Is there a one-size-fits-all nutrient for vegetables??

15 years ago

Hi Folks:

I'm currently doing research on Hydroponics in preparation for creating my first hydroponic garden.

I'd like to know if it is possible to select one nutrient formula and use it to grow all the vegetables on my list? (This would allow me to build a single NFT system.) Will it be possible to get decent results with this one system and nutrient, or do I need to construct several NFT systems and match plants of similar nutrient needs? If the later, is there a resource that would tell me which plants to group together. I'm interested in growing the following vegetables:

High Priority: Arugula, Chard, Lettuce, Mesculin, Hot Peppers, Sweet Peppers, Squash, Tomatoes, Kale.

Desired: Broccoli Raab, Cucumbers, eggplant, Radicchio, Spinach, Watermelon, Peas.

Thanks in advance

-Mark

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Comments (5)

freemangreens
15 years ago
Yes and no. It depends entirely on what vegetables you intend to grow.

Each plant will grow within a certain range of nutrient concentration. In hydroponics, it's referred to as "EC". That stands for Electrical Conductivity and is a measure of the nutrient's strength more or less.

Along with EC, each plant grows within a certain range of pH (alkalinity/ acidity).

I have included a link to a page with links to three different Web sites that post charts. Just look up whatever it is you intend to grow and see what each one needs.

If the needs are the same for each vegetable, you can choose from any number of nutrients and adjust the concentrations to achieve the proper EC and pH and you're good to go.

Here is a link that might be useful: EC & pH Growing Tables
peat_0
15 years ago
One more thing with this.

The arugula, chard, kale (non-flowering) etc will be grown on what's know as vegetative feed mix only.

The tomatoes, hot peppers (flowering plants) etc will initially be grown on the vegetative phase. You would then have to change these to a bloom/flowering type mix to give them what they need.

It would be best to keep all the flowering/non-flowering vegetables apart due to this.
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hooked_on_ponics
15 years ago
Also, you'll want to try to keep some of them at different temperatures. Tomatoes love heat, but heat will cause your lettuce and spinach to bolt (go to seed rapidly).
TripeakFarms
10 years ago
I agree with freeman, yes and no. We have a reasonably sized NFT setup, 3500 plants, and basically run lettuce of several varieties, arugula, and basil. We have trialled broccoli(in the summer), leeks, tsoi sum, cabbage, turnip greens, and a few others. All were run on our lettuce formula. What we found is that all work fine, even out of season, but if you want peak production, you need to tune the formula, and ph, and lighting for the crop you want. Plants are very forgiving and if you really screw it up, then they die, if it is only partially screwed up, the just look at you and don't grow until you fix the problem.

Cheers
PupillaCharites
10 years ago
I generally agree with Tripeak except if a plant just does ok, or is just forgiving and yield is on life-support, in hobby setups I have found it is simply too costly since I have a great quality veggie retailers nearby as long as they carry it, organic and conventional. Broccoli, for example has huge protein requirements, which will consume more nitrogen to grow with a high protein content, which happens to be my reason for wanting broccoli. If you can't tune somewhat, with the high hobby costs already stacked against us, I'm pretty negative. Trials are great to learn from, and have a learning value, but after the lessons are learned, I don't have spare space to put any plants on welfare ;-)

I just did this analysis for combining strawberry varieties. I'll likely be paying about $8.50/pound all in with my labor being overlooked. If I don't syncronize somewhat my strawberries, I'll be paying $12-14.00 per pound. The moment I sharpen my pencil, I lose a lot of the motivation for mixing varieties that aren't optimal. After expensing the setup and growing my second year, it will be about $4.00 per pound and $6.00 per pound. I could select some of the commercial tasteless varieties and get that down to $2.00, but at these costs I really don't want to go through all this just to get the same quality that is $2 in season at any local supermarket chain.

The numbers are ballpark; if I weren't dealing with less than 50 plant things would be different, but not too different with the higher investments involved.

Is there a one-size-fits-all nutrient for vegetables??

Comments (5)

freemangreens

peat_0

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