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]

Yeaaaah, this isn't noticeable from the road at all.
 

 
The heat in the grow room at the farm woke up the asian beetles.
 

 
Got another table's worth moved out.
 

 

 

 
These things are going to be 5 feet tall by may...
 

 

 

[Chilidude]

Yeaaaah, this isn't noticeable from the road at all.
 

 

 
 

 

I hope no one will not notice that the filming crew is doing the final touches for the Poltergeist sequel inside.

 

[TrentL]

Hit exactly 2500 sprouts for 2018 as of today
 

 
Some disappointments still;
 
Matay - 9 of 150
Cayenne Long Red - 6 of 78 
Brown Moruga - 0 for 222 
7-pot Chaguanas - 2 for 78 
Aji Dulce Red - 9 for 150
Bhut Jolokia Brown - 14 of 216
Fresno - 14 of 150
Habanero Red - 0 of 150
Habanero Orange - 0 of 150
Moruga Scorpion Red - 13 of 150
Sugar Cane - 10 of 78
Sweet French Bell - 16 of 78
MOA Scotch Bonnet - 189 of 443
Carolina Reaper - PL - 46 of 78
 
Some big winners;
 
Yellow Fatali (PL) - 177 of 190
Turkish Cayenne - 257 of 294
Jalapeno Biker Billy - 148 of 150
Farmers Jalapeno - 117 of 150
Big Sun Habanero - 128 of 151
Aji Cereza - 112 of 145
Carolina Reaper - Buckeye - 70 of 78
 

 

[stickman]

Hit exactly 2500 sprouts for 2018 as of today
 

 
Some disappointments still;
 
Matay - 9 of 150
Cayenne Long Red - 6 of 78 
Brown Moruga - 0 for 222 
7-pot Chaguanas - 2 for 78 
Aji Dulce Red - 9 for 150
Bhut Jolokia Brown - 14 of 216
Fresno - 14 of 150
Habanero Red - 0 of 150
Habanero Orange - 0 of 150
Moruga Scorpion Red - 13 of 150
Sugar Cane - 10 of 78
Sweet French Bell - 16 of 78
MOA Scotch Bonnet - 189 of 443
Carolina Reaper - PL - 46 of 78
 
Some big winners;
 
Yellow Fatali (PL) - 177 of 190
Turkish Cayenne - 257 of 294
Jalapeno Biker Billy - 148 of 150
Farmers Jalapeno - 117 of 150
Big Sun Habanero - 128 of 151
Aji Cereza - 112 of 145
Carolina Reaper - Buckeye - 70 of 78
 

You're so far into this thing and so overworked that having such a low germination percentage is a bit of a blessing I'd say. Do you think some of the results of your well tests might be due to farm runoff?

Sent from my SM-S327VL using Tapatalk

 

[TrentL]

You're so far into this thing and so overworked that having such a low germination percentage is a bit of a blessing I'd say. Do you think some of the results of your well tests might be due to farm runoff?

Sent from my SM-S327VL using Tapatalk

 
No the low germination rates are a pain in the ass. I had to plant 30 extra trays just to get closer to the initial goal of 4000, and I'm still going to miss it. Having all those "mostly empty" trays is horrible because I only have so much room, and have to swap all of the extra trays twice a day so they are getting a more or less equal split of light. I have room for 30 trays in my sprouting room, and have 60 still at home, and all but 5 are sprouted.. what sucks is having to care for a tray of "3 sprouts."
 
Not to mention 2x as much work watering, seeding, etc. 
 
It's still worth keeping the tray of 3-5 sprouts, later when I'm sure there is no hope of more germination (~30 days) I will pull and toss all the empty cells and consolidate them. Then if I end up with a few viable plants at least I have some plants I can put in isolation.
 
I don't know why some of the seeds were blanks. Like I said before, I think (can't prove) that the buckeye ones were from being cooked. The reason I think this is there was powder in the packages which, to me, means these were pulls from dehydrated pods which were turned in to powder. Well, they killed every last damn seed on most of them, doing that. 
 
The ones from pepper lover I think were just old, or badly sorted. I planted a tray based on "light or dark" (with the light colored seeds in front half, dark seeds in the back). Give you a wild guess which ones sprouted. Even then, only about 25% sprouted in that half of the tray. 
 
Then others from the same vendors sprouted mid to high 90's. In the same substrate and conditions as the ones which got 0%. So I know it sure as hell isn't how I'm sprouting them.
 
I've got 4 and 5 year old seeds which germinated better.
 
The ones I got off Justin are damn near batting 100% so far. I have trays of NuMex using the seeds he sent me which are sitting at 71 of 72.
 
The well tests are typical for this area. High sulfur, etc. Probably will be high in arsenic too, when I get those tests back. Over half of the wells in this area are high in arsenic. Going to need to get a reverse osmosis system set up out at the farm soon. It's the only way to "fix" it.

 

[Peter_L]

Yeah, it really sucks to have those terrible germination rates when you're trying to make a commercial jump.
 
As a hobby grower, it's a small dedication of time and maybe a couple dollars down the drain, but in your case... ouch. I guess it's all in the learning curve and getting to know which seed vendors are reliable.
 
I hope it all ends up great for you and next year is even better.
 
You might have already said it, but are you planning on saving your own seeds for next year? It's a lot of work, but considering the headache you had this year, it might still actually save time.

 

[TrentL]

Yeah, it really sucks to have those terrible germination rates when you're trying to make a commercial jump.
 
As a hobby grower, it's a small dedication of time and maybe a couple dollars down the drain, but in your case... ouch. I guess it's all in the learning curve and getting to know which seed vendors are reliable.
 
I hope it all ends up great for you and next year is even better.
 
You might have already said it, but are you planning on saving your own seeds for next year? It's a lot of work, but considering the headache you had this year, it might still actually save time.

 
Yeah I'll be building a number of 10x10 screened in buildings for isolation this spring, plus having a select few (16 or so)  under the lights at home. I'll drop 2700k bulbs in the T5's sometime around June to get them to flower up and produce.
 
Those 16 are going to be from seeds forum members sent me, I'll be starting them soon. Since they'll live their entire lives indoors, not too worried about the late sprouting; as long as I have ripe pods by this December...

 

[TrentL]

Here's the lab results on the farm water.
 
Anyone know how to read this? And by that, I mean, "is it going to kill plants or is it worth getting a reverse osmosis system to filter the sulfur / etc out?"
 
 

 

 

[Genetikx]

You need Rick aka stickman to sort thru all that

Cool to hear you're having good luck with Justin's seeds...glad you re-connected with him

 

[TrentL]

You need Rick aka stickman to sort thru all that

Cool to hear you're having good luck with Justin's seeds...glad you re-connected with him

 
Yeah me too, he pretty much saved this project. Devv, andy, and WHY IN THE HELL DO YOU NOT PUT YOUR NAMES ON THE DAMN ENVELOPES sent quite a bit as well which will go in to next year's crop. I'll grow those out in to seed plants. 
 
Justin, though. Good grief. He sent me somewhere north of 3,000 seeds to get the farm back on track. 
 

 
All that, and about 15 more trays, are from him.

 

[Devv]

My name was on the envelope   The seeds were my stock and I know who I am?

 

[Devv]

Those seeds are pretty damn well isolated, should all grow true. I had most excellent germ rates with them..

 

[Devv]

Was looking at the water report. I'm no expert, I would say Ph is high, but the chem tests should be fine for plants. I don't know If I would drink it without reverse osmosis
 
I'm interested to see what is said by those more knowledgeable.

 

[TrentL]

Was looking at the water report. I'm no expert, I would say Ph is high, but the chem tests should be fine for plants. I don't know If I would drink it without reverse osmosis
 
I'm interested to see what is said by those more knowledgeable.

 
At least pH is easily manageable. The organic fertilizer cocktail I'm giving the plants is enough to get it down to 5.6 without adding any acids whatsoever, which is a bit on the low side, but they seem to be doing good. I suspect one of my dry fert ingredients is still raising pH slowly so don't mind giving them a bit lower than the 5.8-6.2 recommended range.
 
I'm worried about the manganese though. That seemed really high. But I can't find any "water to plant toxicity" stuff. Only what amounts in *soil* are toxic (and at that, not specific to peppers). That sulfur is also EXTREMELY high but that's one of those nutes that excess don't matter. Won't be toxic. (ETA: unless it is high enough to cause pH to drop significantly, THAT would be a problem if my soil goes too acidic)
 
So I dunno. If someone who knows about water drops by, hopefully they can shed some light on it.

 

[TrentL]

My name was on the envelope   The seeds were my stock and I know who I am?

 
Ooooooh that's a load of bull. I only got one envelope from Texas and it had nothing more than a PO box listed!
 

 
I got one with no return address post marked New Jersey with Bonnie Cayennes in it. I will have to dig through PM's if they don't fess up here.
 
I got one from Bryan, in Michigan. He put his name on the envelope.
 
I got one from Andy, in Topeka. He put his on too.
 
Then Justin sent me his with no name lol. I know it's his because it was postmarked the next county over from me.

 

[TrentL]

I know, I know.
 
You're just all paranoid about sending your name and address to the long haired hippy who lives in the wood with too many guns.
 
But I posted my address.
 
Funny, how all those guns gives a man at least some measure of confidence no one is gonna mess with ya.
 
(And REALLY big dogs don't hurt home security any either..)
 

 

 

[tctenten]

I sent you seeds from NJ

But no Bonnie Cayenne. I sent mostly Aji's and different varieties of scotch bonnets.

 

[TrentL]

I sent you seeds from NJ

But no Bonnie Cayenne. I sent mostly Aji's and different varieties of scotch bonnets.

 
Oh shit, that means I got them mixed up when I put them back in the envelopes.
 
I *thought* I got them back in the right envelopes, but I'd had a few beers that night.
 
I'm sure y'all know how that goes. 

 

[TrentL]

I guess the GOOD news is I'll have about ... ohhh... 50+ some frigging varieties of peppers that I can grow in isolation.
 
I've already priced out building 36 isolation buildings (each 10x10), and it's "on the menu" this year. Just gotta let the ground not be wet soggy mush, so I can go level some out with the skid loader.
 
The thing is that means you guys can get some isolated seeds later this year off of what you sent me.
 
Since I have no idea who sent what, apparently, I'll just shoot you all back a big fat package at the end of the year.
 

 

[PeriPeri]

Trent buddy, looking spectacular - really awesome work! I hear you say you were tight for space... dude stop mucking about now - I think you should buy the neighboring farm too. And if they don't want to sell, I recon you could just invade them. I'm pretty sure you have a tank stashed away somewhere should you need it By the way the sun is on its way, it's starting to gradually get cooler in in South Africa - so it must be heading your way. It won't be long now