The vertical farm's update - compost tea a valid nitrogen source ?

Collard green is getting huge (kind of)

 The vertical farm is growing along, I am not sure if it is the days starting to get longer, or my experimenting with the compost tea, but here is what is happening: the collard greens and green onions have grown quite a lost since last update. Especially the collard greens, I might have a mini-salad or something soon.

On the other hand, the parsley is still not doing much, and the pepper seedling that was growing has lost its first leaves and last cleaning I broke the first true leaf, so only 2 true leaves are still on it. Not sure if it is because I have treated the poor thing roughly or if it's not liking it in there any-more....

Between below is the same collard greens on feb 16th

On the nutrients side, nitrates have started to increase again - since I add a mL of ammonia everyday (or almost). Last post about the system, Dr. Ruteledge (google + user) advised me to check out Dr. Tim's video, suggesting that maybe the tests are not detecting nitrates because they are to high and "burnout" the reagents before it has time to react and produce the desired colour. So I diluted the water before testing it, and there is no trace of nitrite, a bit of ammonia (my system is 3 gallon and I add 1 mL of household ammonia everyday or almost).

I also did again the compost tea "experiment" last week end, but making sure I dilute the "sample" to test it. I actually decided to test non diluted and diluted using the test strips. The dilution 1:5 actually is light in color, so when i'll decide to do the "timed experiement" again, I will use the test in drops.

THE COMPOST TEA EXPERIMENT !      From top to bottom: just after adding compost
compost tea after 10 min
compost tea after 10 mindiluted 1:5

compost tea after  1H
compost tea after  1H diluted 1:5

compost tea after  2H
compost tea after  2Hdiluted 4:15

Compost tea after 4H
Compost tea after 4H diluted 1:5

That is is the tap water used for the tea.

Compost tea after 6H
Compost tea after 6H diluted 1:5

Compost tea next morning (~15H)
Compost tea after ~15H diluted 1:5

So, what to make of that ? still don't know, all I know, is that sometimes between 2 and 6 hours, nitrate decrease, and nitrate as well. Given that the dilution 1:5 always look "lower" in color than the non diluted one. This time next morning there was still some amount of both, but clearly lower. In the pictures, it seems that maybe nitrite are decreasing later than nitrates, but given that these test are not very precise, it is difficult to really conclude. Maybe I should sneak in a lab and make measurement there in a more rigorous manner ... If anyone sees a spectrophotometer that need to be discarded give it to me ! lol.
 

The compost tea: 1 quart of water (left out to dechlorinate with an airstone), about 3.5 cups of worm compost and also 1/8th tsp of diatomeous earth and 1/8th of epsom salts, no sugar added.

I added some diatomeous earth because my try of adding some pumice seemed to improve the green onion, and epsom salt because I added some when I set up the system, and I though it was long ago ... not very scientific ... sorry ;-)

One last thing, the school project is about to start, this week, I will "pitch" the project to the students - I hope the couple of students that inspired the project will sign up! If you want to support my project with the school, but that you can't volunteer, you can give a donation to Chfermette see the donation button on the top right corner. Any donation will be used to finance a trip to one of NYC rooftop farms or to insure the continuation of the project after the end of the spring semester. Also, I am in the process of making it a non profit.
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