The ponic system, 3 months in!

Collard green BIIG

Tomato and pepper seedlings

It has now been 3 months that the ponic system has been build. In these first 3 months I have lost a few plants, but also harvested a few parsley leaves. This all time the system has run on compost tea and ammonia. The plants seem fine, but a few are not as green as one would expect, but it is indoor, in the middle of the winter, with some artificial lighting that may not be sufficient.

During the start up of the system, the pH decreased once nitrification was efficient, but the pH increased after that, since there was no source of additional ammonia. I therefore started to add some ammonia, which keeps the pH around 7 as it is alkaline. A few weeks ago I increase the amount of ammonia I add so in the last week, I didn't add any as ammonia was building up in the water. In consequence, the pH has dropped a bit.

I have started to measure leaf length and leaf number, and overall, leaf number has increased in each plant, leaf length has increased a bit, but has stopped for some. I suppose it reached its optimal length.

I guess things are "growing forward" and the 2 collard greens are getting quite sizable (at least bigger than I expected).