Hey georgeiii,
Glad to see your plants are still alive. My NO-PIZZA diet is going great as well, I'm down to only 2 pizzas a week now. I hope to have my NO-PIZZA diet down to 3 pizzas a week by next month. Wish me luck!!!

Wanted to add hard wood cuttings from Brugmansia white to the list. Any wood that you have to use a saw to get thru is hard wood. Those produced new leaves in two weeks. Right now have eighteen rose cuttings, five of which are showing new growth. Big things with these will be 24/7 light.

Please, do a favor to you and to Mother Nature, stop the agony of your plants. Why don't you try a non-food diet for you to see what happens? Then you can post your own photos, if you have enough energy to turn on the computer XD

I've been adding additional plants and transfering and making up Hydro-Buckets.

I've never been a flower person. For some reason this year is different. I've been getting a quite rush cutting from different rose bushes in the area. I know it's the wrong season but what the hey.

The hard wood cuttings are all showing go growth.

Is it tap water?

I see this works well for plant that dont like fertilizer. The tomatoes look like they did not make it.
Do you lower ph?
Ph needs to be 5.5

Mastergardener,
Georgey uses plain water in the bottom of the bucket, but adds "a squirt" of standard houseplant fertilizer to the upper bucket full of perlite every "3 or 4 days"
Don't be fooled into thinking he doesn't use any fertilizer, he just has no idea how much he's using.

I'm sorry did I try and fool someone? There's a picture on the amount of fertilizer I use. It's just a squrit. This is Non-Nutrient Hydroponics. The different containers all use plain or rain water. An no I don't use just Perlite, I add Styrofoam chips. The reason being natural pruning of the roots as shown above.

georgeii,

I like your set up, tomatoes are fast growing and die in a year. They grow at rapid rates and grow huge fruits, these fruits have a lot of suger the plant needs a lot of fertilizer to make those fruits. When it comes to tomatoes I found the more you feed them, the more you get. Plants that dont set fruits or dessert plants that will die from fertilizer will thrive in that system. When its 80f outside I feed my tomatoes 3x as much as when its either 90+ or 50f, outside of these temps they grow slower so I feed them way less.

Try feeding some tamotoes with added Ca-Mg and a high ppm of fertilizer.

I also have to say I found DWC to be easy to control temps, making it one of the best choices.

Yes georgeii you did, and you still do try to fool people. We went through all of that before in your other thread. You choose the term ""Non-Nutrient"" for the title of your thread. The word "Non" means not, none, nada, nothing, and you place that next to the word "Nutrient." So clearly you are implying you don't use any nutrients at all when that clearly isn't the case. That is trying to fool people. You cant expect people to read every post in a thread looking for the one or two posts where you mention you actually do use nutrients, and thus contradict your thread title.

Well let's try something else. How about Sustainable Hydrponics. Hydroponics that leave no nutrient waste. Need no ph reading, no concentration levels. Uses material from you area without bringing anything in. Gardens created by simple Arts& Crafts that you get out of your recycling. The system runs on air and each Pod is part of a system of "Plug & Play". Each Pod is seperate from the other. With no nutrients in the Pod water you can change plant inserts with no shock. Best yet it works with every kind of plant, whether it's a seed, cutting, softwood, hard wood. This year I'm trying tubers, bulbs, roses and bio-fuel. The system is such that can grow trees in five gallon buckets because the method self prunes the roots. There's a picture above. But you see this system isn't for you homie. This method is for those who don't have our "expertise". A simple method for people who aren't gardeners and have no idea of food other that plastic wrap and a can. And if I say non-Nutrient...compare that to what your putting in. Anyway a small arugment in the face of big problems with producing food and who entitled to it. I forgot to metion it can be done organicly or inorganicly. You can grow it on parking lots, sidewalks, school yards up walls. No tilling, shoveling, tractors and can be done right in the heart of cities. If that's the only problem you find I'm getting better at my explanations.

Yes, "Sustainable Hydroponics" is a much better thread title, just about anything other than "Non-Nutrient" that implies you don't use nutrients to grow plants would be better. Unfortunately you cant change this one, or even past thread titles, but titling the thread appropriately will go a long way in reducing confusion and misunderstandings.

I understand how your system works very well, and your right, it's not for me. Though I also understand your trying to promote hydroponics in 3rd world/underdeveloped country's. In that situation where resources are scarce at best, I think you have a good idea. After all they don't have access to hydroponic nutrients, pH adjusters etc., or even the money to buy them if they did. Not to mention in most third world country's safe drinking water is very scarce as well. So a simple low tech method of using whatever they may have on hand to both build the systems, as well as a source of nutrients is a good idea.

Would the plants do better if they were growing in a more controlled environment with a more controlled nutrient as well as pH levels? Absolutely, but again in third world country's where resources are minimal, they need to work with just what they have on hand. If I'm not mistaken that's your goal, to help underdeveloped country's. I hope that goes well, they could use a break.

I am saying if you wanted to produce food you for sure need much more nutrients to do so.

Ha,ha THIRD WORLD COUNTRIES?! That's such a tickle homie. What you don't buy your own food right here? What you haven't watched Food inc? What you didn't watch Food inc or The Vanishing Bees. Must be nice to live that way but I can tell there are many right here that are concerned with their food and how it's produced. Not to mention increasing their varity of choices. No, ph issues, no controlled enviroment. As for safe water there's a thing called rain. If the rain is scared, plants clean water. With just five acres of Papyus you can clean the drinking water for tens of thousands. Master how much fertilizer does a plant need? If for example your using standard hydroponic mixes how much wines up as waste? Think on it, 28 gallons of waste water every two weeks Toxic waste water. Even when you try to balance the ph by adding more mix you still have that to throw away. An I don't mean the silly notion of pouring it on your lawn. There are threads on here about how much a plant takes in during it's growth cycle. We have spectrograph of every plant grown. We know exactly how much fertilzer each needs. It's the delivery system that makes the difference.

Yes I do buy all my food locally, not sure about food ink, and I also know there is problems with bee colonies. But food being produced the way you are trying to do it would never make it's way into the local markets where I live. It would just be to inconstant and low quality that they would never even consider putting it in their stores. I don't know, I guess it is nice to live in an area where poverty isn't the norm. And I don't know what's in your nutrients, but there's nothing toxic in mine.

I agree that increased variety choices are a good thing. But how you choose to grow your plants and your system design has nothing to do with variety choices. Now if you can grow truffles that match wild grown truffles in both taste and quality, I would be impressed then. The system you built wont have any affect on bee populations either, or are you trying to say the plants in your system somehow become self pollinating too?

And sorry your claim about "no pH issues" is just so funny and totally untrue. The plants don't just regulate their own pH as you claim. They are however quite resilient and will try to survive in any conditions, even if they are not favorable. Including pH levels and extreme temperatures just to name a couple of stress factors. Just because your plants are alive does not mean they are controlling pH levels. You don't even test your pH, so you don't even know what it is (both the water and at the roots), you cant even say if it's out or range or just fine. Without real data like that you are just boasting claims that are unfounded and aren't based in reality. If you want to stick your head in the sand and pretend a issue dosen't exist, that is certainly your right, but 99% of the rest of us live on planet earth.

You say "no controlled enviroment." But even that is untrue. You clearly are controlling the plants growing environment, though only in the half hazard way you do it. You clearly choose the the growing medium, as well as what you choose to use for a squirt of nutrients. Not to mention the water levels, and choose to use air blubbers as well. All of witch is controlling the plants environment. Even picking the time of year to grow the plants is a choice and controlling the growing environment (thus the weather conditions for the plants). You just choose to limit your control of the plants growing environment for whatever reason. Just because you don't want to bother, that dosen't mean the plants don't respond to changes in their environment (both good and bad).

Haven't you seen or herd of the water problems in many country around the world? I'm not talking about in the US where our water issues are almost non existent (in the context I meant it). If your interested in what I mean, try visiting Water.org, and see what I was referring to.

If you feel fertilizing soil grown plants is silly, that's your issue. First, most commercial hydroponic operations have very little if any run off. Most use a drip system that regulates water and nutrient delivery. It is timed so well that there is literally hardly any if any run off. Other commercial systems that use volumes of water regulate the nutrients in it, and replace only the nutrients actually used by the plants. In those systems the water is rarely ever changed, they grow plants in the same water all year long. But for cases where you do want to dispose of large amounts of used nutrient solution, and without hassles or nutrient buildup by not dispersing it. The problem is simple to solve, pouring it directly into the sewer (down the drain) is all that is needed. The sewage treatment plant (where all the water in the sewer goes) is built for that very reason. They can handle real "toxic" water (not just non-toxic nutrients), as well as turn it back into clean drinking water.

Your patented "delivery system" dosen't solve any problems. Unless you don't have access to the resources that most areas of poverty don't have. Resources like nutrients, pH adjusters and testing drops (hydroponic supply's in general). As well as water if a drip systems without the right timers is unattainable, not to mention the regular pluming we all take for granted (where I live anyway). Again it's just about what resources they have access to, in those cases the low quality of the produce grown is accepted easily.

Homie your running around in circles with nothing to say. Now as for testing ph of course I test it. But after the first two weeks it's set between 5.8 & 6.8. Homie your showing a lack of experince saying a plant doesn't set it's own ph. They do it in nature all the time. Pick a tree, any tree you'd like and test the ph. That's the ph the tree likes. Every leaf, every dissolved root (dissolved not rot)helps to set the ph of of the surrounding area the plant lives in. All I did was create a space for the natural cycle to occur. That's why you don't have to dump the water over and over, only refill. Homie I said this wasn't for you. You've got blinders on. Enough people are going to try this, more are going to just from reading this.

Well georgeiii,
If you do test the pH, you have never shared that information before, nor how you conduct your tests to support your claims. Largely because you don't share anything (much less that particular information) I clearly believe you just made that up to save face. You still haven't given any real information about it. That is being forthcoming about the documentation about how you conduct all your pH testing, and that's because you just don't bother to do any. You just want to make untrue and unsubstantiated claims instead.

First you need to regularly test the pH of water supply every time you add any water to the system. You also need to test the pH of your squirts of nutrients. Also because of the way you add the nutrients and how the plants can absorb water, you need to test the pH of the growing medium in multiple spots around the roots too. Simply because the pH can be different from one inch to another (like in soil conditions). You are claiming that no mater what the pH level is, the plants will change it to what they like. How can you make the claim if you don't even test the theory? Just assuming because the pH is in range, the plants must be monitoring it, is simply and utterly ridiculous.

All this testing needs to be regularly documented. But before (or at the same time) you do that, you need to conduct the same exact tests, on a duplicate set of plants, and in a duplicate system that has the pH controlled to test the results against as a control test. As well as a third set of duplicate plants where the pH is regularly adjusted "OUT OF RANGE" on purpose to see if the plants can bring the pH back within range (as claimed). And all tests should include descriptions of plant health. Without controlled tests you have nothing.

If the plants controlled their own pH in your system as claimed, they would do the same in any system!!! Why don't you contact the University of Arizona's control agriculture department, and tell them they don't need to adjust pH levels anymore. Let me know how that goes, and I'll contact Pat myself to see if she agreed with you (or if you even really contacted her).

You seriously want me to go test the pH of the soil near a tree and just assume it was adjusted to that pH by the tree, no mater what the pH was. You really expect me to believe your fiction story without any control testing. Not to mention you want me to believe there isn't anything else that influences pH (in soil or hydro) like all the different microbes/bacteria/fungi/pathogens, as well as the amount of other naturally occurring elements like Humic and Fulvic Acids, or even minerals/mineral salts just to name a few? Come on do you really think I fell off the turnip truck yesterday. Do your own research before you make the unsubstantiated claims.

Georgiii:

All your plants look great and I commend your sustainable efforts.

This seems to be extremely similar to the wick plant pots you can get at Walmart, is this what you based your design from? My father bought a whole bunch of these for super cheap and they work great for peppers and toms!

Ethno
Georgeys system basically functions on the pretense of the root zone being divided into three seperate zones. The food zone at the top where he adds the 'squirt' of fertilizer. The water zone at the bottom of the bucket with only plane water. And finally, the air zone located between the other two zones.
The idea being that only the appropriate type of root will grow in each zone.
well, at least that's my understanding of it.

Interesting. I didn't know that there are different types of roots for nutrients, air, and water? Thanks for the explanation grizz.

Well not really. All the roots absorb nutrients, water, and air. But they will always try and adapt the best they can for the particular situation and conditions they are exposed to.

As an example roots grown in a true aeroponics system will tend to have much smaller (thinner), finer, hair like roots because of the air rich environment. The hair like roots provide a much larger surface area (in the same space) for the roots to absorb all the nutrients, water, and air they can. That's why aeroponic systems tend to grow faster. Simply because the plants are able to absorb much more of everything at the same time, allowing the plant to grow as fast as possible.

Roots that are submerged in water like a "water culture system," where the plants roots are submerged while the system is flooded, will tend to have much thicker roots. Simply because there's so much less air available for the roots to absorbed. Basically the hair like roots would drown in that environment. The same way that over watering small seedlings (with small hair like roots) would suffocate, killing the seedling. Allowing a air pocket between the growing media and water, just allows the plant to get more oxygen that the submerged roots cant get nearly as much of. The exposed hanging roots also get moisture from humidity that's trapped in the bucket (or they would dry out and die as well).

All the roots will still absorb what nutrients, air, and water that they have access to. Just giving a squirt of nutrients directly to only the roots in the growing media, just limits the amount of roots that can absorb the nutrients. But giving an unknown concentration of nutrients, as well as unknown type, and that's undoubtedly distributed unevenly to a small section of roots, as well as without any concern with pH, is georgeiii's so called revolutionary system and claim to fame.

Homie you answer so many questions but don't see the connections. Those hair like roots are growing in an air filled enviroment. It's just under water. You can look at posts I made before about taking inserts out of the Pods and make sure you put them back the same way so the same roots get the same air or they drown and have to regrow. Plants aren't like us they asorb air not breathe it. AS long as the roots are being hit by air bubbles it's getting air. As for the space from the top of the insert to the water level is a grow space. As homie says it's moisten by water evaporation and splashing air bubbles. What he doesn't say is the difference between soil and Perlite that that makes the difference. Thing are catching up so I'll try back on Monday.

Here are answers to some questions

Homie dropping somebody else's name to prove what. They can come on here like everyone else and we'll all discuss this together. I don't need to hide any questions somebody might ask. There's picture and comments they can draw on to challege what I say. I have my own experts to challenge me. No offense Pat join the conversation. Plants don't set their own ph what a funny person.

Georgey,
Could you post a picture of each system (just one of each) with the name below them? That would help me to better discuss them with you.
while you list a lot of names, I've always considered them just modifications of the same thing. I'm not saying that is right or wrong, just a misunderstanding.
Thanks,

Hey georgeiii, posting another bunch of gibberish again I see. Are you writing your own book and posted some random excerpts from it? It's imposable to connect the dots when there's nothing to connect. Posting pictures of plants that could obviously be doing better, then refusing to give any real verification of your bogus claims, not posting random gibberish, there isn't any dots to connect. Well that is beyond the obvious. The only dots you leave all point to someone that's trying to hide the truth.

Claim all you want, but it isn't my job to verify them. You make them, it's up to you to verify them. Time and time again after asking for objective verification, all you do is reiterate the same old gibberish without any verification. Like you were expecting people just regard you ad an authority. Your no authority, your just some guy in a online forum demanding to be respected as one.

I even went to the effort to look at the pictures you posted in photo bucket, as I expected there wasn't anything there of value. Just a bunch of plants in rows, 95% of which appear to be growing in soil. But absolutely nothing that would even come close to substantiating ANY of your bogus claims. I have personally "challege what I say" many, many, many times, but you've never once posted anything to prove anything. You just post gibberish and riddles, then say go look it up yourself to avoid it. You think sending people on wild goose chases will shut them (me) up. haven't you learned yet that dosen't work for adults? Their your claims, you look it up.

Dropping somebody name?
For what?

I guess I'll need to spell it out for you. Don't try and read between lines here, it's spelled out straight forward. You are ""NOT"" an authority in controlled environment agriculture (though I know in your mind you believe so). Due to the constant lack of verification of any of it even after asking for it for years now, it's clear to me you simply cant provide any. Why? Because it dosen't exist. If you cant find any reputable verification for your bogus claims, that is your problem, not mine. You make the claims, you prove them. You can pick any university, you want. The University of AZ is well respected (and it's even in my state). I don't' know Pat personalty but have converses through E-mail with her in the past. I would attend the courses, but Tucson is to far for me to be able to travel (about a 6 hour drive each way). I "DROPPED" the name so you would know who teaches it, as well as and who to contact. Again don't try and read between the lines. Pay attention to my actual words. My mom try's to do that and I need to tell her the same thing 5-6 times before she hears the words I actually spoke.

You can pick any university you want that has a hydroponics (controlled environment agriculture) program, and/or any authority in hydroponics you want to verify you claims. I don't care who they are. Just as long as I can verify their credentials online, and their a reputatal and respected source for information. Some wannabee in a online forum does ""NOT"" qualify as a reputatal and respected source for information. But will you find verification? No! Why? Because you know as well as I do it dosen't exist. I wont/never have held my breath waiting for you to find it.

Grizz, they are all soil grown, except two. And those are the same thing, just one uses bigger baskets and buckets. He calls the baskets a Pod, and used two different sizes. But the design for both of them are the same thing. All the rest of his systems are soil plants. As you can see in the pictures he posts in photo-bucket, 90+% are soil grown.

You know what grizz that's not a bad idea. Each one is a step improvement on the next. One of my montras is that I use any fertilizer on the shelf. Think on that a minute. What happens when you use a high nitrogen fertilizer on peppers? You can a lot of growth but few fruits. So at a time of your own choosing you stop feeding them. What happens...it fruits and does it ever. That the difference in understanding how and why things grow.
Hahhahaaa....awww homie your making this so about you. Ok, do you know what a faq is? It's someone who only knows what their told. Their knowledge goes no deeper than that. The internet is clogged with these one page wonders cause their no deeper than a page. Homie where are some pictures of what you do, have done or even wish to do. You've been on here for how long now? Just because you can be hall moniter doesn't make you the head of the class.

georgeiii
Another proverb from the book your writing I see. But yet again posted as truth without any verification whatsoever. Simply repeating something to death dosen't make it true.

And Yes I do know what a FAQ is? For the people in the real world (planet earth) it's short for "Frequently Asked Questions." But Yet again your wanting to make up your own reality in whatever world it is you live in.

Not to mention your being so hypocritical with that statement/untrue definition it's simply laughable. You want to say I only know what I'm told, yet your the one trying to get me to believe what you tell me to believe, and without any verification of it (laughing to death with that). That is the true definition of hypocritical there georgeiii (on planet earth anyway).

Now that I stopped laughing once more, I can finally type again. It's so funny to me that you should say "the internet is clogged with these one page wonders cause their no deeper than a page." Yet your the KING of being a one page NO-wonder. You post a couple threads in a forum, a few pictures that don't prove squat, refuse to post anything from reputable sources to back it up, and yet you think that makes you an authority in the field of hydroponics, thus demand to be respected as such without question (hypocritical, hypocritical, hypocritical, hypocritical).

I have taken many pictures of my progress, both good and bad. But I refuse to use a third party website like photobucket (or any such websites) to store them just so I can link to it from a forum. The only reason that's even necessary here is because this forum's software is so out of date, and wont allow you to upload them directly from your computer. Thus making it necessary to use third party websites to link to them. Not only do I have hundreds of pictures of the things I have grown, but I also use software that allows me to make 3D drawings of the systems. I use that to make drawings of systems I have done, as well as ones I wish to build, or even whatever may come to mind as a concept.

Unfortunately for someone as financially challenged (I guess is the politically correct term for, poor) as me, there are many more plans to build, than things built. I haven't had the money to even buy nutrients for months. But I have had the good fortune to have access to money to build a commercial greenhouse. Witch is where I spend my time and money these days. Once operational it will provide me with an income of between $30,000 and $50,000 a year (after operating expenses). Rich, no, pay the bills, yes. But it is the catalyst I need to expand the business into one that will not only provide high quality produce to our community, but for lower prices, and year round. As well as even allow me to higher people from our community. Thus helping our local economy in multiple ways. Thanks for asking.

As usual I take plenty of pictures, to date I have 353 MB of pictures on the greenhouse build alone. I have been in construction since mid September (been planing it for 1-1/2 years), and right now I'm about 2 months behind scheduled (from where I expected to be in the build). But I need to come up with about $1000 more to complete everything. Total cost will be about $6,500 when finished. that includes the greenhouse itself (200 sq feet), 3 in-ground 275 gallon reservoirs, custom built hydroponic systems, pluming them all, cooling and ventilation systems, electrical to run everything (including 3 new breakers), business licensing etc.. However that dosen't include the propagation system. I'll be starting the first plants in the hydro systems, then use the funds/profits to build a propagation system in order to increase productivity. If I had the money right now I would be about two weeks from starting seeds (2 months from having an income). I'm also registered for a free class given by the SBDC (Small Business Development Center) on Feb 13, on business tax/retail tax that I will be attending.

P.S.
Hall monitor? Good one. I guess when nobody else in class wants to speak up, that just puts you at the head of the class by default (and you somehow become hall monitor too). But I never even wanted the position. I have always preferred to sit in the back row of class myself. Though if I have somehow been designated hall monitor, it wont change anything. Front of the class or in the back row, I'll still speak up when I feel it's important.