Next to My Chair Again

Baby plants again!  Down on the floor again next to my chair in my little library.  Here's how it looks right now.  I've got seeds in the germinator moving to cups every day now, will end up with another dozen or so seedlings under the light.   
 

 
I'm scaling back from the 20+ plants I had last year to seven or eight plants, some in Kratky containers of various sizes, others in fabric pots with dirt.  The list: 
 
10G D - Sugar Rush Peach - WDC
10G D - P. Dreadie - CD
5G D - JPGS - WHP
5G D - 1208 Red - UE
5G K - 1208 Red - UE
5G K - 7 Pot Jonah - WHP
32G K - Haskorea - PtMD989
1G K - Rocoto Arequipa Giant Red - CD
Bonchi start - 7 Pot Yellow - BB
 
Kratky will be Botanicare CNS17 Grow and bottled spring water at first, tap water later.  Dirt will be a mix of pine bark fines, potting soil, and perlite with fish pellets.  Dirt will occasionally be watered with Kratky solution. 
 
I'll be growing out on the deck again on the north side of my house.  I'd love to have a wide open space with southern exposure, but this will have to do. It works. I've got a decent means of hanging shade cloth ready to go. I'm good. 
Thinking about sticking a plant in the ground over where the ill-fated Siv's Plant once made a valiant effort to survive a completely unfair transplant, too..  Will see.
 
Any and all comments or criticisms are very welcome and I thank you all most warmly for having me and schooling me and reading my noodlings!

 

[Uncle Eckley]

 
I have a Datil in hydro that is doing exactly the same. It looks alright in the morning but by afternoon it's all droopy and sad. I have no idea what it is either. It's one of the smaller plants in hydro so perhaps he's not big enough to tolerate the heating of the nutes? It's odd - usually you would think insufficient water but that can't be the case.

 
This guy hasn't perked back up in days. 
 
I'm beginning to wonder if maybe I didn't actually drown my Lemon Drop last year after all. It did this, too, and died. 
 
I'll try completely replacing the nutes tomorrow. Would be pretty cheesed to lose this plant. Guess I'll stick the 7PJ in the garbage can if that happens. 
 

 

[Uncle Eckley]

 

[Uncle Eckley]

Okay, changed the solution. Fingers crossed. 

 

[Uncle Eckley]

No change. Not looking good.  
 
I can't think of anything that could be wrong with it unless it's just cooked. We've had heat indices between 105° and 115° for the last several days. It's the only plant in a large reservoir.. maybe so much thermal mass it can't cool down at night? The air doesn't even cool down much..

 

[Siv]

Okay, changed the solution. Fingers crossed. 

 
Good luck E! Does he look like that first thing in the morning too?
 
I'm guessing here but three things I would try:
1, Empty the nutes and refill with just water. This is to try and wash out anything that may be causing some kind of lock-out.
2, Check the nute temperature and add some ice cubes to the bucket to try and bring it down - at least just until he recovers.
3, Wrap the can in some reflective stuff. I just used some spray adhesive and tin foil for all my buckets. Actually this may be the first thing to try. If you're feeling fancy you can try this. I bought a roll and will be wrapping my new buckets in this.

 

[Uncle Eckley]

 
Good luck E! Does he look like that first thing in the morning too?
 
I'm guessing here but three things I would try:
1, Empty the nutes and refill with just water. This is to try and wash out anything that may be causing some kind of lock-out.
2, Check the nute temperature and add some ice cubes to the bucket to try and bring it down - at least just until he recovers.
3, Wrap the can in some reflective stuff. I just used some spray adhesive and tin foil for all my buckets. Actually this may be the first thing to try. If you're feeling fancy you can try this. I bought a roll and will be wrapping my new buckets in this.

 
Thanks, Siv!  Those are all excellent suggestions.  Ice I can try right away.  The reservoir wrap.. Eh.. My wife is a very tolerant woman and has all but given over her deck to my jungle, but she would shit if she came home and found the largest container out there wrapped in silver.  Gotta choose my battles, you know?

 

[Uncle Eckley]

 
2, Check the nute temperature and add some ice cubes to the bucket to try and bring it down - at least just until he recovers.

 
You know, I refilled the reservoir from the hose.  That water was bound to be significantly cooler than what I dumped..  It'd take a while for it to heat up to ambient.  No improvement.  Ugh.

 

[Uncle Eckley]

It looks even worse now. Pretty sure it's not going to make it. My Lemon Drop did the exact same thing. The Freeport Orange in the garbage can never had this problem, though..  Anyway, the solution's not hot now. Guess I'm screwed. Not sure whether I ought to put the 7PJ in there and risk another plant..

 

[Uncle Eckley]

Last ditch effort - maybe I'm backwards on this. What if the thing drank up the water faster than it could grow more roots in this extreme heat?  I went to top up, but didn't add enough for fear of drowning it, so it was no help. Plant then gets worse and I think I've drowned it, so I dump out more fluid, plant gets even worse.  I just added a bunch of water and readjusted the pH.  Here's hoping. 

 

[Uncle Eckley]

Nothing.  Still looks like hell. 
 
That might be it for me and outdoor Kratky. I don't understand how I could have been so successful with it last year and so unsuccessful this year doing the exact same thing. I think I'll keep Kratky to only seedlings and indoor growing going forward. 

 

[Siv]

Sorry to hear your struggles E. I know nothing so it's all guess work but I think that part of the long term Kratky thing is to maintain a somewhat consistent level in the bucket. This allows the "air roots" to develop above the liquid level and the water roots to remain wet. As long as you don't cover the air roots, you're OK. Now I'm pretty lazy so the float valve maintains level for me on the outdoor setup. But indoor, I'm always late in filling nutes. Your post just drove me to check the level on the turbo pube and there was a little more than an inch or two at the bottom. I just filled up with a couple gallons of water and threw in some CNS. We'll see what happens. But I snapped a couple of pics before that. You can see the air roots at the top and one root has the fluffy bits going down. We'll see if my refill drowns this plant or not...
 

 
I've ordered some half inch blue tubing so that I can fit an external water level indicator. I think this is a necessary addition to prevent large changes in nute volume, especially if you're a slacker like me! The thing with Kratky is that the water level drop will increase as the plant gets larger so the bigger it gets, the more frequent the attention it needs. Not quite the set and forget promised.

 

[Uncle Eckley]

Yeah, I know all that, of course. This is unexplained. I can't make sense of it. Seems to have just up and died. In retrospect, I'm pretty sure now I didn't drown the Lemon Drop. I just assumed that's what it must have been at the time. I removed fluid then when the plant was still in decent shape to no avail. Again, I didn't do anything different with the bonnet and it was fine all season. Bizarre. 
 
Maybe I'll just fill the garbage can with dirt next year. 

 

[Uncle Eckley]

Maybe I'll try to save it as a bonchi..  Not sure how well that'll work with no leaves left.. I really don't see any of these making it back.
 
I've also decided to start two or three more varieties and grow them next to my chair to console myself over the loss of Big H.
 
My fescue lawn is almost completely dead, too.
 
What a shit year 2020 has been.

 

[Siv]

It's incredibly disheartening when all your work end in upset. I really feel for you E.

 

[Uncle Eckley]

It's incredibly disheartening when all your work end in upset. I really feel for you E.

 
Thanks, bud.
 
On the other hand the dirt plants are doing very well. Not super productive (yet?), but green and happy and growing. Some real nice Dreddies coming in, first SRPs ripening, Naga Smooky Rainbow is actually setting pods!

 

[Uncle Eckley]

Okay, I've got seeds for angular Turbo Pube and Devil's Brain soaking. New dirt and perlite ready for pickup at the local big box. Two-gallon grow bags ordered.
 
I will get at least two good-sized pods off Big H, so at least I'll increase my store of seeds.  Would have been nice to let them ripen on the plant a little longer.. Will have to germ test them once they're dry.
 
I've also got a JPGS clone rooting (daughter and her friend accidentally broke off a branch a couple weeks ago). He'll go in the ground on the east side of the house if he takes.
 
Starting to think seriously about building a raised bed at the northeast corner of the house.

 

[CaneDog]

Looks like I get to be first with the peer pressure.  
 
Raised bed!  Do it!!
 

 

[Uncle Eckley]

Looks like I get to be first with the peer pressure.  
 
Raised bed!  Do it!!
 

 
Lol. Dunno how. Gotta read. 

 

[HeatMiser]

Man, that sucks about Big H. Do the roots look healthy? 
 
You guys have already covered the other bases - water level too high, nutrient solution too hot....
 
Do you have an EC meter?
One idea - even though you already changed the nutrients - perhaps with how hot it has been over there there was loss of water due to evaporation. This, coupled with the amount of water the plant needs to survive could have thrown the concentration off balance. 
 
Other than that - maybe moving the plant to some shade?
Sucks to be puzzled by these mysteries after all the hard work E... but in the end, it's how we learn...

 

[Uncle Eckley]

Man, that sucks about Big H. Do the roots look healthy? 
 
You guys have already covered the other bases - water level too high, nutrient solution too hot....
 
Do you have an EC meter?
One idea - even though you already changed the nutrients - perhaps with how hot it has been over there there was loss of water due to evaporation. This, coupled with the amount of water the plant needs to survive could have thrown the concentration off balance. 
 
Other than that - maybe moving the plant to some shade?
Sucks to be puzzled by these mysteries after all the hard work E... but in the end, it's how we learn...

 
Sure, that's how we learn - if there's any resolution. Doesn't seem there'll be any answers for me this time. Meh. I've found my peace with it pretty quickly; guess I'm growing, lol.
 
He's actually been in full shade for a few days since we've been enduring a particularly hot spell.. I've just lost him. It sucks, but that's the truth of it. I'm no botanist or any kind of researcher, so I'll just have to live with the mystery. Amah stick to dirt going forward, I think. Been reading about raised beds..
 
Edit: roots look healthy enough. No different from successful, happy Kratky plants I've grown, anyway.