I do not know if this will help anyone on this thread, but I though I would put in my past experience on it. As most others on this site know, I am kind of an experimental grower in that I will try all kinds of things to see what works best for different types of plants. I really hate to burst some folk's bubbles, but I have not found rock wool to be the best medium for Deep Water culture Hyrdoponics. The second bubble burster is really about lighting in particular related to tomatoes. I tried growing tomatoes by Florescent lighting several times, and it never really worked out. Tomatoes need tons of everything. They use gallons of water each day, in fact most of my larger DW grown tomato plants use as much as 3 gallons of water every 24 hours. They will chew through 3.25 EC in about 5 days in their fruit setting and growing stages. The more light the better. I currently started out two sets of Brandywine, and Beefsteak tomato plants with one set in rock wool media, the other in grow rocks. These plants had the same lighting, nutrient solution, air circulation, lighting etc in the exact same environment. The rock wool media based tomatoes grew up slower with much more foliage, and all of their leaves were curled downward. The Beefsteak tomato plant was so compact that it almost looked mutated. The branches and leaves grew so close to the plant it is basically a gnarled mess. It did however bloom, set fruit and I have right now about 30 beefsteak tomatoes in various sizes growing on it. I use CAL MAG supplement in addition to Flora Nova Grow, and then Bloom. The brandywine did a similar thng, only the leaves were more wrinkled and they did not sag downward like the Beefsteak did. It also bloomed (although it grew much slower than the Beefsteak which was planted at the same time), and has also set fruit just fine. Now the grow rock based tomato plants are something I could take a picture of and brag about all day long. They appear picture perfect, with each leaf growing flat straight and healthy. I used the exact same environment for both sets of plants. In my conclusion, even with the extra steps I have gone to to get extra air circulation to the rock wool media based plants, the plants grown in grow rocks grow better. I believe this is because the media itself becomes a filter in which the water and nutrients are drawn into the plant roots through the rock wool media, and in this process, some of the nutrients are left behind. By left behind, I mean they are literally filtered out of the solution, but remain in the media itself. Over time the plants roots will grow into this overly saturated media and be exposed to stronger nutrients than the other roots hanging into the reservoir. This is just my opinion, but after last years plants growing and my plants doing better in grow rocks than in rock wool, I did a small test. At the end of the plants growth, and after I had removed the plant from my grow room I took the rock wool media with the roots on it and I placed it into a 5 gallon bucket of water, and did the same with tomatoes grown in grow rocks. So basically I took the media from one tomato plant grown in rock wool, and one grown in grow rocks and put them into separate 5 gallon buckets and filled them both with water. I let them set for 12 hours, and then swirled the water around the grow rocks and used a strainer to slowly remove them from the water. With the rock wool I just squeezed the rock wool until it became clear in color. I then measured the EC of the water in both buckets. The rock wool media had much stronger EC measurement than that of the grow rocks. The grow rocks raised the EC in the 5 gallon bucket to .22, while the rock wool raised the EC to 2.2! Also I have seen comments about leaving the nutrient solution below the basket as to create an air gap. I have not seen any benefit to this with my plants. I have been able to actually raise the water level so high that the water is bubbling in the net pot without any issue to the plants at all. This is using grow rocks however. I am not bashing rock wool, this is just my own experience with it. Additionally I do not think you will be very successful unless you use a HID base light. The best for me has been Metal Halide from seedling to about 2 feet tall, then move it under a High Pressure Sodium light for the final growth cycle. I use a 400 watt light when they are seedlings with the light about 2 1/2 feet above the plants. When they get about a foot tall, I move them under a 1000 watt Metal Halide until they are over 2 feet tall. I then move them under a 400 watt HPS light until 3 feet tall and then under the 1000 watt HPS light from them on. Last year all of my tomato plants had to be pruned at the tops to prevent them from growing more than 8 feet tall.

Hi, I forgot to mention that you said you used 40% topsoil, 10% sharp sand, and 50% old soil consisting of medium silt. Just wondering that maybe the fresh topsoil might've wicked away water from the roots. This can happen when you plant the roots that still have the old soil into new surrounding soil if they're different mediums...especially silt which is wet already and water retentive with the drier topsoil that probably has a lot of moisture soaking organic matter. Even when you water the entire area of the rootball the topsoil will dry out faster wicking away water from the silt covered roots. The best thing would've been to gently wash off as much of the old silt soil around the roots. The more I think about it the more I think it's a combination of factors that led to the trees condition. All stress related. Planted in July; different medium around the roots from the other soil around the rootball; teasing the roots (which will lead to some damage). Often times when bonsai people tranplant their trees they put A LOT of stress on it by teasing the roots with a root rake and pruning the roots. One of the things they do to counteract the effects of this stress is to prune off some the branches (usually an amount equal to the amount of roots pruned). This way the tree doesn't have to feed as many branches and leaves on a reduced root mass. Also, after transplanting the tree is kept the shade for a time before being put back out in the sun. This reduces the tree's water needs. Keep these ideas in mind the next time you plant a tree. I still think the tree can make it. It's not a goner yet. But keep in mind that it may not put out any new growth till next spring. Keep us posted, Layne

William, Because soil friability and drainage varies, and because water percolates down into the soil and evaporates from the soil at different rates, no one can tell you how to water on a 'schedule'. Every one of us on this forum probably has to water our gardens at different rates and for different time frames because our soil and our weather varies. All I can tell you is to keep the soil evenly moist. My peppers get one good soaking weekly from a soaker hose and I water them until the soil is moist about 6" down. How long that takes will vary depending on how dry the soil was when I started, etc. My peppers are in heavy red clay that has been very heavily amended for 10 years with lots of organic material, so it is fairly ideal soil in that it holds moisture pretty well but also drains well because it is a raised bed. I would put all the peppers in the same bed because they do have similar fertility and water needs. Last year was just your 'lucky' year and either the aphids didn't find your plants, or you had 'clean' aphids that hadn't picked up any diseases yet to vector, or your pepper plants had great disease-resistance. This year, your luck ran out. If crookneck squash are falling off, that usually means pollination failed to occur, which is puzzling since the zucchni are pollinating just fine. However, there are a couple of other things it could be as well. First, if by chance, you planted your crookneck squash early and the plants were exposed to very cool temperatures for a few days, that can cause them to be stunted and nonproductive for their entire life. Secondly, it might be one of the rot diseases that sometimes appear on squash and, if it is, it likely is choanephora fruit rot. You'll see this rot in high heat, high humidity conditions. With it, you'll see immature fruit form but then shrivel, turn a very light tannish-brown and will decay or rot. Once this happens, there is not much you can do. There are no organic or chemical controls for this. I just remove and compost all the bad squash, cut back on moisture if possible, and hope that the next squash that pollinate don't have the same issues. To prevent this kind of rot on future plants, plant in raised beds which drain more quickly so the plants don't stay too wet, space the plants far apart to allow for good air circulation, and water less often, preferably with drip irrigation or soaker hoses that put the water into the soil and not on the leaves. Once again, my squash plants get watered once a week deeply and that's it. To much moisture causes all kinds of issues in a veggie garden and I go to the opposite extreme and probably keep my garden a bit too much on the dry side to avoid the diseases. To return to the pollination issue, be sure you're seeing bees and that pollination is occurring. It could be you had bees, they pollinated the zucchini squash and then something happened to the bees and they didn't come back and pollinate the crookneck. Be sure you aren't using any insecticides that might have killed or discouraged the bees. The female blossoms have tiny squash at the end of each blossom. If they aren't being pollinated, they'll turn brown and fall off. The difference in fruit drop caused by a lack of pollination versus fruit rot is that the baby squash don't enlarge and just brown/fall off if it is a lack of pollination, but the fruit begin to enlarge and grow some before turning brown and falling off if it is fruit rot. Dawn

Re-post the info. from the other thread: The problem with lime? Its high pH kills the soil bacteria that fixes nitrogen, so lime UNDO the effect of nitrogen-fertilizer like alfalfa. I put lime in Pink Peace's planting hole, since the soil was previously occupied by a large bush, plus I wanted to tone-down its gaudy color. The result? Calcium & other nutrients deficiency in young leaves, along with less petals and flowers that don't last long. Calcium could not be released since the pH is too high in the planting hole. Will have to dig Pink Peace AGAIN after its 3rd flush. Grafted Pink Peace gives me hell, compared to much-cleaner-own-root. I dug it up 4th of July since it black spotted on me, fixed the hole with compost & lime, it became pale & less petals after that. It's really hard to achieve balance of nutrients, so I'm better off using slow-released balanced stuff: red-lava-rock & pea gravel, compost, alfalfa hay. My GRAFTED Pink-Peace black spots be it wet or dry. Above pic, it's a calcium deficiency, since the young leaves are, "New leaves (top of plant) are distorted or irregularly shaped. Causes blossom-end rot." see link below: http://extension.arizona.edu/sites/extension.arizona.edu/files/pubs/az1106.pdf I get tons of blossom-end-rot on my cherry-tomato: the one I forgot to put gypsum in the planting hole. Gypsum is questionable on top, but great in the planting hole, since it's evenly distributed, rather than gunking on top to burn roots. Below is a good chart: