2018 - The Farm

Well, I've been gone a few years from the board, and away from growing peppers, but looks like life is pushing me back that way again. 
 
I recently (last month) closed on a 25 acre farm in Central Illinois with some primo soil, and I'm going to give a commercial grow a test run. 
 

 

 
From up on the roof, when I was doing some roof repairs on the outbuildings. Not much as far as the eye can see, but cornfields...
 

 
 
Has a 4 stall garage and a horse stable on the property
 

 

 

 
Probably do my grow room upstairs here after I insulate it
 

 
Built some doors for the horse barn and patched the roof last month
 

 

 
 
Anyway just dropped a cold grand on seeds from pepperlover and buckeye, going to hit a greenhouse supplier up for other materials next week.
 
Have plans to build a 30x72' greenhouse in the spring, and a ~1200 sq foot dedicated grow room. Too late really to help with this year's grow, but next year it'll save me a lot of hassle on hardening off. 
 
The greenhouse, I am going to do a piped infloor heat slab, with a horizontal loop geothermal system (I own a mini excavator) that is solar powered. So heating should be nice, uniform, not create heat / cold bubbles, and not dry out plants like forced air would. I build circuit boards in my day job, so I will also build a microcontroller to handle the automated watering system with soil moisture monitors and actuated plumbing valves on the water supply.
 
Also plan on building a "deep winter" greenhouse for year round production. Got blueprints I made from a couple of years back, those are walled on three sides with heavy duty insulation, with the glass wall side angled to face winter solstice, so you can grow in the deep freeze months of the north. In the summer, those get hot enough to use as a natural dehydrator, replace the tables with racks for bulk drying.
 
Only doing a half acre or so of peppers to start with this year, the balance will be put in corn. I can't manage more than that with the labor I have available. (When you start talking thousands of plants, simple tasks like up-potting grow in to hundreds or thousands of man hours...)
 
Going to hire some local kids to help, school has a good ag co-op program for high schoolers, they can get school credit working on local farms. Since the plant out and harvest doesn't conflict too badly with corn, shouldn't have a problem finding labor around here.
 
Anyway, that's the plans.
 
We'll see how it goes.. er.. grows.
 

 

[Chilidude]

Good good, but remember..The more simple things are, the better the end result usually is...Like in food making.

 

[TrentL]

Good good, but remember..The more simple things are, the better the end result usually is...Like in food making.

 
In this case, it spreads risk.
 
If I have a fatal soil mix, I lose 20% of the crop, or whatever.
 
The early tests were done to make sure I didn't have a fully lethal problem. Which I did; if I'd gone ahead with the original soil mix on everything, I would have lost it all!
 
Bottom soaking 4" pots with seedlings, containing dry organic fertilizers, proved fatal. 100% fatal.
 
I might (probably, almost certainly will) be able to get away with bottom soaking after the plants are established. But they need to be using up about 3-4oz of water every single day before I try it.  Right now I doubt they're using a teaspoon a day, though. So a bottom soak that adds 5-6 oz of water is lethal. They just can't use it fast enough, it mildews, and it kills the plants.
 
An initial relatively dry mix is proving great - no problems so far. I inoculated with 1 oz of myco tonight and that should get the ball rolling on beneficial bacteria and fungus. (Great white has something like 32 different healthy organisms in it).  It's expensive but a little goes a long way. By the time I start watering them any decent quantities that initial colonization should be in pretty good shape, breaking down the dry organic fertilizers in to stuff the plants can use.
 
Hopefully they take off this time. Getting WAY too close to go time on production pot-up to be dicking around with soil mixes that kill my plants.
 
I was hoping to have soil mixes down to 2 or 3 good candidates at this point, off the experimental trays. Instead I get reset to a blank chalkboard a week before production potting up starts. 
 
So I have no choice but to split risk between a bunch of different mixes. Not having ANY clue which one will work out best, I just have to shotgun the whole damn thing. I don't want to overshoot the ferts; that's bad, I can't take them away. But I also don't want to have to start buying liquid nutes in 55 gallon drums just to get to plant-out.
 
 
 
 

 

[Chilidude]

I have tried various soil mixed to grow my chilis in 6 years and had poor results pretty much everytime i used them. Finally found the one that works great for me and that was the coco coir, so no more dicking around with crappy soil mixes that dont work for me.

 

[TrentL]

Well like I said I want to get a mix that'll get me out to the 7-8 week mark without having to rely on liquid nutes to prop them up. The faster the initial mix is depleted, the more I'll have to spend on time and $$$$ to keep them alive until they hit the field.
 
I don't have the field soil tests done yet (still too wet to take samples) - I'd rather put $$$ in to the field amendments if I can. 
 
Of course if the field tests look like crap, I'll probably be buying those 55 gal drums of liquid nutes anyway lol.
 
Which reminds me I need to get a permit from the county to expand the access road so I can get a 53' semi in to the property. The existing access road is too narrow and I have to drive my skid loader out to the highway to offload stuff.
 
Work never ends. 
 
 

 

[Chilidude]

Looking at your field pictures, the soil looks to be composed mainly from silt loam?

 

[TrentL]

Yes.. quality totally depends on which part of the field.. but it's all silt loam.
 
4.55 acres are Elburn Silt Loam, 6.18 acres is Denny Silt Loam (that's not as productive), .55 acres is Sable silty clay loam, 3.35 is Shiloh silty clay loam, and the balance of the 26 acres is Plano silt loam. The only part of the field that's not good is the Denny Silt Loam; the south end of the field tends to pond up on wet years. But that leaves me with 20 acres to use for peppers. 
 
I'll be growing the peppers out on the Plano silt loam this year. 
 
 
 

 

[Chilidude]

Yes.. quality totally depends on which part of the field.. but it's all silt loam.
 
4.55 acres are Elburn Silt Loam, 3.37 acres are Plano Silt Loam, 6.18 acres is Denny Silt Loam (that's not as productive), .55 acres is Sable silty clay loam, and the balance of the 26 acres is Plano silt loam. The only part of the field that's not good is the Denny Silt Loam; the south end of the field tends to pond up on wet years. But that leaves me with 20 acres to use for peppers. 
 
I'll be growing the peppers out on the Plano silt loam this year. 
 
 
 

 
Good thanks, now my next advise is to make the silt loam very good stuff for growing chilis...Get your tractors and whatever machines you have and get them in the intended chili growing area of the field and blow/mix some of that 100% coco coir with the silt loam using your machinery.
 
The best growing areas we have in Finland consist mostly from the very same silt loam mixed with all the dry/wet plant material the farmers have left in the fields to compost over the course of hundreds of years of farming the lands.
 

 

[TrentL]

It'll take years to get the field to the point I want it. It's been row cropped for decades, all soybeans and corn. Massive use of chemical fertilizers, pesticides, and herbicides in this area. 
 
I'm less worried about the soil, though, than I am some jackass doing a post-planting spray nearby. One sniff of dicamba or 2,4-d and I'm wiped out.
 
 

 

[Chilidude]

It'll take years to get the field to the point I want it. It's been row cropped for decades, all soybeans and corn. Massive use of chemical fertilizers, pesticides, and herbicides in this area. 
 
I'm less worried about the soil, though, than I am some jackass doing a post-planting spray nearby. One sniff of dicamba or 2,4-d and I'm wiped out.
 
 

 
But you could do a growing test in the spring using a single bigger chili plant in a pot mixed with some of that field silt loam+100% coco coir to see how well it grows...

 

[TrentL]

The field will get plenty of coir in it over the next decade as I plant out stuff.
 
Cover crop will be interesting this fall, did a little research on different options there but nothing too serious yet, got plenty of time.
 
 

 

[Chilidude]

The field will get plenty of coir in it over the next decade as I plant out stuff.
 
Cover crop will be interesting this fall, did a little research on different options there but nothing too serious yet, got plenty of time.
 
 

 
Yes, but that coco coir stuff all over the place and when you perhaps one day have had enough of your farmers life, you can sell the fields with double the money because you can then say, that the land is full of that coco coir goodless and you cant sell the fields any less than double the money.

 

[PtMD989]

How far from the property line is the spot you picked out to plant your plants? What direction is the prevailing wind from? The farmers I know won’t spray on really windy days. They like to keep the herbicides and pesticides on their crops. The early herbicide spraying is usually done before it’s warm enough to plant outside. Hopefully they get that done before you get your crops in. Hopefully the wind is in your favor and the spray won’t reach your crops.


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[TrentL]

Oh shit. I think my potting soil mix is using too much dry fert. 
 
I potted up some healthy looking seedlings last night and this evening they cotys are already full yellow and the leaves are a light green, and cupping upward. Others have leaves turning full purple already. (And it's not the lights; they've lived under the same exact light for the last two weeks...)
 
That's a hell of a rapid response in 24 hours.... 
 
I staggered the ratios in the mixes. The one with 1/2 the amount of dry fertilizer appears to be doing much better. Not as much yellowing. The 3/4 fertilizer are mixed, some yellowing, some not.
 
Going to be interesting to see how these batches pan out over the next few weeks.
 
 

 

[TrentL]

Oh duh. I had my numbers backwards.
 
F1 was half strength nutes. They are nearly all yellow; both cotys and true leaves. They look horribly nitrogen starved.
 
I skipped F2 (it was same as F1, except cut trace nutes out completely), and went to F3 which was 3/4 on blood & bone meal and 1/2 the trace nutes. The cotys are yellow and the true leaves are half yellow.
 
E1-3 had full strength nutes and they are fine. Except for the one where I eliminated kelp meal. Some of those have yellowing. Seems kelp meal offers some immediately accessible nitrogen that blood meal doesn't.
 
 

 

[TrentL]

Figured since those mixes failed, I'd give 'em a little fish emulsion tonight.
 
Any of y'all ever opened up a 5 gallon bucket of fish emulsion before?
 
Oh MAN that is rank. I just about threw up. Blech.
 
Anyway here's the failed ones after 24 hours. Lots of yellowing.
 

 
Surprised at how quickly they went south after being transplanted. No available nitrogen.
 
Gave 'em a drink of fish emulsion, will see how they react.
 
All of the transplanted ladies got tags today. Has their name, starting tray, and soil mix on it.
 
Like dog tags. 
 
But for plants.
 

 
I have 200 ready to go out to the farm whenever those damn lights show up.
 

 
 

 

[Chilidude]

Is it just me, but coco coir mixes seems to be very hard to control with dry fertilizers etc. and the best way is to give them liquid fertilizers instead.

 

[karoo]

Is it just me, but coco coir mixes seems to be very hard to control with dry fertilizers etc. and the best way is to give them liquid fertilizers instead.

definitely , 
I start with coco coir/fine homemade compost , 50/50 , and that is good for the first 2 months , no ferts needed. 
After that just some fluid ferts from the bottom.

 

[TrentL]

I won't have readily available compost until next year, nothing at the farm I can start it off with. And only then, if I don't have any diseases pop up on the crop. (Septoria / etc)
 
Manure is available but I also worry about that, as it's a way to introduce e. coli / etc if the supplier hasn't treated it properly. That's an easy way to find yourself at the tail end of a nasty lawsuit, get that introduced in to your produce....
 
Pretty much stuck at "coir + {whatever I can order}" which essentially has boiled down to fish bone meal, blood meal, kelp meal, worm castings, azomite, fish emulsion, etc.  Plus starter fungi/bacteria solutions to get the ball rolling on the proper micro organisms.
 
Next year hopefully I can integrate compost and proper manure (once I find a supply I can implicitly trust that isn't potentially tainted with e.coli / etc.)
 
 

 

[TrentL]

Well it's not looking good on those first few batches of plants. By the time I discovered there was a problem, the roots were mostly gone. I've got 60+ (quit counting) with leaf drop and wilting, now. 

There's a SMALL chance they might rebound, I do see some tiny, healthy true leaves - the newest ones are the strongest, the older ones are dropping off - but I'm not holding out hope that they will. Not after seeing the roots when I re-potted them. 

Growing seedlings in the basement means that the kelp meal / fish bone meal / blood meal / fish emulsion smell gets picked up by the furnace intake and is piped directly through the house. This has been noticed by She Who Must Be Obeyed, and the children. The house pretty much smells like the shore of a river right now. And I don't mean that in a good way.

I'll take some pictures tonight of the casualties. 

I haven't noticed anything "hopeful" about the fish emulsion run last night. Nothing has changed; I don't think there has been sufficient time to break any of it down in to plant-usable form, nor do I think the populations of microorganisms are sufficient to do it fast enough to make a difference. 

Short of resorting to fast acting chemical fertilizers, I don't think there's any hope for the first hundred or so transplants. 

But, an experiment is an experiment, and failure is a useful thing. 

I might segregate a few of the "looks completely doomed" plants to hit with some chemical fertilizer just to see if it saves them, vs. the fully organic ones. 
 
 

 

[Genetikx]

Hard to tell... You still on track to have the amount of plants you were planning on at plant out?