Actually fusion, there is some validity to trees adjusting the pH around them. If you go into any pine or oak forest the soil will always be acidic. the leaves the trees drop decompose and increase the acidity of the soil.
Even dropping a single tree in a field of grass will eventually alter the pH of the soil. (eventually being the imperative word) Not overnight by any means and you have to leave the plants dead leaves, branches and such to decompose for it to work, but the soil pH will eventually change more to suit the tree.
Of course it's not some magic juice the tree's roots excrete as georgeiii would imply, though I suppose rotting roots may have the same effect (I'm hypothesizing here)and, if you've seen the massive death in some of georgeiii's "pods" he may be onto something there. I really hadn't put much thought into it until writing this post.

grizzman,
There has never been a question that plants grown in soil (any soil) environments have a varying pH. But the statement that "plants adjust their own pH" is a completely false statement. When you have a soil environment there are thousands of different microbes, bacteria, acids (like humic/favic), even worms bugs and pests that are continually breaking down the soil compounds (all vary depending on location, conditions, and the actual soil environment). That is what is altering the soil "pH" (as well as nutrient levels) NOT THE PLANTS. Growing in soil and in hydro isn't the same thing. The statement that plants adjust pH is only a figment of gorgiie's imagination, and NOT based in any type of actual reality.

Well nice to see the conversaion going on without me. Homie always makes my point for me. Grizz calls the magic fulids, homie gives them a name. humic/favic Why do you think these plants live year round even in their dormant cycle. Why do you think every spring they rebound. I was spending a little time thinking about a conversion thread about humic/favic. What I learned there gave me such insight on how all those things homie talks about. How they fit into the scheme of things. And how that all takes place inside a plastc bucket. Please foegive things to do but there's more pictures on Photobucket/ChristianWarlock/summer 2012

I am still trying to figure out what childhood trauma georgiii has gone through. Something about taking lively plant from the store, malnourishing them, and the chopping them down to twigs and literally drawing out the pain over years.. reminds me of that little girl they found in the 70's whos father had kept her in her room on a potty trainer her whole life... Genie I think it was.

Anyways, Georgiii, I would up your benzodiazapenes or get on some haloperidol. Seriously though, you have delusions of grandeur that remind me of a schizophrenic.

If this is the case and you do have a mental disorder, I don't mean to offend, I am just being a good guy and pointing out the obvious.

Mimosa are pretty much a weed. they grow wild in terrible soil in my neck of the woods. I should hope you would get it to grow.

True, their a weed here too. But it makes a beautiful potted plant.

Well how about Yellow Popcorn

But really you can go to Photobucket/ChristianWarlock and see the many things I'm growing.
So when you really get down to what your objections are let me know.

Sorry about the doubles

Just a pitures of the different plants. This Hybrid tea rose I got at Wal-Mart this Spring. That picture is from 8-8-2012.

This is from 8-16-2012. It stasrted with one rose then two now eight.

The Hass Avocado that had been chewed off at the base. Two months later.

The coffee seedlings I repotted into Hydro-Pods

The Himrod seedless grape.

Food bulbs from the market. They make nice plants too.

The Japanese Snowball I was ready to throw out.

Meyers Lemons

Gets to be a long list. While that's all well and good for tropical and semi-tropical plants . Vegetables are still a problem. Tree aren't a problem either. Seems long term growth is workable. Short term I'm still working on.

Just some pictures to show the progress so far

I've added several Papaya's to Hydro-Pods and Hydro-Pails for winter growth. The pictures of the Papays are giving me troble. I'll post them later

I got lucky and even got Mango's to sprout from seed. Two have germinated with a third as a no show

For those of you following what I've done with Papayas this is the first year growing it. This picture is a larger seedling I transferred to 2 gallon insert. Mounted in a 5 gallon Hydro-Bucket.

I have a Hydro-Squads of them growing in Hydro-Pods. Their doing well. Less root loss in the transfer. I mention this because the larger is loseing leaves. Or just dying back. Just a thought. Now I say this because the root loss of the larger is the same as the root lost in the Coral tree and the Barbados nut. Both lost the secondary roots only the Coral tree and the nut had thicker primary roots.

The Mango above is doing good. Six thin leaves in a rosette. Those are going to need the winter to reach some size. Others on that list
Norflok pines
Meyer Lemons's
Sable Palm
More Ponytail palms
Vineing roses
Sago Palm

Problem is...plants. Figuring out all the different light zones they'll survive in. Truth be told I'm going to like having them around. The oxygen level alone.

A few more things of interest. This is the seed pod of the Coral tree. One of those plants they were looking to use for bio-fuel. problem tho is very few seeds.

Makes a nice house plant tho.

The Mango seedling is comming along.

Norflok Pine

Meyer lemon. These really picked up during the last part of summer. Or it could be the transferr to a larger Pot.

Well the summer has run. Now I bring everything in. Things like the pear tree might be problem. They need a chill time.
Same with the apple trees. These are plants growing in plain water. The roses won't be a problem. It's something to look forward too. I should display pictures of the root systems. They've really grown since the last picture. They're a few that will go dormant like the Barbados nuts.

Here is the root system of the Moonglow pear.

Now that the weather is changing I'm giving thought to the next "idea" That's to grow plants hydroponicly outside. Thought is that it should work on plants that pass thru the temp drop anyway. I'm going to try it on various trees. Now I'm not talking about tropical trees, I live in new called zone 7. I have the Moonglow pear and 14 others I'll try it with.

The thing is you are growing plants, it's working, and you think that since it's "working" that it's a good practice.
Applying that logic is an erroneous concept. I'd bet if you compared your growth to a hydroponics system maintained like what others consider "correct" then your method would pale in comparison. I've kept a reef tank for a couple years with coral, fish, and other invertebrates. I might not be a hydroponics guru but I do see when things do not equate.

Sorry, that's rather cicular logic. Your on the web, do the comparison yourself. This sounds like "homie". I'm looking for any comparison your willing to make. The pictures are here. You can look on Photobucket/Christian Warlock for the pictures over time as well. But just coming on here going blah, blah, blah doesen't mean anything. Explain yourself. Hydroponics isn't dogma it's science.

I am interested in what your goals are with your systems georgiii. Can you elaborate, please?

I believe we have lost contact with nature in the urban area's. We can't go back because of how quickly that knowlage was "forgotten". Combine that with larger and larger groups of pepole are going to have to start growing food. The land has been so abused by corprate farming that's it's exgushed. Look at our rate of natural disters and the aftermath for people to survive. This method will allow people to grow there way out of unemployment. This is a low tech method with a low learning curve and can be done on and industral scale or personel gardens. It can be done on any surface or up walls. You can grow your own fruits and nut, herbs and several vegetables so far. We need to give the earth a time to rest and heal. I can go on but you get the driff. Besides it gives you a great garden.

I haven't seen you grow enough food from these systems to
feed even 1 person. If the goal here is to be able to grow
vegetables cheaply and to be able to survive with the produce,
then is it not also important that the time put into making
the systems and maintaining them not go to waste?

How are you going to improve these systems, which seem like
they do work albeit not enough for growing food, so that
you can accomplish your goal?

-Mike

So you haven't been to Photobucket\ChristianWarlock. While it's true I've only grown, pumpkins % from one 5 gallon bucket, pictures are in The ChristianWarlock album. Same with corn grown in Nanny Pods. Those pictures are in the same album. Okra, tobbacco, peppers, lettace, basils I mean there's quite a list. Yes there are several I haven't been suscussful with but I'm still working on them. The Avocado,s, Mango's, citrus are still young yet. I photograph everyting good and bad. But there's only a few. But the many that do from palms, pears, roses and grapes. There are pictures of how there doing. Even the bio-fuel plants are shown on that site.

They are growing, I will give you that george. But what I
am saying is that if these systems are hopefully going to
be able to produce enough food to sustain a family, then you
would either need to make the systems grow more food from each
pod/bucket OR you would need hundreds of the systems you have
now.

So it sounds to me like there is a point where you will have
to assume that in order to grow enough food for sustainability
you will need to add more fertilizer to the plants.

Or do you have another idea to get the plants to produce
more food/fuel?

Your looking at this in the wrong way. This is a plug and place system. Each container is seperate from the others and can be lined up acording to your effort. There's no fertilizer issues to deal with. If something happens to one plant you just pull it and replace with another. That's how the system varies from hydroponics. And I do have a hundred of them.

That's what I mean by plug and play as the plant grows you just move it to a larger container in the line. Those two picture are one of the Avocado I grew from seed in a Nanny Pod to a Hydro-Pot to a Hydro-Bucket. That's where it will stay.

That is a nice looking avocado.

Your plug and place systems can make a nice garden for
looks, but it will never be able to produce enough food
to feed people efficiently enough to be worth it unless you
increase fertilizer in the system.

You need to have food everyday. Your system may make some
food for eating one day a month if you used 20+ pods or
whatever you call them but it isn't going to work without
more fertilizer.

For what its worth you have a nice idea of art and such and
I think that is what your system is really there for. It
represents nature and the damages humans have done to
Earth. Thats cool. But, I think that it is deceptively optimistic
to think that these will be able to produce food for a
family without more fertilizer.

hey ethno,
You are beating a dead horse with reason on this thread.
You'd be better off to spend your time building one yourself and then seeing what kind of potential it has with recorded nutrient amounts.

Something we're always forgetting in the modern world. Plants make their own food.

Yeah, you're right. Once a moron, always a moron.

Georgeiii,
the law of conservation dictates that plants need more input than they output. if a plants only source of material is what dies off the plant, then it would never grow because there would be no plant to die off in the first place.(consider this philosophy applied to humans. I can grow larger by eating my own body. Kind of sounds ridiculous in that sense) That is why plants consume materials already present in the Earth to build plant parts from. I am not saying they don't reuse what has died off. Just that what has died off is not enough to make the plant flourish. Maybe, for a spell, feeding off the decaying parts may maintain the plant but it will not get larger feeding on its dead parts wholly. That is also why you have to add a "squirt of fertilizer" every few days to get the plants to grow at all. Again, I am not saying your idea doesn't work. Just that if your applied a little scientific research to what you're doing, you might find there are ways to improve your system.

That's true grizz, that why I add a squrit of fertilizer every three days. It's because it's not getting the nutrients that the leaves, bark, branches, insects would bring to the plant. That's why I come on here to try and explain myself better. Now I'm going to be forced to apply written, input amounts, record keeping, out come and goals methods to my madess.

I'll let you know how that goes

Sorry, my last post was pretty rude.

Looking forward to learning the methods of your madness George.

Now grizz I do have a problem with the conservation thing. See I think that due to the natural cycle of things more is created from the waste of the plants. The waste given off from the roots is recycled by bacteria to produce more "fertilizer" for the plant. I have several plants that have been growing for years without fertilizer at all. just what the plants give off themselves. Ture it's not a board list of plants mostly peppers. Some are three years old. No water movement, no air.

growing and living do not always have reciprocal meanings.

try replacing the water in those pepper plant containers with distilled water to control for nutrients in the tap water and see what happens.

This is a struggle between anaerobic and aerobic bactria in the fertilizer. I show this because why the plant grow slowly when not attendent to. Because of using plastic causes the water to ciculate without outside force. And your right grizz there is a difference but if something happens the plants don't die because of it. Infact the roots that die off are eaten by the anaerobic bacteria and changed to nutrients for the plants new roots that are produced. Problem with using distilled water is that the air would still bring bacteria into the system.

there will be bacteria regardless of water source, but by using distilled water you know that the only nutrients are coming from those decomposition processes.

Thing is there's no nutrient in the water. All nutruient is in the insert. There's really to little when applied to get into the water.

so you believe the bacteria create matter after consuming dead plants material?

Georgeiii, do you think water from the tap has nutrients in it?

Because it does!

Even municipal water has nutrients in it. Small amounts, but enough that it must still be considered in your setup where you're adding small amounts of nutrients.

It is all relative.

Been away awhile but grizz why go simple on me. It doesn't create matter, it changes it. Makes those things, amnino acids and such. That's what composting does. Grizz you know better. I expect better from you.

Well I just had to be sure you understand that.
You see those bacteria require some amount of matter, ever so infintismal, to live, reproduce, and otherwise flourish. so there will always be a net loss of matter when bacteria are feeding on dead plant matter. That was my point. you can not have a closed system with plants.

Grizz you're too nice.

Georgeiii, yes bacteria do convert dead plant matter back into usable nutrients. HOWEVER. It is not a 100% conversion rate, they don't take all nitrogen and convert it back. You do lose nutrients to the imperfections of the bacteria.

Furthermore, for bacteria to grow and multiply, they use nutrients.

Lets continue. Dead roots do amount to SOME nutrients. MOST of the nitrogen, carbon, sugars, chlorophyll, etc. are in the leaves/stems of the plant! Unless you're placing the dead leaves into the reservoir then your system is consuming 1000X how much the bacteria fix and regenerate from dead roots.

Your idea is flawed. Tap water is contributing the main source of nutrients, guaranteed. Well, your "squirt" is actually.

This is what reminds me of homie. He always answered his own questions. Your thinking this all wrong. The dead matter is composted. That's part of the cycle. But we're talking about the live roots not the dead one. Don't forget the dead bodies of the bacteria are food for others. The living ones. This is a compost pile the plants are sitting in. It just happens to be a water based one. The plant produces waste for others to live on. I have two ways of providing added food for the bacteria by adding urine or compost tea. Either one has enough food in just one cc for trillions of new bacteria and it gets that squrit every three days. That's what replaces the nutrients it would get from the leaves and stems.

Finally getting a chance to read the full thread and.....wow! Well done.

Love the photos, love the info, love the peer reviews and questions.

Keep it up!! It is helping to further flatten my learning curve!

Here is a link that might be useful: My Indoor Gardening Adventure

Here is information you should know big G:

"Many nitrogen-fixing organisms exist only in anaerobic conditions, respiring to draw down oxygen levels, or binding the oxygen with a protein such as leghemoglobin.[1]"

You use air pumps from what I have seen. How is your aerobic, oxygenated water producing so much anaerobic bacteria? It probably isn't, quite frankly.

Another flaw to realize about your logic is that you're feeding your plants ready-to-use nutrients. Bacteria fix nutrients from N2 gas, ammonia, and nitrite. Your nitrogen in fertilizer is already nitrate, which means that it is of no use for the bacteria. They cannot even use that form of nitrogen.

You know there�s a picture above anaerobic baterica showing what your talking about but here�s where the difference comes in between regular hydroponics and sustainable hydroponics. With regular hydroponics bacteria plays very little part in the system. While with sustainable hydroponics it�s part of the relationship with plants. Both are feeding each other. Let me use the word fauna in stead of bacteria. Just because of the different types involved. Think of the fauna as grazers that are moving thru the fields (water) eating and gathering nutrients on and in their bodies. They then thru osmosis enter the root cells and drop off their nutrients. The plant thru sap as a waste product leaves sugars the fauna likes. Everything wins. That�s how I get such great root systems.

Hello Georgeii. I like all of the pictures in this thread. I would like to ask if you meant to use the word osmosis? I am not sure that it is scientifically correct. But just wondering!

NonCirc,
you are correct. The roots do not allow bacteria to enter the plants. Only water and nutrients at the molecular level.

Yeah, I really don't think osmosis brings bacteria into roots Georgeiii. For two reasons: the plants roots will not allow something as large as bacteria to enter, and osmotic pressure sucks (meaning that bacteria would create osmotic pressure and suck things out of the roots, not visa-versa. bacteria themselves don't create osmotic pressure that I know of anyways)

The only reason your plants grow, I think, is still because of small amounts of nutrients in the tap water and that squirt of fertilizer you give them. I have no reason to believe in that in your system it is the bacteria that are providing necessary nutrients to the plants. I would bet that the amount they provide to the plants is not even significant. How can you prove that the bacteria are making your system work? What evidence do you have other than assumptions based on stuff you have read? Those assumptions are merely hypothesis without some type of proof. Because the naked eye cannot distinguish between the type of bacteria in your buckets and how much food they're creating. Ah-hah, you need a microscope or take a bucket of your water from one of your "pods" or whatnot to a local university and ask them to test it.... then I may believe you.

Sorry I misstated and meant that the bacteria enters the slime coating produced by the roots and desposit their coatings clinging to their bodies their waste products. Hey this is new and yes I use a microscope. Stuff I read?? Where is anybody else doing this? I have to go on experience and questions asked here. And enthno I don't ask anybody to believe me. That's funny even to think. But I can see if bacteria numbers are growing or declining. And yes when I use tap water it's because I can tell by the leaves there's a need for certain micronutrients, calcium, iron , copper, etc. If not I use plain rain water. For the number of plants I'm growing tap water can get expensive. As for it being a hypothesis..of course it a hypothesis. Most of these are five gallon buckets. And yes you can tell the the type of bacteria and what food their producing. Composting remember. Their called PMT's forgive if I don't spell out their names cause I'm not sure. I learned them this summer when I had trouble growing tomato's.

Wow! People are really interested in growing their own bio-fuel with Sustainable hydroponics. It's been up there awhile on Photobucket.

While it hasn't snowed that much it been freezeing for a number of days. This is really just an experiment. I'd hate to lose the tree but having this work out would help so many people who don't have regular space.

I have eleven trees in the Out door Sustainable hydroponic system. I'm hoping their surviving but they look all right to me. There are several days where they froze in fact a whole week at one time. The water in the smaller systems froze but a little daylight and I can hear them bubbling. I should take pictures of the roots for records. You can see the big difference in the smaller hair roots. This is where the composting idea comes from if they survive. Looks too like I'll have to start a new thread soon. This is a "hypothesis" if it works yea for gardening