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]

Also I just opened those seed shipments you guys sent me early. 

HOLY CRIPES GUYS. 
 
Wow. 
 
I'm going to need more starter trays and about 60 hours to get all that in to the coir. 

JEEBUS.
 
Y'all shipped me a TON of seeds. 
 
I'm a little blown away; y'all made my Christmas list this year. 
 
And it's gonna be a hot motha of a holiday.
 

 

[TrentL]

 
^^ what it looks like when you give a plant nitrogen but not phosphorus. 
 
Left plant was transplanted 6 days ago (then re-potted 3 days ago to a non-fatal soil mix, with good looking roots)
 
They're under the same lights at the same distance from the lights, so it definitely isn't a lighting issue.
 
The comparison plant to the left is still in the starter tray. It hasn't got much nitrogen to work with so it's not doing much but sitting there right now, although, it started showing mag deficiency today with the leaf curl.
 
If all of the plants I hit with CalMag un-curl themselves overnight, I'm going to start hitting the starter trays with it just to get those sorted out before they are transplanted.
 
The bottle of CalMag I have actually qualifies for organic grow certification IF you document a plant deficiency, which... I've just done, here.
 

 

[TrentL]

Another minor point for the grow log. 53 days without a day off is exhausting.
 
I need to get all my damn trays on the same watering schedule somehow, so I can take a day off. The starter trays are reliably using up 40 oz of water every 2 days and I always let the potted plants sit two or three days between waterings, so if I could get all the starter trays and potted plants on the same daily schedule I'd be able to take a break one of these days.
 
I swear, next year I"m only seeding on odd or even numbered days. The way I've been doing it I keep getting about 1/2 of the trays on either odd or even watering schedule so every day I've got to tend to them.
 
 

 

[Chilidude]

You look so manly in that pink t-shirt, but how many kilos/lbs have you lost working in the farm?

 

[TrentL]

You look so manly in that pink t-shirt, but how many kilos/lbs have you lost working in the farm?

 
I've actually gained about 10 lbs of muscle, but had to tighten my belt another notch. 
 
Usually over the winter I gain about 3-4" on the waist and then work it off when spring hits. But this winter, I've stayed pretty fit from all the work!! 

 

[Chilidude]

 
I've actually gained about 10 lbs of muscle, but had to tighten my belt another notch. 
 
Usually over the winter I gain about 3-4" on the waist and then work it off when spring hits. But this winter, I've stayed pretty fit from all the work!! 

 
So you lost some fat/fluid and gained muscle in the same time, that is a huge win in my book. If you want to get even fitter/maintain current weight and maybe gain more muscle in the same time, try taking some of that MSM suppliment with the lemon water.
 

 

[TrentL]

Working in this high humidity / high temp sweat shop 8+ hours a day every evening has caused me to MASSIVELY increase fluid intake man. I probably lose a gallon a day of water in here. At least that's about how much more fluids I take on right now. I mean, I'm at the rate of water intake I usually am at mid-summer working outside doing construction work!
 
 

 

[Edmick]

Heres a little update for you on a mix you had mentioned previously trent. this is a mix of 1 gallon coir with 1 cup castings. This batch of tomato seeds were soaked for 2 days and planted on saturday. I had very few sprouts when planted which had me worried a bit but this is a picture from this morning. First sprouts came up tuesday night and this morning I'd say about 90 percent have popped so far. Theres also another 5 trays that aren't in the picture from the same batch with the same results. I'm gonna start my own grow log and I'll be using some of the formulas you've tested so if you wanna follow that you can see how they're working out.

 

[TrentL]

Heres a little update for you on a mix you had mentioned previously trent. this is a mix of 1 gallon coir with 1 cup castings. This batch of tomato seeds were soaked for 2 days and planted on saturday. I had very few sprouts when planted which had me worried a bit but this is a picture from this morning. First sprouts came up tuesday night and this morning I'd say about 90 percent have popped so far. Theres also another 5 trays that aren't in the picture from the same batch with the same results. I'm gonna start my own grow log and I'll be using some of the formulas you've tested so if you wanna follow that you can see how they're working out.

 
Right on! Yeah I'm looking forward to this - the worm castings provide a small amount of nitrogen and sulfur, and get the process started for biologicals, so I'm really curious about where that'll go.
 
Like I said, I had a couple trays that probably SHOULD have done better than they did, and the seeds rotted. But those were 12+ day slow chinense (brown moruga, butch-t). Or it might have been bad seeds. Had my fair amount of those this year as well. No idea, but I'll know for sure as soon as my re-plant trays do something.
 
Which, speaking of, I have a tray of Matay which is sitting there doing jack squat still .. I was 0 for 6 out of the test sprouts and so far I've seen nothing. I had carolina reapers and MOA scotch bonnet and Thai's pop already, from that same batch of 4 trays, but the Matays are still... doing nothing. Not sure what the germination speed is on those, as my google-fu has failed me. Which sucks as I purchased quite a lot of seeds for it.
 
I am very beyond disappointed with the low / no germination rates I've got from a couple of vendors. I'm still reeling over 60% failure to germinate in the original round of 2500 seeds planted. That's HUGE. I mean, that's just unacceptably BAD. Hell, I hate to say it, but when I ordered stuff from Pepper Joe's (some 5+ years ago) I at LEAST had great germination rates.
 
I mean yeah, nothing turned OUT like it was supposed to. But at least I had PLANTS. 
 
I can't even get THOSE with the seeds I ordered this year! 
 
Now someone orders " a pack " and plants them along with a few dozen others, not having one PACK come up is probably not a deal killer. 
 
But when you order TEN packs of stuff, and NOTHING comes up, well, shit man that means all the sudden I've wasted valuable sprouting room AND I'll have a big empty spot in my FIELD.
 
That ... irritates me.
 
Usually I'm not the kind of guy who raises a fuss if, you know, I get an order wrong at a restaurant or whatever. I mean, I am generally about as non-confrontational as it gets. But jeez, this is business, and when you're in the business of selling something to others who might depend on it for THEIR business... is it too much to frigging ask to test your product before it goes out??
 
When I ordered tomato seeds from Johnny's, it says RIGHT ON THE PACK "GERMINATION TESTED MM/YY XX%"
 
So you KNOW that batch has been tested.
 
The habanero seeds I got from Buckeye; the reds and the oranges? They had powder and bits of flake mixed in the packs. So did a couple other varieties. 
 
You know what that tells me?
 
Someone separated those damn seeds off of a dehydrator tray.
 
You know what happens to seeds if you run them through a dehydrator at a little too high of a temp?
 
They DON'T FRIGGING GERMINATE.
 
Anyways... that's a battle coming soon, for another day...

 

[TrentL]

Got 18 of the lights hung today. Waiting on the rest to show up.
 

 

 

 
 

 

[PeriPeri]

Sweeet man - that is super awesome! You're starting to shed some light on things

 

[TrentL]

So, only the tomatoes love the new potting soil mix. The peppers seem *totally* stalled up in it.  In fact, the starter trays with nothing in it has passed up the peppers in Mix M at this point. Which is kind of sad, if you think about it. 
 
I'm scratching my head. 
 
The tomatoes are growing fast but they don't look nearly as healthy as the passive hydro pots. Which given that I've been doing 13-2-2 + CalMag 1ml/L concentration each week on those hydro pots, doesn't *exactly* surprise me. The passive hydro pots look textbook perfect. But my Mix M pots (which is just coir, perlite, worm castings, and some blood meal), plants (both tomatoes and peppers) are lighter green, not "full" looking, slight to severe leaf curl, etc. 
 
So on the Mix M pots I've given them over the last few days, spaced apart;
 
3 oz  CalMag
1.5 oz ph Balanced liquid bone meal
2.25 oz Fish emulsion
 
That's cal, mag, nitrogen, and phosphorus, plus sulfur and another bit of nitrogen from the worm casings, potassium from the coir, and more slower release nitrogen from the blood meal. They had azomite for trace (well, Mix M did, mix M1 I forgot to add azomite so it didn't get any. I can give it a kelp meal tea later if they show odd stuff happening)
 
I had leaves curling up and cotys yellowing completely out and dropping off in two of the starter trays; no more nitrogen to be found. I gave them some fish emulsion tonight. 
 
Push comes to shove I might have to dose the entire lot of them in 1-2-2 hydroponic fertilizer just to give them all a kick in the ass to get moving. I gave 1-2-2 and calmag to a seedling in a starter tray 6-7 days ago and it's now *double* the size of all of the others in the starter tray, so wouldn't hurt.
 
I might select a handful of mix M to give 1-2-2 tomorrow anyway, just to see how they respond. I haven't given them anything for potassium because I've read coir has it in there already, in abundance, and the soil test I did last week (the chemical ones) showed moderate to heavy potassium precipitation out of the solution when I ran the K test series., so I'm inclined to believe what I read on the internet for once myself. (I never trust jack squat that I've read, not even from a textbook, until I've confirmed it with my own eyes.)
 
 

 

[TrentL]

My seabird poop showed up. 
 

 
Time to play with a new mix.
 
This should let me get some P in there without having to resort to liquid fertilizers, and shouldn't cause my pH to ramp to ultra high numbers like the fish bone meal did.
 
 

 

[Chilidude]

So, only the tomatoes love the new potting soil mix. The peppers seem *totally* stalled up in it.  In fact, the starter trays with nothing in it has passed up the peppers in Mix M at this point. Which is kind of sad, if you think about it. 
 
I'm scratching my head. 
 

 
Stop scratching you head, because peppers in general prefers less nutrient rich soils than tomatoes do. If you could just stop giving them too much nutrients and let them do their thing in peace, maybe they could grow much better. Nothing will kill peppers faster that growers attention.

 

[TrentL]

 
Stop scratching you head, because peppers in general prefers less nutrient rich soils than tomatoes do. If you could just stop giving them too much nutrients and let them do their thing in peace, maybe they could grow much better. Nothing will kill peppers faster that growers attention.

 
Nah, it's not just that. There's stuff missing from the coir; I knew that going in, as I didn't give them much of ANYTHING except a tiny bit of nitrogen. 
 
The hydro pepper pots have been inundated with nutrients and they're now about 8x the size of the comparable organic mix pots. I mean, they're HUGE by comparison. 
 
I backed so far off the organic stuff there's really not much of anything for the plants to eat. But, at least I'm not killing them outright anymore!
 
At this point it's a matter of carefully observing "this does that, and that does this."
 
I didn't give the coir mix pots anything for a week, except myco. Then I think it was day 6 or 7 they got a cal mag treatment (after I'd observed what that did on sample plant first).  Then I waited for a couple days, and decided (due to obvious signs) that they needed some phosphorus (they weren't getting any). Now I've waited a couple of days and the very light green leaves are telling me they need nitrogen. The blood meal I added hasn't had time to process, the worm turds only had 1% (of that, 0.2% was soluble, the other .8% required breakdown by organics). So barely any nitrogen there.
 
Meanwhile the hydro plants have got a total of 12 ounces of nutrients; amounting to 2ml /L of 12-0-0 (6 oz dosage total), 1mL/L of 1-2-2 (3 oz dose), and 1mL/L (3 oz total dose) of CalMag at this point, while the coir pots have got about 0.2 from the worm turds, ~1 from the liquid fish meal (I used a half dilution and only gave them a 1 oz sip of it), 3oz of Cal Mag, and {whatever coir gives naturally}.
 
Those hydro plants are, like I said about 8x the size of the organic mix. But they've also got about 8x the nutrients added to the pots.
 
However, I am being SUPER cautious with this first batch of plants now that I'm not killing them anymore. I am spacing out the nutrients I give them, watching what happens, before deciding what to do next. I need to see what each dose of whatever, at whatever concentration, is contributing.
 
Plus, unlike Hydro, I have to be more careful about pot saturation. The chemical fertilized plants don't care if they're sopping wet.
 
But using liquid organic ferts, if I saturate the pots for too long, the aerobic bacteria DIE. Which stops the whole organic process in it's tracks. 
 
Eventually I'll figure out (through observation) what I need to add - and that feedback of "what is doing what {to the physical appearance of the plant} will also train me to spot what deficiencies look like on plants this small. It is VERY hard to differentiate one deficiency from another on a tiny seedling. On a mature plant it's a no brainer; but I'm finding that on a seedling, if it's short on something, the signs are VERY different than a mature plant. They just don't manifest the same.
 
E.g. leaf curl -up (cupping) on a mature plant is definitively magnesium. NO if's, and's, or but's. 
 
But through testing I've also seen a nitrogen shortage or water saturation cause it on seedlings.  So unlike a mature plant, 3 different causes for the same symptom. 

Cotys yellowing? Hell, take your pick! On a seedling that's nitrogen. Or it might be magnesium. Or calcium. Or phosphorus. Or {insert other nutrient}. First sign of trouble is cotys yellowing.
 
Purple stem? Traditionally that's a deficiency but on seedlings some varieties they naturally have purple stems. So how to tell? I gave 1-2-2 to a plant and it's stem went from dark purple back to a nice green color after 4 days. So in THAT case, it was definitely a phosphorous issue. In another variety can't tell, because it's just GOT purple stems, period, whether it's short on phosphorous or not. 
 
These little seedlings are a BITCH to read. Things will get so much easier when they've got a few sets of true leaves.

 

[TrentL]

I'll add one more thing; organic growing is terribly more difficult than using liquid ferts or chemical slow release ferts. 
 
I'll put up some side-by-sides to illustrate in a bit, comparing the hydro plants to the organics. It's unreal how much better the hydro plants are developing. I mean, stunning even.
 
At least I know I can still grow that way. Didn't take long to knock the rust off of my mental archives, and I've still got lots of bottles of stuff stored away from a few years ago. 
 
But, for various reasons (cost, ecology, pride, ego, higher selling price to a selective clientele, etc) I *really* want to figure this organic shit out.
 
It's a mission at this point. I've had 18 straight failures so far (if you count sub-series soil mixes).
 
And at this point I'm NOT giving up. Even if the bulk of the crop becomes bottom soaked passive hydro, I'm STILL going to keep experimenting on organic stuff until I get it figured out.
 

 

[Chilidude]

 

but I'm finding that on a seedling, if it's Cotys yellowing? Hell, take your pick! On a seedling that's nitrogen. Or it might be magnesium. Or calcium. Or phosphorus. Or {insert other nutrient}. First sign of trouble is cotys yellowing.
 

 
Sulphur deficiency would be my pick for that one.

 

[Chilidude]

I'll add one more thing; organic growing is terribly more difficult than using liquid ferts or chemical slow release ferts. 
 
I'll put up some side-by-sides to illustrate in a bit, comparing the hydro plants to the organics. It's unreal how much better the hydro plants are developing. I mean, stunning even.
 
At least I know I can still grow that way. Didn't take long to knock the rust off of my mental archives, and I've still got lots of bottles of stuff stored away from a few years ago. 
 
But, for various reasons (cost, ecology, pride, ego, higher selling price to a selective clientele, etc) I *really* want to figure this organic shit out.
 
It's a mission at this point. I've had 18 straight failures so far (if you count sub-series soil mixes).
 
And at this point I'm NOT giving up. Even if the bulk of the crop becomes bottom soaked passive hydro, I'm STILL going to keep experimenting on organic stuff until I get it figured out.
 

 
You know you could buy 2 component dry hydroponic fertilizers used in professional greenhouses and mix them yourself. If you buy them in a bigger patches, they are pretty cost effective this way to grow the plants inside until they go outdoors.
 

 

[TrentL]

 
Sulphur deficiency would be my pick for that one.

 
That was my thought too but on the two starter trays which did it (yellow cotys, both Aji Cereza), they had ample amounts of worm castings mixed in, which is rich in sulfur.
 
I don't know WHY the Aji Cerezas are yellowing and dropping cotys. I have a few other varieties in EXACTLY the same mix (moruga reapers, scotch bonnets, 7-pot brainstrain, and big sun habanero) that look frigging perfect still. 
 
But those two trays of Aji's are shedding leaves, the true leaves are yellowing and cupping up, and I have NO idea what the hell they're trying to tell me.
 
They also grew OBNOXIOUSLY tall for some reason. 
 
I started this project under the impression that "peppers require X for nutrients" but as I continue this grow out it is becoming ABUNDANTLY clear that different varieties of peppers require widely varying nutrients.
 
It's possible that those Aji's are just so much faster growing, they are exhausting stuff quicker than the others. Which is kind of my working theory, and why I gave them a moderately dose of fish emulsion tonight.
 
If they really did exhaust all of the nitrogen in their starter trays, while the slower growing varieties haven't, that fish emulsion should sort them out pretty quick. At least green them back up. I'd already previously treated both trays with Myco so they should have zero problem breaking down the fish emulsion rapidly.

 

[TrentL]

 
You know you could buy 2 component dry hydroponic fertilizers used in professional greenhouses and mix them yourself. If you buy them in a bigger patches, they are pretty cost effective this way to grow the plants inside until they go outdoors.
 

 
Yeah I'll need to track down where to get the stuff in bulk, if I end up calling this a first year a hydro grow. I have enough stuff on hand to get me by for a month or so until then. But the rate of utilization is gonna go WAY up as these guys get more plentiful, and much bigger. Some of my tomato plants are starting to push 5" tall at this point and are on their 4th nodes.