient solution.

We had to empty our pre-mix and reservoir mixing tanks and clean them out thoroughly in order to get rid of the invading sediment. We had to re-mix a fresh supply of nutrient solution, using Advanced Nutrients Micro and Grow, as well as all our additives, such as the root enhancers Piranha, Tarantula, and Voodoo Juice. These replaced the beneficial micro-organisms that were decimated or even worse by the HyOx flush.

We had to work overtime that day, Chuck and I, and our two part-timers, but we managed to clean our Nutrient Pond and start fresh with a new supply of nutrients and additives. The new 180 mesh screen arrived and was installed and it seemed to be holding its own at the time of this posting.

In horticulture, you never know when emergencies will arise. We’re thankful that we managed this one pretty well and that our hydroponic lettuce production is going full tilt ahead, toward our goal of producing 400 heads of butterhead lettuce per day.

2006-11-03T11:28:00.000-08:00

Gardening Advice and Macronutrient Ratios

I was listening to a gardening program on the radio the other day, and the expert on the show was recommending even N-P-K plant foods to everybody. 10-10-10 for some, 20-20-20 for others. Out of curiosity I checked the N-P-K on Advanced Nutrients Micro and Grow, the products that we use to feed our lettuce.

Micro turned out to be 5-0-1, while Grow’s N-P-K is 2-1-6. For non-gardeners, this measurement indicates the percentage of Nitrogen, Phosphorus, and Potassium in your fertilizer. So if I factor in the N-P-K of SensiCal Mg Mix Grow—2-0-0), which is a calcium supplement that we regularly feed our lettuce, our combined N-P-K comes out to 9-1-7. A far cry from what this so-called expert on the radio was talking about.

To educate myself, I called the Advanced Nutrients technical help line. I reached a very knowledgeable man, who assured me that recommending an even N-P-K ratio to the general public is a cop-out. If you do genetic specific testing on the vegetables you grow, you’ll find that each of them has a slightly different need for these basic macro-nutrients.

He went on to say that Micro and Grow are designed to cover a wide array of flowers, fruits, and vegetables. “What if the N-P-K ratio isn’t exactly what my lettuce crop needs?” I asked. “Don’t worry,” he said, “plants eat only what they need. Your combined N-P-K is perfectly adequate to meet the basic needs of any vegetable you may decide to grow.”

He added that if I were growing tomatoes, of course, I would have to add the N-P-K of Bloom, which is 0-5-4, which would bring my combined ratio to 9-6-11. “There is a lot of vagary, where N-P-K ratios are concerned,” was his final comment on this topic.

In terms of the mixing ratio of the Advanced Nutrients 3-part, he said that 1:1:1 works best, although some growers might want to follow the traditional 3:2:1 then 1:2:3 regimen. Whichever proportions you select, Micro goes into the mixing tank or reservoir first, mix it well and wait until it dissolves, then add Grow and Bloom, in that order. Never mix the 3 parts in their concentrated form.

I reminded him that I wasn’t using Bloom, since I didn’t want my lettuce to start flowering and go to seed. He said that’s fine, the 1:1 ratio would still apply.

When I mentioned that my partner and I were using SensiCal regularly in our reservoir, he said that it could also be used at half the strength as a foliar spray. However, don’t spray for a few weeks before harvest, since this process would leave a chemical residue on the lettuce leaves. I said I would rather just mix it in the Nutrient Pond, and stop using it near the harvest end of the pond for a few weeks before harvest.

SensiCal has been designed to provide the proper synergestic balance of Calcium, Magnesium, and the other minerals it contains, which include Boron, Cobalt, Copper, Iron, Molybdenum, and Zinc.

2006-10-26T10:04:00.000-07:00

An Improvement Over Organic, Our Lettuce Rocks!

Many people ask my partner and I—“As long as you’ve spent all this money setting up a state of the art operation, why not go 100% organic?” It’s a fair question, to which we often reply—“We’re better than organic.”

“How so?” they ask, and you can hear the scepticism in their voice. “Because we use high-tech, soil-less growing techniques which allow us to give our lettuce plants the best possible nutrients in expertly measured solutions. Not using soil as a growing medium, eliminates possible contamination by soil-borne insects and diseases. We don’t use any pesticides in our greenhouse, and synthetic nutrients work better in a hydroponic situation.”

“What makes them work better?” ask the skeptics, still not 100% percent convinced. “Synthetics dissolve better in water, consequently they don’t clog up the pumps and pipe systems as often as organics do. The parts per million of organics is greater, and often they have to be pre-strained before they’re put into a nutrient solution.”

“Synthetics are more cost-effective than organics, and are just as pure. Our base fertilizer is two-thirds of the Advanced Nutrients 3-part, namely Micro, and Grow. They are expertly formulated for the major cycles of a plant’s life. We don’t use the Bloom part, since we don’t want our lettuce to go into the flowering stage and produce seeds.

We have a pre-mix tank, and we add the Micro (5-0-1) first and wait till it dissolves completely. The reason for this is that it is a concentrate and we don’t want its micronutrients to chemically interact with the major nutrients in Grow (2-1-6) prematurely.

As opposed to the equivalent products made by their competitors, Advanced Nutrients Micro and Grow contain only pharmaceutical grade substances. Micro contains Boron, Calcium, Cobalt, Copper, Iron, Manganese, Molybdenum, Potassium, and Zinc in easily absorbed compound form as well as more chelates per micronutrient than any other manufacturer. Chelates help the micronutrients transfer to the plants better and faster.

Grow contains Ammonium, Magnesium, and Potassium compounds, including Phosphates, in order to give you the full spectrum of N-P-K necessary for healthy and robust growth. In addition, we add Sensi Cal Mg Mix, since lettuce requires additional Calcium and Barricade, to strengthen the internal structure of our lettuce, enabling our plants to ward off insects and pathogens, literally from the inside out.

Historically, aphids are the most bothersome pests for lettuce growers. We have introduced a beneficial insect called Colemani into our greenhouse, which lays its eggs in the bodies of the aphids. It also destroys aphid eggs, so it helps to keep any threatening aphid infestation to a minimum.

The content of our Nutrient Pond is filtered and recycled in order to make the whole operation even more cost-effective. We also add Mother Earth Blended Super Tea Grow to the mix at a certain stage, as well as B-52 for a vitamin boost. The Mother Earth product contains Alfalfa Extract, Canola Meal, Citric Acid, Crab Meal, Earthworm Castings, Fish Meal, Sea Kelp, and Shrimp Meal.

It was designed to give plants natural supplements, nutrients, and vitamins missing from chemical fertilizers. It noticeably improves the taste of our butterhead lettuce.

With regard to the vitamin supplement, we noticed that even though we were doing everything right, somehow our heads of lettuce weren’t as robust and high energy as they should have been. Coincidentally, I felt run down and lethargic so I went to the doctor and she prescribed a vitamin-B supplement.

A week after I started taking the supplement my demeanor improved, my energy level rose, and I started feeling better about myself. Then I flashed on the fact that our lettuce could use a boost of energy. I called Advanced Nutrients, and they suggested feeding our plants B-52.

The natural hormones and vitamins in this product had an immediate beneficial effect. Plant metabolism was raised, the energy level of the lettuce went up, and growth was accelerated. The phytohormones in B-52 are derived from seaweed extracts and humic acid and they help to make our lettuce not only grow faster, but also to become resistant to stress.

B-52 can be applied through the roots in the nutrient solution, but also as a foliar spray. The cytokinins in this product are derived from natural sources and they are augmented by nitrogen based “betaines.” These help cell membrane function and make the plant more adaptable to stress.

Cytokinins are instrumental in the retention of the green color in plants. For a lettuce grower this function is very important, since a bright green head of lettuce sells much faster than a drab, dark green one.

Since many of the beneficial ingredients in B-52 come from the seaweed extract, we started feeding our plants Grandma Enggy’s Seaweed Extract, which has so many natural growth stimulants, vitamins, antibiotics, auxins, and gibberellins that it’s almost like a multi-vitamin plus supplement for our lettuce.

It’s got Vitamin C, two Vitamin A precursors, B1 and B12, as well as Vitamin E and Vitamin K. It also contains natural chelates that aid in the uptake of nutrients. Like B-52 it can be mixed in with our nutrient solution, or applied as a foliar spray.

Our hydroponic lettuce crop is the healthiest, most vigorous produce in the markets where it is sold. It is better than organic.

2006-10-19T15:06:00.000-07:00

Too Much of a Good Thing!

My partner and I started panicking the other day, when during one of our regular inspections we discovered that the roots of our butterhead lettuce plants were clumping together and looking very much like mush covered in brown slime. At first we thought it was root rot, but it had no smell.

Since all our nutrients and additives come from one company, Advanced Nutrients, I immediately called their technical help line to get to the root of the problem (no pun intended). Their suggestion was that in a hydro operation, it is advisable to use Piranha, Tarantula, and Voodoo Juice at half strength, especially if they are used in conjunction with Carbo Load, Liquid or Powder.

The man explained that at full strength in a hydroponic situation the carbohydrates in Carbo Load energize and increase the size of the beneficial fungi, bacteria, and microbe colonies in the above products to such an extent, that it defeats the original purpose—to enhance root functions such as nutrient absorption and resistance to pathogens.

He suggested flushing the system with a mild solution of HyOx (which will kill off about 50% of the microorganisms), then reintroducing the Voodoo Juice only at half-strength. Piranha and Tarantula are too aggressive in certain situations. SensiZym would also help to strengthen the root systems.

He mentioned that if we’re adding Barricade into the mix, we should add it to our pre-mix tank the night before, to give it a chance to dissolve completely. Barricade is highly alkaline, so taking frequent pH readings of the nutrient solution is essential.

Many growers make the mistake of mixing all the ingredients and then taking one reading, thinking that they’ve arrived at the correct pH. Advanced Nutrients suggests that whether you mix in a bucket or a pre-mix tank, like we do, you should take pH readings every half-hour, and you’ll notice how the readings fluctuate for the first while.

Once you get the same pH reading for two or three half-hour periods, then you’ll know that your mixture has settled and it’s ready to be administered to your plants, provided the reading is the level you’re looking for. The proper pH depends on your grow medium. In water, such as our Nutrient Pond, you want your pH at 5.6. If you’re using coco coir as a medium, for instance, your reading should be 6 pH. In soil the ideal reading is 6.3 pH.

The advantage of using Advanced Nutrients pH Up or pH Down, is that you’re getting a pure concentrate that has been configured for you, rather than having to guess how many lemons to squeeze to make your mix more acidic. The competing products on the market are watered down, so they are more costly when you compare them to the concentrates.

I asked what we could do in order to accelerate the growth of our lettuce, and the tech guy discouraged us from using any bloom stimulant, since we definitely do not want our lettuce to start flowering and go to seed. Instead, he suggested using Grandma Enggy’s Seaweed Extract, which contains natural seaweed-derived growth stimulants, as well as the major vitamins needed for plant health.

In addition to B1 (thiamine), B2 (riboflavin), B12, panthothenic, folinic and folic acid, Seaweed Extract also includes vitamin C (ascorbic acid), vitamin E (tocopherol), two vitamin A precursors, and vitamin K. The vitamin E content of seaweed is particularly useful in horticulture, featuring a complete set of isomers. This molecular structure is similar to that found in wheat germ oil.

Seaweed extract can be used in the root zone, or as a foliar spray. Used in the latter fashion, it stimulates metabolic processes in the leaves of our Boston lettuce plants, making leaf-locked nutrients available to the whole plant. Its natural antibiotic properties help our lettuce plants develop resistance not only to mildew and fungi, but also spider mites, aphids, and scab infestations.

He also suggested SensiZym, which we’ve already been using. It not only accelerates growth, but is also well suited to a water-rich vegetable like lettuce. It helps the absorption of water-borne elements necessary for a healthy lettuce plant.

The living organisms in SensiZym have a long shelf-life and they complement the microbes found in Voodoo Juice. These two products work symbiotically, to help create and maintain a healthy root system, which is exactly what we need after our mishap.

This incident has once again reminded Chuck and I that too much of a good thing is not necessarily good for you or for our hydroponically grown lettuce crop. The race is on to produce 400 heads of lettuce each day just a little bit faster, taking 34 instead of 36 days from start to finish. Wish us luck!

2006-10-12T22:52:00.000-07:00

No Cows in Our Greenhouse, Our Lettuce is Pure

I just heard on the radio that the spinach contamination in California was caused by cow manure in the spinach patch. Seems like the cattle ranch is right next to where they grow the spinach. With hydroponic lettuce grown in secure greenhouses, no such problems exist.

What is more worrisome is that there were reports of lettuce crops having been contaminated by the same e-coli bacteria that got to the spinach. It happened in field-grown lettuce in California, but also in some organically grown lettuce in Ontario. This could undermine the public’s belief in the safety of all salad vegetables, so we took some steps.

We made larger signs for our retail outlets, vouching for the purity of our hydroponically-grown Boston lettuce. It seems to be working, the lettuce is selling out, and our buyers are pressuring us for the daily 400 heads, which is our ultimate goal.

We contacted local media outlets and arranged to be interviewed about the e-coli outbreaks. We reassured the viewers or the listeners that our hydroponic lettuce was as safe as the vegetables they grow themselves, probably safer, since we don’t have cats peeing in our vegetable patch.

In order to make sure that our lettuce is resistant to harmful bacteria, we use several different Advanced Nutrient products. Tarantula is a complex blend of 57 different bacterial mico-organisms. When used as a root colonizer, it has 1.4 million colony forming units or CFUs. Tarantula comes in powder form, and it contains the spores of beneficial bacteria, known as Plant Growth Promoting Rhizobacteria or PGPR.

Voodoo Juice is a liquid suspension of five PGPRs, while Piranha is a powder concentrate of beneficial fungal spores. When used together, these products act synergistically, ensuring that many harmful fungi and bacteria don’t get a chance to invade our precious lettuce crop.

Root size is increased, making for bigger heads of lettuce, and nutrient absorption is accelerated, speeding up growth. If we could cut down the time it takes for our lettuce to mature from 36 to 34 days, we could sell an additional 800 heads of lettuce during those two days saved, once we reach our production goal.

Research has shown that beneficial bacteria are most effective when used in tandem with beneficial mycorrhical fungi. 25% more growth was observed when Piranha was used with Tarantula, than with Piranha alone. Add Voodoo Juice to the mix and the symbiotic effect is truly astounding!

There is a fourth product that complements the other three, and that is Advanced Nutrients SensiZym. It is definitely the world’s best agricultural enzyme product. When used in conjunction with Piranha, Tarantula and Voodoo Juice, it accelerates the growth of beneficial microbes, helps our lettuce crop utilize water and water-borne elements better, and promotes rapid growth and high yield.

SensiZym has a shelf life of 18 months and features live ingredients, as opposed to the competitor’s products which have been found to contain inert enzymatic units. It is backed with Advanced Nutrients unparalleled money-back guarantee!

By using Barricade, we make our lettuce plants resistant to pathogens from the inside out. The potassium silicate in this product strengthens the ability or our lettuce plants to transport nutrients in their root cells and it increases cell wall stability. This makes our lettuce resistant to stress, drought, pathogens, and insects.

Silica is a buffering substance that enables plants to successfully deal with potentially toxic levels of pollutants, salts, and minerals. It also helps heal downy mildew, powdery mildew, and botrytis or gray mold.

As an additional step against powdery mildew, which is an insidious fungi that attacks many vegetables, we spray our lettuce with Protector. The potassium bicarbonate in this product alters the pH of our lettuce leaves, making them inhospitable to the fungi. Protector is completely safe and does not contain any harmful chemicals.

In order to induce systemic resistance to all sorts of pathogens in our lettuce, we use Scorpion Juice. It stimulates the innate immune systems of our plants, enabling them to fight off any fungi, viruses, mold, mildew, or tiny parasitic insects. It is the same as “vaccinating” our lettuce plants against a whole array of intruders.

For faster growth and to combat plant stress, we administer Organic B, as well as VitaBoost Pro. The former contains the all-important B vitamins, while the latter is the best multi-vitamin formula designed specifically for plants. It also fights root zone pathogens.

Armed with this assortment of preventative measures, we are certain that our hydroponic lettuce crop is safe from diseases and pests. Our automatic controls make sure that the lighting levels, heating or cooling, humidity, CO2 levels, pH, Electrical Conductivity (EC—often measured by a CF—Conductivity Factor—meter), and the temperature of our Nutrient Pond are just right.

2006-10-04T23:41:00.000-07:00

Seedling to Salad in Five Weeks

Each and every day we sow 500 Boston lettuce seeds in rockwool slabs which are then placed on plastic trays in the grow room. Covered with transparent, plastic lids to keep in the humidity, these trays are also covered with a shade screen for the first 24 hours, to cut down light levels during germination.

About a week later, a selection process takes place, where the weakest seedlings are rejected and those that are uniform in size are all kept. After 12 days, the seedlings are transplanted into the greenhouse.

Our plant nutrient company of choice, Advanced Nutrients, makes perfect products for seedling transplantation. In order to avoid the threat of damping off, their first taste of nutrient solution contains Scorpion Juice, which inoculates the seedlings with Systemic Acquired Resistance (SAR). This acts on the immune system of plants the same way that vaccination does on human immune systems.

Especially useful for farmers who grow from seedlings or cuttings, it fights off and prevents not only damping off, but also powdery mildew, molds, fungi, viruses, and tiny, parasitic insects. It keeps our butterhead lettuce free of disease, unsightly blotches, and other symptoms of destructive pathogens.

During transplantation, we also use Jump Start and No Shock, in order to minimize the impact of being moved on the tiny lettuce plants. Advanced Nutrients ran tests and found that Jump Start, used in greenhouses, increased transplant survival rates significantly, while speeding up growth.

No Shock contains Golden Fulvic acid, root stimulators, key nutrients, and immune boosters. It encourages fast root growth and helps seedlings cope with moisture depletion, injury, and microbes that can harm young plants.

The rockwool slabs are separated into individual seedling cells, which are then placed over holes cut in one inch thick polystyrene boards. These are then floated on top of the nutrient solution at the seedling end of our Nutrient Pond. Our goal is to float 400 new healthy seedlings each day.

Initially, the plants are bunched together, 75 plants per square yard, for ten days. Then they are spaced further from each other, 25 plants per square yard. The first polystyrene boards have 55 rectangular spaced holes, one and a quarter inch in diameter. The second stage boards have 18 rectangular holes, one and a half inch in diameter, to allow for the larger root size and better spacing.

Appropriate amounts of Piranha and Tarantula are added to the nutrient solution at this point. These magic products colonize the root systems of our lettuce plants with beneficial fungi and bacteria, respectively. Not only does this help better nutrient absorption, but it also makes for faster growth and healthier lettuce plants.

Last week I mentioned that we use Piranha as a foliar spray to further inoculate our lettuce plants against many pathogens. My partner and I figure that by using a number of different inoculants, we are sure to prevent the entire gamut of bad microbes that plague greenhouses the world over.

Every day our almost fully automated system takes multiple measurements, such as light intensity, temperature and humidity, CO2 saturation, CF or Conductivity Factor of the dissolved salts and nutrients, and of course, the pH, or acid-alkaline balance of our overall nutrient solution.

If this last balance goes off quilter, the system quickly injects the appropriate amount of pH Up and pH Down, which are scientifically the best products to correct any imbalance in this area. Certain vegetables are especially sensitive to acid-alkaline conditions, and lettuce is no exception.

After seeding, our butterhead lettuce crop takes 36 days to reach the final harvest size of 5.3 ounces or 150g. We used to produce 350 heads of lettuce per day, now we’re boosting production up to 400 heads a day. To do any more than that we would have to increase the size of our Nutrient Pond, which is not economically feasible at this point in time.

Adding Iguana Juice Grow and Bloom to the nutrient mix is having a noticeable, beneficial effect. Our heads of lettuce are more robust and crisp. We ensure that they are free of powdery mildew and other harmful organisms by adding the products mentioned above, but also Protector and Barricade. The first one knocks out powdery mildew, while Barricade establishes further immunity from the inside out.

As a final touch, Sweet Leaf ensures the fine, butterhead taste that our customers have learned to expect. We started boosting production about ten days ago, so we should reap our first increased harvest in about three weeks time.

2006-09-28T11:35:00.000-07:00

Big Push, Mixing Synthetics and Organics

The big push is on—we’re determined to reach our goal of 400 heads of lettuce per day! This spinach scare has increased the demand for our produce, so we are figuring different ways to achieve our goal.

Field based horticulture has its drawbacks and this spinach situation definitely proves that hydroponics is better. They still don’t know where the e-coli bacteria came from, but one possible source mentioned is animal droppings. By growing our lettuce in a secure greenhouse environment, that particular contamination is not a danger for us.

By following strict sanitary and hygienic procedures, we eliminate another possible source of infection, which is through humans. Our staff are required to wash their hands thoroughly before touching any tools or plants in the greenhouse, and we use Advanced Nutrients Wipe Out regularly to clean our rooms and utensils.

Soil horticulture is open to other infestations, such as root nematodes, which can be prevented and treated by using products such as Piranha. The beneficial fungi in this miracle powder colonize the root zone of plants and not only aid in the absorption of vital nutrients, but also help prevent many diseases.

We use Piranha as a foliar spray, to inoculate our lettuce against gray mold, mildew, Pythium, Rhizoctania solani, Fusarium, Sclerotium rolfsii, Sclerotinia homoeocarpa and many other microbes that could devastate our bread and butter crop.

In order to boost our lettuce production, we are using Super Nutrients Super Bud Blaster in alternating cycles with Super Nutrients Ultimate Super Boost. These wonderful products are designed to work synergistically to produce maximum benefits in our lettuce crop.

The experts at Advanced Nutrients believe that if you augment your synthetic regimen with select organic nutrients or boosters, you’ve covered all your bases and have given your plants the best of both worlds. For this reason, we are adding 100% organic Iguana Juice Grow to our reservoir, as well as Colossal Bud Blast to our spray regimen.

Iguana Juice is a fish-based organic fertilizer and the owners of a nearby cucumber growing operation swear that it’s doubled the size of their harvest. Not only has the quantity of their cucumber crop increased tremendously, but the size of their cucumbers has as well, drawing praise from all of their customers.

“Who needs bigger harvests faster?” This is a tag line on the Advanced Nutrients website, which introduces their Overdrive. Although billed as a bloom enhancer, it has certainly increased the pace of the growth of our butterhead lettuce crop, filling our plants with renewed energy.

We’re also using Emerald Shaman, which uses the ancient Oriental technique of providing your plants with fermented nutrients and enzymes, in order to accelerate growth and enhance flavor. It’s full of bioactives that work their green magic on our butterhead crop.

To sweeten our harvests, we are using Carbo Load Liquid and Sweet Leaf in our reservoir aimed at the end of our Nutrient Pond that has the mature lettuce plants. These products give boosts of energy by providing much needed carbs, sugars, and microbes to push our plants to the finish line. Did I mention the enhanced flavor?

Finally, we’re using Grandma Enggy’s Seaweed Extract that helps our lettuce grow faster, resist diseases, and produce bigger harvests. We just started using this 100% organic fertilizer to augment our regular plant food regimen. It blends perfectly with other plant growth products.

We’ll keep you posted as to how our race against the clock is going. Gotta get that fresh lettuce on the plates of the spinach-starved multitudes!

2006-09-21T17:17:00.000-07:00

Scared of Spinach? Eat Butterhead!

It’s funny how certain events in the marketplace influence the marketability of some products. I’m thinking of this recent e-coli scare with regard to spinach. As soon as the supermarkets that we supply with Boston lettuce found that they had to take spinach off their shelves, they turned to us, begging for more lettuce.

Now I know that there are many people who have salad every day, but I didn’t realize that in their minds spinach and butterhead lettuce were interchangeable. I should have known that they weren’t going to forget about their passion for crunching on such a healthy, vigorous food as salad greens, just because spinach was temporarily unavailable.

Chuck and I stuck our heads together—our task was to figure out how to increase our daily quota of 350 heads of lettuce. We decided to call the experts at Advanced Nutrients. A plant scientist who works for that company suggested that we add Super Nutrients Super Bud Blaster to our regular regimen of Grow, Micro, and Bloom.

The super nutrients in Super Bud Blaster are a proprietary mixture of powerful plant foods, minerals, and vitamins that are configured for easy absorption during the completion phase of our crop cycle. It not only creates tastier fruits and vegetables, but it also speeds up their growth, enabling us to harvest some lettuce ahead of time.

Which is exactly what we need now. We’re also floating more seedlings on our Nutrient Pond than ever before, attempting to eventually raise our quota to 400 per day, without having to hire any extra help. The four of us working on it have to put in extra effort, but it’s worth it if it pleases our customers.

The slogan “88 reasons you’ll get larger harvests faster” caught my eye on the Advanced Nutrients website, so I ordered some SensiZym to add to our nutrients solution. Its array of eighty-eight different enzymes are biological catalysts to supply life energy to our lettuce plants, enabling them to grow faster and better.

Since Advanced Nutrients firmly believes that mixing synthetic and organic plant nutrients is the way of the future, we also added Mother Earth Blended Organic Super Tea Grow to our reservoir. It can be used in conjunction with other plant nutrients to provide the missing elements needed for strong, sustained vegetative growth.

We’re also using Wet Betty Organic not just because we like the picture on the container, but also because its growth stimulators pass quickly into roots and leaves for that extra kick that will help to increase our production of quality lettuce.

I’m glad to report that although we just started this new regimen about a week ago, when the spinach scare first hit the headlines, we’re starting to deliver more product to our customers on a daily basis. Of course the Sensi Cal Mg Mix Grow is a major part of our feeding regimen, since lettuce requires more calcium in order to produce crunchy and flavourful leaves.

You must know that this miracle product not only contains calcium and magnesium, but the wise plant scientists at Advanced Nutrients mixed these two vital nutrients in direct proportion with all the other micronutrients necessary to produce robust and zingy vegetables.

Sensi Cal Mg Mix also contains Nitrogen (N), Iron (Fe), Manganese (Mn), Zinc (Zn), Copper (Cu), Boron (B), Molybdenum (Mo), and Cobalt (Co). You only need one to two teaspoons per gallon of nutrient solution. In our experience, this product is far superior to those made by their competition, since none of them is as inclusive and helpful as Sensi Cal Grow.

2006-09-16T18:03:00.000-07:00

Running a Cost-effective Greenhouse

The trick to making a hydroponic greenhouse cost-effective is how well you control the lighting. During the summer months, sunlight has to be your chief source of light, and the supplemental lighting system—which in our case consists of 45 600W High Pressure Sodium lights—will only get turned on when needed.

In the case of Cornell University’s Controlled Environmental Agricultural facility (CEA) in upstate New York, professor Louis Albright designed their lighting system. His research indicated that lettuce plants require precisely 17 mols of photosynthetically active radiation (PAR) per square meter, per day.

Since they use a bank of 144 lights, they opted for water-cooled light fixtures, to reduce the emitted infrared radiation, otherwise known as heat. Our space is smaller and we use fewer lights, so we achieve the cooling with fans and an evaporative cooling pad, when the sunlight gets too hot.

Since we know that a 600W High Pressure Sodium bulb emits 90,000 lumens 1 foot away, 22,500 lumens 2 feet away, 9,999 lumens 3 feet away, and 6,428 lumens 4 feet away, the computer does the appropriate calculations to figure out how high the lights have to be situated above the Nutrient Pond surface in order to provide the optimum level of PAR per day.

Given enough fans, we can cool the air between the lights and the lettuce plants adequately, without having to water cool the lights. Also, our lights are on tracks so they can be raised or lowered, or moved to the side on intensely sunny days, to keep them from casting a shadow on our growing lettuce crop.

Photo sensitive cells measure the sunlight as well as the artificial light and just like a good digital camera, the computer figures out how much fill light is necessary to bring the intensity of light to the desired level each hour.

The same precise measurements are taken each hour in our nutrient solution, which primarily consists of Advanced Nutrients Grow, Micro, and Bloom, as well as other ingredients to help produce healthy, robust vegetables, such as Sensi Cal, Piranha, Tarantula, and Voodoo Juice.

The first one mentioned boosts the level of calcium required by lettuce, while the latter three strengthen the roots by colonizing them with beneficial fungi, bacteria, and other microbes. Voodoo Juice stimulates root growth and it contains Gibberellins, which create natural growth-enhancing hormones.

If the pH of the solution deviates from the desired 6.5 to 7.0, the system automatically adds the required amount of Advanced Nutrients pH Up or pH Down, depending on the circumstance. The temperature of the solution should be between 60º to 65º F (15º to 18º C) at all times, since lettuce grows best at these temperatures.

If the temperature of the solution drops below these numbers, a system of pipes circulate warm water to bring it up. If it dips below these numbers, the pipes circulate cold water to bring it down.

The crop of lettuce constantly moves from one end of the Nutrient Pond to the other, with the young seedlings at one end, and the ready to harvest mature plants at the other. In this way our hydroponic greenhouse can produce 350 heads of butterhead or Boston lettuce each and every day.

Aside from Chuck and I, we only have two other part time employees. Since most every step is computerized, our need to pay salaries has been minimized, thus making the whole operation that much more cost-effective.

2006-09-08T10:41:00.000-07:00

Growing lettuce hydroponically was my partner’s idea. We’ve been buddies ever since high school and he was always the visionary. My talents are more on the practical side.

He started off by researching the market for lettuce in our area, and realized that butterhead or Boston lettuce was in high demand, had to be shipped in from California, and that small, independent supermarket chains were open to the idea of a local grower supplying their needs.

We decided on greenhouse production. Our inspiration was the Cornell University Controlled Environment Agriculture (CEA) experiment, where 1,000 heads of lettuce are produced daily in a huge greenhouse, year round.

We didn’t have a half-a-million needed to start up a project on that scale, so we compromised. The weather in our neck of the woods isn’t as severe as that of upstate New York, so instead of 4mm thick tempered glass, our greenhouse is covered with transparent plastic.

Instead of 144--600W High Pressure Sodium lights, we installed 45. Instead of 9,000 square feet, our greenhouse measures only 3,000. But the principle is the same—to continuously produce 350 quality, uniform butterhead lettuce each day, with a largely computer-run operation.

The same as Cornell, we decided against the Nutrient Film Technique of hydroponic growing, recognizing its numerous shortcomings. We researched the PVC pipe arrangement, utilized by many lettuce producers, but found it wanting. So we went with the Nutrient Pond solution, utilized by Cornell, where ten inches of nutrient solution are constantly recirculated by a system of pumps and PVC pipes.

After considerable research, we decided on Grow, Micro, and Bloom, made by the Advanced Nutrients company, as our main lettuce-food of choice. Their track record of using a team of first-class plant scientists to formulate their nutrients is only surpassed by the quality and quantity of the yield that their products help produce.
Advanced Nutrients offered us unlimited technical support and extremely valuable advice. For instance, they told us that lettuce needs more calcium than some other vegetables, so they advised us to use Sensi Cal, to increase the rate of CO2 and nutrient uptake, for better vegetative growth.

We use several CO2 burners in the greenhouse to maintain optimum levels of this vital ingredient for optimum yields. We also use Voodoo Juice, in tandem with Piranha and Tarantula, all Advanced Nutrients products designed to build healthy root systems for our lettuce, by colonizing them with beneficial microbes, bacteria, and fungi. Using these products has perked up our lettuce production and has saved us time and money.

During the seedling and transplanting stage, we use Advanced Nutrients No Shock to cut down on wilting and root damage during this vital process. Later, we administer Organic B, a B-vitamin formula for better growth and yield, and Wet Betty Organic, which is a plant strengthener and “surfactant,” that helps make our Boston lettuce crop larger and healthier.

My partner’s name is Chuck, and I’m Silvio. We’ve been doing this now for five years and the quality and quantity of the lettuce we produce gets better and better, largely thanks to the miracle products made by Advanced Nutrients. We look forward to sharing some more of our “secrets” in future postings.