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]

Ok then, It is good that my measly 12 chili bushes will be fine with the 200 litre rain water collector i have next to my small greenhouse and i can bet that the rainwater was the secret sauce for producing nice chili harvest in the end.

 
I've got over 3,000 pepper plants to water, plus another 100 thirsty tomato plants, 110 watermelon, and 140 cantaloupe and sweet melon.
 
You might be fine with 200 liter for 12 plants, but if you scale that ratio linearly up to just cover the pepper crop, now that number is 50,000 liters (13,200 US gallons). And that's just the peppers. The thirsty tomato plants, watermelon, and cantaloupe will need much more. 

 

[TrentL]

Were you planning to do a pond or something? I thought I remembered you saying something about that in a previous page.. Maybe not.

 
Yes but it wouldn't be spring fed. All of the neighboring farms run chemical pesticides and herbicides, plus they drench their fields with thousands of gallons of ammonium nitrate every year. If I did a pond it would be wholly unsuitable for watering off of, without employing very expensive filtration systems. A reverse osmosis system capable of delivering the amount of water I need would cost tens of thousands of dollars.

 

[DontPanic]

All those minerals and other extras in your well water may be acting as buffers.

Many buffered solutions become 'sticky' at a certain pH, and require quit a bit more acid to break through that 'sticky' range.

But the 'sticky' range may still be usable for irrigation, even though it may not be optimal.

I'm not an expert on what pH is optimal, and what pH is "good enough" for growing peppers, but you may want to have a look at what is required to bring the pH down to around 7.0. It may be quite a bit less, and it may be "good enough".

 

[nmlarson]

Got my heavy equipment all situated out at the farm today. Dig permit goes active tomorrow a 8. First order of business is preparing the parking area! Tired of driving through mud!
 

 
Here's hoping everything cooperated and you got a good start!

 

[nmlarson]

 
The coco I got is pretty damn sterile. In the tests I did where I added organic materials, there was no breakdown of anything organic until I added the myco. 
 
When I checked today the plants that didn't get myco were noticeably lagging behind the others that were transplanted the same day. We ran out of myco, and the last 500 or so plants didn't get any.  Even with the fish emulsion, liquid bone meal, and worm castings, there wasn't enough bacteria to get the ball rolling on the microbiotics. I've got more great white on the way, next liquid fertilizer run is Sunday, so should be in by then.
 

 
I'm curious what form the mycorrhizae you use is in and how you apply it.  The community gardens I do most of my growing in discs the ground each spring and I'm thinking my little piece of heaven would benefit from using it.  Just how is the big question.  I've seen packets of it with directions to place 1 tablespoon in each planting hole, but that would mean A LOT of myco, even for my little 30'x60' plot.  I can't believe someone who farms on the scale you do uses it in that manner.  Do you water with it, mix it in your custom soil mix?  Share, pretty please.
 
And, exactly how do you go about harvesting all that produce?  

 

[Chilidude]

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00HVKKOEE/ref=psdc_3752891_t1_B008B04HD2
 
This 4 Species Endo-Mycorrhizae (Glomus intraradices, G. mosseae, G. aggregatum, G. etunicatum)   product doest seem to be too expensive at all.
 
Application Rate:
 
It is best to create contact between the mycorrhizae and the plants roots opposed to simply mixing into the soil.

Small Transplants or Cuttings: ½ teaspoon under the plants roots when planting.
Potted Plants/Soil Mixes: Use 1-2 tablespoons per 1 gallon of soil.
Turf: Apply ¼-½ pounds per 1000 square feet during installation or aeration.
 
This product sounds like it is mostly for soil growing and not for coco coir.

 

[TrentL]

 
Here's hoping everything cooperated and you got a good start!

 
Well, I started off the day with a flat skid loader tire, and didn't catch it until it popped off both beads. Soooooo... not a great start! But got some ground broke by the end of the day, so there's that.
 

All those minerals and other extras in your well water may be acting as buffers.

Many buffered solutions become 'sticky' at a certain pH, and require quit a bit more acid to break through that 'sticky' range.

But the 'sticky' range may still be usable for irrigation, even though it may not be optimal.

I'm not an expert on what pH is optimal, and what pH is "good enough" for growing peppers, but you may want to have a look at what is required to bring the pH down to around 7.0. It may be quite a bit less, and it may be "good enough".

 
Yes, the minerals make it harder to pH adjust for sure! 
 
Optimal pH for peppers is 5.8-6.2.  7.0 pH will stunt them, 6.5 is about as high as you want to go. This isn't so much a function of the peppers, but what nutrients they use, and what nutrients become "available" at certain pH levels. At pH 7.0, some nutrients are not as well available. At 6.5, some start increasing. At 6.2, they are pretty well fully available (all macro and micronutrients are at the "widest" part of their availability range.)  
 
Some fertilizers will slowly increase pH so it's necessary to drop it down further. One hydroponic solution I use, calls for exactly 5.5! Another calls for precisely 5.8.
 
If you are using something like bone meal, you *definitely* want to drop it down low, as that will INCREASE soil pH as it breaks down. Because of that, you want to continually give it a low pH dosage. Because I *do* use bone meal, I've found best results in the 5.8-6.0 range. The highest I'll water with is 6.2, no more. If I go higher than that, I start to see problems.
 

 
I'm curious what form the mycorrhizae you use is in and how you apply it.  The community gardens I do most of my growing in discs the ground each spring and I'm thinking my little piece of heaven would benefit from using it.  Just how is the big question.  I've seen packets of it with directions to place 1 tablespoon in each planting hole, but that would mean A LOT of myco, even for my little 30'x60' plot.  I can't believe someone who farms on the scale you do uses it in that manner.  Do you water with it, mix it in your custom soil mix?  Share, pretty please.
 
And, exactly how do you go about harvesting all that produce?  

 
The micorrhizae I use is water soluble and goes in to the water that hits the plants. Great White is awesome stuff. There's another brand I bought that came in a bag that looks like so much gravel. It also works but takes a TON more, and isn't something you can "dose" plants with later; that gravelly stuff is only good for when you plant out. And yes, it takes a mighty amount of it.
 
I much prefer the water soluble stuff. That Great White I use, it's not cheap, but a little goes a LONG frigging way. One teaspoon does 2 gallons of water. It takes 3 ounces of solution to dose a new transplant. So the 4 oz container I bought, was good for 2,048 transplants. I actually got a little more out of it than that, as I was mixing 2 teaspoons per 5 gallons. Didn't seem to matter I was using a little less than called for. Did just fine.
 
It smells JUST like active yeast, for you bakers out there. Although I surely wouldn't want to bake with it. Or breathe too much of the powder in, for that matter. It's straight bacteria and fungus spores.

 

[TrentL]

Oh and as far as harvesting goes? I honestly have no idea how that's gonna go. I'm not at that part yet. Plant-out is my next big adventure.
 

 

[TrentL]

Time for plant shots!
 
Santa Fe Grande
 

 
 
MOA scotch bonnet (right side of table), Big Sun Habanero (left side of table)
 

 
Other side of table (MOA left side, Big Sun Hab right; there's some Thai in the middle)
 

 
 
 
Yellow Fatalii (left), Aji Cereza (right), some random mix of annuums in the middle.
 

 
Aji Cereza and some other annuums (matay, elephant trunk, sweet french bell, etc)
 

 

 
Amish Paste
 

 
Overhead shot (5 tables are still behind me lol)
 

 
Hydro table
 

 

 
 
Ultrahots; Reaper, 7 Pot Primo, 7 pot Brainstrain, Moruga x Reaper, Butch T, and uhh.. some other random stuff. Some were stunted badly by a calcium overdose and nearly killed, they are in the process of recovering finally (finally showing green leaves!)
 

 
2,000 assorted annuums
 

 
Hydro table - Reaper and Reaper x Moruga
 

 
Ultrahot table closeup, 7 pot primo (mix M, this one nearly died 2 months ago...)
 

 
Organic Big Sun Habanero
 

 

 
This is an M batch big sun hab, again, this batch was nearly lethal. pH rose too fast, ended up saving them with a 3.35 pH watering (acidic water)
 

 
 

 

[Chilidude]

Hydro table plants doest seem to to doing too bad at all and it might actually be huge advantage if they grow a bit slower than the organic soil ones.

 

[TrentL]

Yellow Fatalii, Mix N
 

 

 
Aji Cereza, Mix N
 

 
Sweet French Bell?? Or Elephant Trunk? Not sure. Elephant trunk is next row so I think these are Sweet French Bell.
 

 
Another shot of the hydro table;
 

 
 
Reapers (some in recovery, from being overdosed with calcium)
 

 
MOA scotch bonnet, hydro table
 

 
Those hydro peppers looks great, right? 
 
Yeah. Not so much. Compare it to the organic Mix N, right. That organic mix is DESTROYING the passive hydro table.
 
Those were transplanted on the same day.
 

 

 

 
Another example; Reapers, from the same starter tray, transplanted same day. The one on the right is a failed Mix L plant; I saved it with a couple ultra-low pH waterings (3.35 pH), to offset the bone meal increase in pH which made everything unavailable (soil tested 8.8).
 
Even with the 2.5 week stunted setback, it overtook the hydro plant. Decisively so.
 

 

 
7-pot failed mix M vs. hydro. This plant nearly died as well, Mix M had serious issues with Kelp meal cooking off, stunted plants, but they (mostly) ended up recovering (20-30% fatalities..)
 
These were also transplanted the same day, from the same starter tray. 
 

 

 
And yet another example;
 
Aji Cereza, same starter tray, same transplant date; passive hydro (looks great) but the organic mix is DESTROYING it. The Organic Mix M was *very* hard on chinense, but the annuums seemed to take to it better. The aji's especially; that plant is nearly 18" tall.
 

 
 

 

[TrentL]

Hydro table plants doest seem to to doing too bad at all and it might actually be huge advantage if they grow a bit slower than the organic soil ones.

Just posted some comparisons; given the late spring I have to agree with you. Hydro table is doing "well enough", and the organic ones are getting VERY VERY crowded. They are growing WAY too fast given I still have 5 weeks before plants out.

 

[Genetikx]

 Great White is awesome stuff.

This is going back a few years so suffice my memory, but my guy at the hydro shop prefers this much more than Great White. He sells both.

Myco Blast Concentrate by Supreme Growers https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00MT676YG/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_cDw2AbA1VAQ27

Reason he prefers the myco blast is because if you compare the amount of bacteria on the label, great white had a considerable amount less. Not sure about cost comparison but I've stuck with myco blast ever since

 

[Chilidude]

Just posted some comparisons; given the late spring I have to agree with you. Hydro table is doing "well enough", and the organic ones are getting VERY VERY crowded. They are growing WAY too fast given I still have 5 weeks before plants out.

 

Yes you did and i prefer the look of those sturdier looking hydro plants, as faster growing plants can equal weaker stems in the long run.

 

[TrentL]

 
Yes you did and i prefer the look of those sturdier looking hydro plants, as faster growing plants can equal weaker stems in the long run.

 
Stems are plenty sturdy - this one is bigger around than a pencil and strong as you could ask for.
 

 
I've been leaving the lights off a LOT longer each night. They're currently on a 12/12 schedule to try to slow them down. This has the side effect of causing them to grow taller, but that's not a bad thing. They were so bushy and compact I couldn't get water in to the pots without a lot of effort. Now that they're legging out a little, that is getting easier, and they're shooting out more side-branches.

 

[TrentL]

I also may end up topping some of them if they get too out of hand over the next few weeks. I haven't really wanted to - it hurts production by a measurable amount - but I might have no choice.

 

[Chilidude]

....

 

[TrentL]

The last of the "pretty farm" pictures.
 

 
Broke ground today on the hardening off house. There's three 24x96' cold frame buildings going in soon, and three isolation buildings (8'x99') which will be built starting next week. So been leveling off some ground.
 

 
Slow going, the old barn that was there, had limestone footers. And there's one MASSIVE slab of concrete I hit, which is angled up, and RIGHT in my way. It's 5" thick and I estimate it to be a 20' round solid circle - probably an old silo footing. I'm going to have to bring my excavator out to dig it up and break it up.
 

 
Ran out of daylight today.
 

 
But wasn't a bad day. This used to be a championship breed horse farm once upon a time, so I'm finding all kinds of curios.
 

 

 
 
 

 

[TrentL]

Also I'm assuming we ALL have at least that one "asshole" plant that refuses to cooperate, right?
 

 
That one has to stay on the hydro table because, well, that's a hydro test tomato plant. But I am refusing to raise up the lights - need to keep them on the peppers. So that one can go grow wherever it wants to, I don't care, I'm NOT raising the lights for it.
 
 

 

[Chilidude]

Does the bottle have any text in it?