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.
 

 

[TrentL]

Other 10 remaining lights are in a shipping container in the port of LA, waiting to get through customs backlog.
 
So I should be 20 for 30 tomorrow.
 
That'll be enough to get me rolling.
 
Going to pot up a whole mess of plants after this hockey game is over. More pics later! Chinense grow slow. But I've got some tomatoes growing fast finally!
 

 

[PtMD989]

Sounds like you’re getting closer to your “Eureka Mix” [emoji846][emoji106]


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[PeriPeri]

Trent buddy, things are looking up! Glad to see seedlings are coming right and growing nicely. Holding thumbs on the lights, I am sure they will arrive. Otherwise, I suggest you take that tractor of yours and take some of that fishy potting soil and dump it at the PO's front door

 

[TrentL]

Daaaaamn all of the seeds showed up today in the mailbox. Many, many thanks, my friends! I will get these in to trays ASAP!
 

 
 
Passive Hydro, right, Mix M, left. Mix M passed hydro in 3 days, however, Mix M is showing signs of stretching. I believe this to be calmag deficiency - this stretching (see below for more on that). Hydro is reaching the 1 week point today - they'll get another shot of Nitrogen tonight, so they might sprint past Mix M again. (Schedule I have the passive hydro on is 12-0-0 1ml / L on Wednesdays, 1-2-2 1ml/L on Fridays, Cal Mag 1ml/L on Sundays, seems to be doing pretty good after 1 week.)
 

 
Maters hydro center, the failed Mix J to the left of them; Mix J got re-potted to mix M last night, hopefully in time to save them, bad root burn on Mix J (especially J1/J2)
 

 
 
Passive Hydro (center) versus the failed Mix J and L (left and right, respectively), on Yellow Fatalii and Big Sun Habaneros.
 
I *definitely* made the right call using passive hydro as benchmark. (Hydro is dry on the surface, but soaked under; they get 12-0-0 again tonight)
 

 
 
Wife stayed up late with me last night after the baby went to bed, to help me tag and clean and pot-up seedlings to Mix M.
 

 

 
 
We consolidated trays, removing any 4-cell pieces that didn't sprout (there were many, from the Buckeye and Pepperlover order). Also potted up a lot which had true leaves and 3/4 empty cells, to try to consolidate further.
 
Ended up removing 5 entire trays by the time that was done, which freed up quite a bit of room. I have a bunch of annuums that should be hooking today or tomorrow.
 

 
Maters are looking good in Mix M. I think they like it a little more than the peppers.
 

 
 
Peppers are digging it too. When I de-potted one to look at roots last night, the root growth if phenomenal. Not a lot happening "up top" yet but man, they're growing roots like CRAZY.
 

 
 
 
But I also think peppers need a decent dose of cal-mag and a teensy dose of phosphorous.
 
5 days ago I did a little test in one of the starter trays, on yellow fatalli. I gave a 1/2 ounce shot of 1-2-2 hydroponic fertilizer to one cell, and threw an old mini bell orange tag in the cell to ID it. A day later, I gave another cell a 1 ounce dose of Cal Mag booster. The results were interesting.
 
BOTH seedlings 'stretched'. This means calmag is holding back growth, but so is phosphorous. (Nitrogen is available on the coir thanks to the coir getting digested by bacteria now, but phosphorous is absent). Since both stretched, it means that each individual nutrient (calmag on one, a small dose of NPK on the other) are holding back growth.
 
Meanwhile, the hydro control cell shows what they plants *could* be at, by comparison (which is impressively larger than the seedling trays now, after 7 days).
 
What this is telling me is important:
When growing in strait 100% coir, at the emergence of first true leaves, a 1ml/L dose of Cal Mag and a weak 1 ml/L dose of 1-2-2 would ramp up rate of growth substantially.
 
I will use this to my advantage in subsequent trays that sprout. (Actually, have several dupe trays I can do a control on, planted same day, which would make for an interesting experiment.)
 
 
Cal Mag left (with the bare 12 ga copper wire as a marker), untreated seedling right
 

 

 
Now keep in mind NO NPK was added to that one. It's still 100% coir and the only change was a cal-mag dose 5 days ago. It's substantially larger than the others now.
 
Similar results on 1-2-2 - the plant "stretched", just as it did with the Cal Mag which indicates it is abundant on one nutrient it was short on, but lacking on another.  In this case, insufficient phosphorus. The cell with the old mini bell orange tag is the one which received 1 oz of 1-2-2 7 days ago. The others are untreated.
 

 
 
 
Yellow fatalli which got *both* is top center for point of comparison;
 

 
 
Anyway it's clear that the starter trays are holding plants back after the emergence of first true leaves, quite substantially. I could have plants double the size I currently have, if I'd given them a dose of cal mag and 1-2-2 a week ago!
 
That's worthy of a log entry, for sure!
 

 

[Chilidude]

Hey TrentL, do you have any experience about using epsom salt for plants?
 
I ordered 5kg of epsom salt to mix some of that with the fertilizer mixture, to give the chilis a nice boost of much needed minerals during the summer time.

 

[TrentL]

Hey TrentL, do you have any experience about using epsom salt for plants?
 
I ordered 5kg of epsom salt to mix some of that with the fertilizer mixture, to give the chilis a nice boost of much needed minerals during the summer time.

 
Nope.
 
I don't know if it'll do you any good if you are already liquid fertilizing. Might help if you have a sulfur deficiency, but they don't need too much sulfur.
 
If you're already doing CalMag (which you probably need to, with a Coir grow), would probably be better to do a sulfur only thing? 
 
Then again, magnesium is one of those things you can't really OD a plant with, phosphorous naturally blocks excess magnesium uptake. (That's how I differentiated in that side by side above for 1-2-2 vs. CalMag vs. combined, to identify that seedlings in 100% coir have calcium, magnesium, AND phosphorous deficiencies)

 

[Chilidude]

 
Nope.
 
I don't know if it'll do you any good if you are already liquid fertilizing. Might help if you have a sulfur deficiency, but they don't need too much sulfur.
 
If you're already doing CalMag (which you probably need to, with a Coir grow), would probably be better to do a sulfur only thing? 
 
Then again, magnesium is one of those things you can't really OD a plant with, phosphorous naturally blocks excess magnesium uptake. (That's how I differentiated in that side by side above for 1-2-2 vs. CalMag vs. combined, to identify that seedlings in 100% coir have calcium, magnesium, AND phosphorous deficiencies)

 
Never have used calmag in my coco coir growing, only the 2 component fertilizers and nothing else. I was thinking of trying the epsom salt about 0,5-1 teaspoon/10 litres of water combined with my usual liquid fertilizer dosage with ghe floramicro/floramato.
 
There are several articles about using that stuff for tomato/chilis to increase grow, harvest and ripening speed(this part i like the best). I dont think it can hurt to use it in the spring/growing season and it is really cheap too.

 

[Edmick]

I used Epsom salt on my plants last year. Hard to say if it helped. My plants did great though. Was my first year using only worm castings, kelp and Epsom salt so it's hard to say which one was responsible for them doing so good. I added the Epsom salt to my watering though and from what I understand, it works better as a foliar spray. I'll do some with it and some without it this year to see if I notice any difference.

 

[Chilidude]

I used Epsom salt on my plants last year. Hard to say if it helped. My plants did great though. Was my first year using only worm castings, kelp and Epsom salt so it's hard to say which one was responsible for them doing so good. I added the Epsom salt to my watering though and from what I understand, it works better as a foliar spray. I'll do some with it and some without it this year to see if I notice any difference.

 
 
 
"Epsom salt is many vegetable grower's best friend, particularly those partial to peppers and tomatoes, which commonly suffer from Magnesium deficiency.

Magnesium deficiency is characterised by yellowing between the leaf veins and also causes stunted growth. Evenly yellowing leaves is a sign of sulphur deficiency and both these problems can quickly be solved with a foliar spraying of Epsom Salts.

Magnesium Sulphate is not just good for these common deficiencies; it encourages the uptake of other trace elements, such as nitrogen, commonly deficient in overwatered plants. Signs of nitrogen deficiency are the yellowing of outer leaves and stunted growth.

Epsom Salts encourages chlorophyl production thus improving the growth and overall health of the plant."
 
In the light of this new found knowledge, i will start using light dosages of epsom salt in my chili growing. Coco coir likes to storage that magnesium like a madman and not give it up very easy for the plants.

 

[MikeUSMC]

I love that coffee cup

 

[Edmick]

 
 
 
"Epsom salt is many vegetable grower's best friend, particularly those partial to peppers and tomatoes, which commonly suffer from Magnesium deficiency.

Magnesium deficiency is characterised by yellowing between the leaf veins and also causes stunted growth. Evenly yellowing leaves is a sign of sulphur deficiency and both these problems can quickly be solved with a foliar spraying of Epsom Salts.

Magnesium Sulphate is not just good for these common deficiencies; it encourages the uptake of other trace elements, such as nitrogen, commonly deficient in overwatered plants. Signs of nitrogen deficiency are the yellowing of outer leaves and stunted growth.

Epsom Salts encourages chlorophyl production thus improving the growth and overall health of the plant."
 
In the light of this new found knowledge, i will start using light dosages of epsom salt in my chili growing. Coco coir likes to storage that magnesium like a madman and not give it up very easy for the plants.

I used it at 1 tablespoon per gallon of water. Like I said, my plants did really well last year so maybe it helped. There are some people out there that say it does nothing. I dunno. But it's cheap and it can't hurt so why not..

 

[Chilidude]

I used it at 1 tablespoon per gallon of water. Like I said, my plants did really well last year so maybe it helped. There are some people out there that say it does nothing. I dunno. But it's cheap and it can't hurt so why not..

 

I was thinking of using only 0.5-1 teaspoon per 10 litres of water to give slight boost to the plants and i have never used it myself, so that makes it a interesting test for me to see if it makes any difference..

 

[TrentL]

I used it at 1 tablespoon per gallon of water. Like I said, my plants did really well last year so maybe it helped. There are some people out there that say it does nothing. I dunno. But it's cheap and it can't hurt so why not..

 
Well the plants will get sulfur from the worm castings (more than enough there for them), and I'm going to give them doses of Cal Mag to straighten out the deficiencies with calcium and magnesium. Not sure where adding another fertilizer with sulfur and magnesium would contribute. Too much sulfur can be dangerous. Too much magnesium, no big deal, as long as there's available phosphorus the plants won't overdose on mag.
 
Do you know if Epsom Salt changes pH at all? 
 
I know sulfur will lower pH, but don't know if the compounds in epsom salt would have that affect. 
 
I've found that coir can be *pretty* frigging sensitive to pH changes, at this point. So anything I do I want to make sure isn't gonna throw that out of balance. Lost 200 plants this year to pH problems, and an unknown number of seedlings.

 

[Chilidude]

Epsom salt can be used as a foliar spray, so you can use it without adding it to the soil.
 
 
Using epsom salt in the soil doest seem to do much of anything to move the ph up or down:
http://homeguides.sfgate.com/adding-epsom-salts-make-soil-acidic-80230.html

 

[Edmick]

 
Well the plants will get sulfur from the worm castings (more than enough there for them), and I'm going to give them doses of Cal Mag to straighten out the deficiencies with calcium and magnesium. Not sure where adding another fertilizer with sulfur and magnesium would contribute. Too much sulfur can be dangerous. Too much magnesium, no big deal, as long as there's available phosphorus the plants won't overdose on mag.
 
Do you know if Epsom Salt changes pH at all? 
 
I know sulfur will lower pH, but don't know if the compounds in epsom salt would have that affect. 
 
I've found that coir can be *pretty* frigging sensitive to pH changes, at this point. So anything I do I want to make sure isn't gonna throw that out of balance. Lost 200 plants this year to pH problems, and an unknown number of seedlings.

Not sure about the ph.. I've never really messed with the ph of my plants. I'll probably worry more about it this year since i'm growing for profit and trying for optimal conditions but my tap water comes in at 7.0 even and have always used potting soil with the proper ph but since i'm making my own mixes this year, i'll probably need to invest in a ph meter at some point.
 
Edit: I just looked it up and Epsom salt is Ph neutral and won't alter soil Ph.

 

[Chilidude]

Tomato plant test with the epsom salt:

If it has such an effect with a tomato plant, sure as heck it will work for chilis too.
 
Test with chilis:

It seems that very little is needed of that epsom salt to make it effective, so that is why i am planning to use it very sparingly during the season in every watering session.

 

[TrentL]

Well, I'm official with the State now.
 

 

 
Got 20 of the 30 lights in FINALLY. Got a couple hung this afternoon.
 

 

 

 
Will be going over to hang the others tomorrow, back was killing me today. Slipped getting in to my skid loader and tweaked something in my lower back.
 
 

 

[PeriPeri]

Wow - mighty impressive! That way of thinking will sadly probably only come to Africa in 4057!

 

[Edmick]

Here's a little peek at what I'm doin trent. This is only a fraction of the trays I have going right now but this is where they'll spend a day or two til I get them outside. My temps are beautiful and in the 70s so theres no reason to keep them inside too long. I only keep them inside long enogh to give the slower germinating seeds the benefit of the heat and humidity i have going in the room. I keep the temp in the room at 90 degrees and run a humidifier and I'm having excellent germination rates and speeds. I really didn't want to spend so much money on heat mats and humidity domes so I turned the whole room into a humidity dome! Lol it sucks working in the room though. Hot and humid!

 

[TrentL]

Here's a little peek at what I'm doin trent. This is only a fraction of the trays I have going right now but this is where they'll spend a day or two til I get them outside. My temps are beautiful and in the 70s so theres no reason to keep them inside too long. I only keep them inside long enogh to give the slower germinating seeds the benefit of the heat and humidity i have going in the room. I keep the temp in the room at 90 degrees and run a humidifier and I'm having excellent germination rates and speeds. I really didn't want to spend so much money on heat mats and humidity domes so I turned the whole room into a humidity dome! Lol it sucks working in the room though. Hot and humid!

 
Hell yeah brother, that's a great setup! I wish I had just a WEE bit more room, my hips don't fit between my tables in the sprouting room and I have to turn sideways to kneel down under the tables to water the trays underneath. It's... frigging crowded in here!
 
In completely unrelated news to my hip size (which is 32, or 34 with the Glock on)... one of the girls in the house (not sure which teenage daughter), stacked a girl shirt on my pile of clothes in the laundry room, so I had to embarrass myself by walking around in the house with it on for a while.
 

 
Great look isn't it! I thought so.
 
Moving along... 
 
I got 4 trays of Amish Paste in the starter trays tonight, along with 4 trays of Turkish Cayenne (trays 52-55). Presently have 42 sprouting trays in this 13x13 room. Busting at the seams, but a lot of it will be moving out soon to the farm.
 
Speaking of stuff going to the farm, I'm *not* looking forward to getting up at dawn and jumping in a cold truck every day to go turn on lights, fans, and check if anything needs watered. 
 
 
Tests and experiments...
 
Group L (old mix that I repotted) has some REALLY nasty looking purple spots developing on the leaves, acute phosphorus deficiency. I pre-emptively hit all old mixes with pH balanced (via phosphoric acid) liquid bone meal (learned my lesson on that pH sh*t!). 1 oz each of 1tsp/half gal mix.
 
Left 3 rows of group M tomatoes also got 1 oz, same dilution.
 
ALL group M plants, older group J/L, and survivors from other older groups got Cal Mag, 2 oz, 1/4 tsp / half gal. Every last one of the peppers was showing magnesium deficiency (leaves cupping upwards). Amazingly 8 hours after the dose, about half had already flattened out their leaves! Nailed that problem RIGHT on the damn head.
 
ALL group M1 plants got myco tonight (they hadn't had a dose yet)
 
If I don't kill group J/L and the left three banks of Tomatoes in 24 hours the rest of Group M and M1 will get liquid bone meal. I have ZIPPO for phosphorous in soil mix M, so it was just a matter of time before this needed to happen.  I just have to make sure I get the dosage right so I don't have 200 plants keel over.
 
I have several starter trays showing leave cupping now (upwards cupping, Mag deficiency) so all of them might get a wee dose of Cal Mag soon if I don't pot them up. I will probably also give them a teensy dose of fish emulsion and liquid bone meal (the equivalent of 2-2-0 or thereabouts) in moderation, if I don't have any problems with the above stuff.
 
At this point it's about balancing risk.
 
Which means doing something to a dozen or two plants, watching the effects for a day or two, before I'll convince myself it's safe for the rest.
 
Eventually I'll nail down a procedure for it. 
 
Which is starting to look like this:
 
1. Sprout 100% coir (lightly tamped to avoid seed heads), bottom watered as needed to stay damp.
2. At 1st true leave emergence give 40oz mycorrhizae treatment per tray
3. At 1 week from true leaf emergence, or when leaves start to cup upwards, give a cal mag treatment (prob 1/4 tsp per 1/2 gal per tray; not much, just a sip)
4. At 1 week from true leaf emergence, give a fish emulsion and liquid bone meal treatment (prob 1/2 tsp of each per 1/2 gal per tray)
 
This would essentially replicate the early hydro schedule of cal mag (1ml / l) at true leaf + 1 week, 25% 12-0-0 at true leaf +10 days (.75 ml / l, basically), 2-2-1 at true leaf+13 days (1ml / l), which is my backup plan if I screw up organic again, as I have some DAMN fast growth on my current passive hydro pots, so pretty well got that nailed down on first try.
 
(passive hydro is not all dissimilar from chemical booster-in-the-arm practices I did in the past on crap potting soil or overwinters, so not a big deal)
 
I might be rusty at growing but I still have a knack for spotting nutrient deficiencies or toxicity. Just wish I'd spotted that damn pH issue earlier. That cost me a LOT of plants.
 
Anyway, we learn from failures! Even more than successes!
 
I learned a long, long time ago not to get too discouraged from repeated failures (in this case, TWELVE damn failures in a ROW...).
 
Get back up, dust yourself off, try again. Get knocked down? Repeat.