Great experiment. Thanks for sharing. You usually focus on the visual aspect of the plants, which has merit. I would love to see additional data, such as gram weight of harvest. This would also allow you to keep comparing throughout harvest cycles.
I measured my EC as an experiment and found that using about half of the recommended nutrients that the EC worked out to between 1.2-1.5 which is recommended for lettuce. I have been growing my lettuce with bumper harvests every time with this grow method and I find that halving the nutrients mostly stopped the lettuce bolting too:) Of course the PH level plays a major part in nutrient uptake as well. Just as an FYI, the PH level in my experiment was between 6.5-6.9:)
Thank you for this! I have less tip burn I think with less nutrients, too. It would be interesting to see you do an experiment where you do as above with adding water and nutrients separately and then also do one where you add nutrients and water at the same time to top up the tank (diluted in a gallon jug). You could even do a third where you siphon off the old nutrient water every two weeks and add all new nutrient water.
@@aerogardenexperimentsdo you ever check pH? Tip burn can be calcium deficiency caused by nutrient lockout due to incorrect pH. I think you should do some side by side experiments with various plants, with unmanaged pH vs managed pH. A Brita filter drops my tap water pH from 7.66 to under 7, but the AG's pH buffer still keeps the pH too high to be optimal for certain plants, including peppers and tomatoes.
Your experiment seems to be on par with my research. In fact, when growing leaf lettuce my research has shown it can be grown with low wattage lights. You will not get tight heads of lettuce, but if harvesting for individual leaves growing heads of lettuce does not matter. Today, I have 9 Little Gem Romaine Lettuce plants and 3 Tom Thumb Buttercrunch growing. They have been growing since the December 10. I'm growing until maturity (65 days) and then harvesting leaves. I want to see how large these mini varieties can grow.
It is the tip burning that caused me to scale back on the amount of nutrients I fed to my leafy plants and herbs. I feel like some things need more nutrients while other things like the leafy greens just don't need it and too much is detrimental. I am glad to see you confirm this with lettuce at least.
10 місяців тому
I love your videos. I'm a gardening newbie - previously a black thumb (lots of failures). So your thoughtful instruction videos are terrific.
Another excellent experiment! I have 2 harvest slims with a variety of lettuces, but one garden has tip burn on 3 of 4 pods and I was wondering why. I think you just answered that for me. Thanks friend!
Very timely video! I have a 6-pod garden of all watercress that is 13 days old. The top of the leaves have black spots and streaks. The underneath of the leaves look fine and so do the roots. I wrote to Aerogarden with pictures to ask about it and they said watercress needs less nutrients. I will empty the water tomorrow and start using half the recommended nutrients. Also, this was my first time using watercress seeds. They're so tiny I think I used too many and overcrowded the pods 😮. I just couldn't see howany I planted. Live and learn.
I just read an article that adding cal mag will stop tip burn in lettuce. I’m going to give it a try since I still get tip burn with reduced nutrients and keeping the garden in a cool spot. From the article: “Tip burn is a common problem in lettuce crops lacking calcium. Young leaves can develop In lettuce, calcium deficiency often manifests as tip burn on developing leaves. Tip burn gives leaf margins a burned or crinkled appearance and will affect their appearance throughout development”. Maybe you could try that also?
Tip burn can all be caused by a calcium deficiency due to a lack of transpiration because there isn't enough air movement over the leaves to evaporate moisture off of them to allow new nutrient water containing calcium to replace the lost water and can be fixed by adding an oscillating fan. You can also have a calcium deficiency in plants even if there is plenty of calcium in your nutrient solution if the PH is off as it will because unavailable biologically to the plant.
I just discovered I have teeny tiny light green colored things in my red pepper plant leaves.. when i used a magnifying glass to examine them, they have legs... what are they and what do I do ?
Aphids. Wash plants with Safer’s soap (directions on bottle) or get rid of them, throughly clean aerogarden and start again. Also check your houseplants, those aphids had to come from somewhere. Buy any new plants lately?
Phytonutrients are made by the plant, with the largest sources of raw materials coming from air, water, and light. Studies have actually shown that stressed plants produce more antioxidants.
The taste is the same. I haven't noticed any difference in taste. By the way, taste depends on temperature as well. Low temperature makes it less bitter. It's day 31 only, so they have a long way to go before bolting. I will surely update you when the time comes. I am hoping they survive for another 3 months.
you should try again with four ml but every week so that there is less of a spike in nutrients or maybe compare with a machine that has lettuce in with a fruiting plant
No, I never use cal-mag for lettuce. I use either Aerogarden nutrients or MaxiGro nutrients and both of them have enough amount of cal-mag for lettuce.
I mean, nutrients uptake is dependent on size and age of plants, PAR/PPFD, CO2 levels and temperature/humidity. Translation: big plants in giant pots in Ideal conditions and under strong light will need and uptake more nutrients This should be a general rule of thumb for most if not all plants. I feel like people are giving way too much credit to nutrients, that's not really what makes the plants grow. That's like vitamins and supplements for humans, you simply can't eat tablets all your life, you gotta make yourself a decent meal. Photosynthesis and fusing carbon and hydrogen into carbohydrates is what makes the plants grow. Nutrients are there to help and boost the entire process, to help with the chemistry. My 2¢
Great experiment. Thanks for sharing. You usually focus on the visual aspect of the plants, which has merit. I would love to see additional data, such as gram weight of harvest. This would also allow you to keep comparing throughout harvest cycles.
Thanks for the feedback. I will start adding additional data going forward.
I measured my EC as an experiment and found that using about half of the recommended nutrients that the EC worked out to between 1.2-1.5 which is recommended for lettuce. I have been growing my lettuce with bumper harvests every time with this grow method and I find that halving the nutrients mostly stopped the lettuce bolting too:) Of course the PH level plays a major part in nutrient uptake as well. Just as an FYI, the PH level in my experiment was between 6.5-6.9:)
Thank you for this! I have less tip burn I think with less nutrients, too.
It would be interesting to see you do an experiment where you do as above with adding water and nutrients separately and then also do one where you add nutrients and water at the same time to top up the tank (diluted in a gallon jug). You could even do a third where you siphon off the old nutrient water every two weeks and add all new nutrient water.
Thank you for the suggestions. I will consider those experiments in the near future.
@@aerogardenexperimentsdo you ever check pH?
Tip burn can be calcium deficiency caused by nutrient lockout due to incorrect pH.
I think you should do some side by side experiments with various plants, with unmanaged pH vs managed pH.
A Brita filter drops my tap water pH from 7.66 to under 7, but the AG's pH buffer still keeps the pH too high to be optimal for certain plants, including peppers and tomatoes.
Very interesting experiment... the proof is before our eyes! Thank you so kindly for even thinking about this kind of experiment ❤
WOW!!! i am actually just starting growing lots of plants indoors and i have 12 lettuces right now trying to grow. thank you very much!
Your experiment seems to be on par with my research. In fact, when growing leaf lettuce my research has shown it can be grown with low wattage lights. You will not get tight heads of lettuce, but if harvesting for individual leaves growing heads of lettuce does not matter. Today, I have 9 Little Gem Romaine Lettuce plants and 3 Tom Thumb Buttercrunch growing. They have been growing since the December 10. I'm growing until maturity (65 days) and then harvesting leaves. I want to see how large these mini varieties can grow.
Nice! Agree that the lettuce can be grown with low light as well. 20W is ideal but less also works to a certain extent.
It is the tip burning that caused me to scale back on the amount of nutrients I fed to my leafy plants and herbs. I feel like some things need more nutrients while other things like the leafy greens just don't need it and too much is detrimental. I am glad to see you confirm this with lettuce at least.
I love your videos. I'm a gardening newbie - previously a black thumb (lots of failures). So your thoughtful instruction videos are terrific.
Thanks! I have a problem with tip burn in my lettuce all the time!
Another excellent experiment! I have 2 harvest slims with a variety of lettuces, but one garden has tip burn on 3 of 4 pods and I was wondering why. I think you just answered that for me.
Thanks friend!
Very timely video! I have a 6-pod garden of all watercress that is 13 days old. The top of the leaves have black spots and streaks. The underneath of the leaves look fine and so do the roots. I wrote to Aerogarden with pictures to ask about it and they said watercress needs less nutrients. I will empty the water tomorrow and start using half the recommended nutrients. Also, this was my first time using watercress seeds. They're so tiny I think I used too many and overcrowded the pods 😮. I just couldn't see howany I planted. Live and learn.
Yeah, watercress does better with fewer nutrients. 2 plants per pod should be better.
I just read an article that adding cal mag will stop tip burn in lettuce. I’m going to give it a try since I still get tip burn with reduced nutrients and keeping the garden in a cool spot.
From the article:
“Tip burn is a common problem in lettuce crops lacking calcium. Young leaves can develop In lettuce, calcium deficiency often manifests as tip burn on developing leaves. Tip burn gives leaf margins a burned or crinkled appearance and will affect their appearance throughout development”.
Maybe you could try that also?
Tip burn can all be caused by a calcium deficiency due to a lack of transpiration because there isn't enough air movement over the leaves to evaporate moisture off of them to allow new nutrient water containing calcium to replace the lost water and can be fixed by adding an oscillating fan. You can also have a calcium deficiency in plants even if there is plenty of calcium in your nutrient solution if the PH is off as it will because unavailable biologically to the plant.
Well, you just saved me a bunch of money!
This is very helpful! Thank you.
You're very welcome!
Great idea for an experiment !
I just discovered I have teeny tiny light green colored things in my red pepper plant leaves.. when i used a magnifying glass to examine them, they have legs... what are they and what do I do ?
Aphids. Wash plants with Safer’s soap (directions on bottle) or get rid of them, throughly clean aerogarden and start again. Also check your houseplants, those aphids had to come from somewhere. Buy any new plants lately?
This might be a silly question, does decreasing the nutrients affect the nutrients in the lettuce?
Not a silly question! I have the same question and I don't see how it can NOT affect the nutrients of the lettuce.
Phytonutrients are made by the plant, with the largest sources of raw materials coming from air, water, and light. Studies have actually shown that stressed plants produce more antioxidants.
We are not making it nutrients deficit at all. As long as we give sufficient nutrition, the plants will do fine and develop nutrients properly.
Thank you for sharing :)
My pleasure!
This good to know
do know the PH & EC value
What nutrients did you use?
Aerogarden nutrients.
@Aerogarden Experiments what is the water capacity of those units? Do you possibly know what the EC range is with the two levels of nutrition?
It is 2.6 liters bowl capacity. I haven't checked EC. I will check and let you know. My TDS meter broke, and I just ordered a new one.
Did you noticed any difference in the flavor? Is the one with half nutrition less bitter? Which one bolts faster?
I'm also curious about whether there's a difference in flavor.
The taste is the same. I haven't noticed any difference in taste. By the way, taste depends on temperature as well. Low temperature makes it less bitter.
It's day 31 only, so they have a long way to go before bolting. I will surely update you when the time comes. I am hoping they survive for another 3 months.
you should try again with four ml but every week so that there is less of a spike in nutrients or maybe compare with a machine that has lettuce in with a fruiting plant
Do you feed your lettuce CalMag or just Aerogarden Nutrients?
No, I never use cal-mag for lettuce. I use either Aerogarden nutrients or MaxiGro nutrients and both of them have enough amount of cal-mag for lettuce.
What was the name of the lettuce you used in this experiment?
Paris Island Cos Romaine
Yes, it is Parris Island Cos Lettuce.
@@aerogardenexperimentsi'm new to this. can you suggest a couple different varieties of leafy lettuce that work well in these systems
I mean, nutrients uptake is dependent on size and age of plants, PAR/PPFD, CO2 levels and temperature/humidity.
Translation: big plants in giant pots in Ideal conditions and under strong light will need and uptake more nutrients
This should be a general rule of thumb for most if not all plants. I feel like people are giving way too much credit to nutrients, that's not really what makes the plants grow. That's like vitamins and supplements for humans, you simply can't eat tablets all your life, you gotta make yourself a decent meal. Photosynthesis and fusing carbon and hydrogen into carbohydrates is what makes the plants grow. Nutrients are there to help and boost the entire process, to help with the chemistry.
My 2¢