New commercial trial system

Burnsy

Joel, what is the latest on the system, has lettuce production been maintained through the winter?

What did you use to cut the holes out of the styrofoam or did you buy it that way? Would like to make a small floating raft to try growing kang kong in the school FT.

earthbound

Commercial system has had mixed results depending on a few factors, we are till trialling many different herbs and vegies finding what grows well, at the moment a couple of varieties of lettuce are growing really well, a couple of other varieties not so well. Found out the hard way that we must sterilize rafts between crops, rafts have also been hit hard by the bad weather we had a while back and some were badly burnt by frosts. Interesting considering that the taller growbeds a few metres away were unaffected, but the channels at ground level suffered. At the moment the parsley is going crazy and mizuna is still a good performer. Can't wait for the weather to warm up a bit to try some basil, and before next winter we may erect a cover over the DWV channels

We cut the holes ourselves with a special patented tool.. A piece of pipe heated up with a gas torch.

hydrophilia

Joel,

I'm considering trying to run trout year-round. How has the temperature of your system been compared to typical systems with raised gravel beds?

Also, what is this "hard way" you spoke of that induced you to sterilize things before replanting? Did plants die or was it a problem for fish?

Thanks

Lifted1

Hello,

what do you use to sterilize the rafts? water/bleach solution??? how about sealing the foam? What non toxic substance did you use?

i do not see in your pics where the water drains from the raft to recirculate back. could you explain if and where the sump would be? how much waterflow is necessary for channel that size and what size pump? im ready to start gathering some materials and wanted to budget large items first like the pump.

thank you.

RupertofOZ

Hi Lifted, and welcome.... have a look through the UVI or Friendly Aquaponics sites... they have data concerning preferred water turnover rates.... work out your bed size(s), and calculate your pump capacity from that... I'd suggest doubling the requirement for redundancy and expansion...

mattyry

EB,
I visited BYAP about a month ago, but wasn't shown this. is it still up and running?? The growth looked awesome. An update would be good!
Thanks

Matt

earthbound

We have it switched off at the moment. There are some huge gum trees near the system and the growing channels collected all the eucalypt leaves that blow off the trees. As the gum leaves broke down, the vegetable and herb growth started to slowly decrease to the point where after a few months their growth was rather dismal. I'm guessing that this is due to the growth retardants that occur naturally in many species of gum leaves. We ended up with huge crops of gum trees growing in the rafts from all the falling seed, as their growth was not effected by the retardants. Masses of 4 foot tall gum trees filling the rafts... :shock:

Anyway, now we will have to cover the area with bird netting or similar to keep the bulk of the leaves out. But unfortunately we aren't made of money and the system has already cost us quite a lot in terms of set up and running costs, so for the moment it will have to stay off.. Just until we can justify a day or more a week of labour for the maintenance and running as well the set up costs of the leaf protection.

We may actually look at finding someone that wants to operate the system for themselves to take advantage of the produce because we are too busy with everything else around here...

RupertofOZ

Any market for the gum trees in any of the nurseries???

Dufflight

Easy way to clean the system is add a little water and soap and tell some kids they can use it as a slip & slide. Flush with water and the channels will be clean.

gemmell

You need to breed yourself an aquatic koala to clean up the gum leaves that fall in the water.

In all seriousness - isn't the whole channel filled with rafts? Enough slip through the gaps to cause such a hinderance?

earthbound

Anything that lands on the rafts or tries to blow past the channels and gets caught on the veggies, ends up blowing across the raft, hits the side lip of the channel and drops down the crack between the raft and the side of the channel. So not only does it get the leaves that drop directly on it which end up making their way down into the water, but any leaves that might normally just blow across and keep going tend to get caught and end up down in the water...

Here's a classic example, see all the leaves on the raft? Plus at the end of the channel where the inlet pipes are you you can see some leaves there falling in between the raft and the side.

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earthbound

And as a close up.....

You can see the leaves floating at the end, and the poor seedlings aren;t getting much of a chance here just from the leaf fall because it's so heavy.

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desertrat

RupertofOZ wrote:

Any market for the gum trees in any of the nurseries???

I have a few gum trees that are over the growbeds and get a regular collection of fallen leaves and gum nuts Lately I have noticed lots of small gum seedlings popping up, I'm planning on leaving some until they are about 6" tall and transplanting around the block. I'm also planning this with moringa and albizia as any easy propagation method.
I'd love a dollar for all the young seedlings that failed because of 1 days lack of water, with AP this should never happen
Perhaps there is a potential market for a variety of seedling grown in AP

gemmell

earthbound wrote:

And as a close up.....

You can see the leaves floating at the end, and the poor seedlings aren;t getting much of a chance here just from the leaf fall because it's so heavy.

Can see the problem - maybe next time a "skirt" on the rafts that sits over the edge of the pond. Just to cover that gap between edge and raft. You could probably use excess/offcuts of pond liner to make it....

...but time is the actual problem.

TCLynx

Perhaps this might be why so many nursery and plant operations have some sort of shade cloth pretty much enclosing the entire place, to keep the unwanted leaves and seeds out.

I wonder if this explains why my monster bed didn't get the intense plant cover that the other beds have been experiencing. There is a eucalyptus tree growing out past that end of my yard. Doesn't seem to slow down the tomatoes too much but the lettuce, carrot and turnips that took over the other beds very well were a bit more patchy in the monster bed.

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