I envy you with your hydroponic garden. There's a local farm here http://www.yarnicksfarm.com/index.asp that use that system. Very successful I might add. Succulent veggies in the middle of winter, I could just sit there and stare in wonder all day. Good luck and enjoy jimmy

Let me qoute Millet's input regarding :Bloom Production Withour Cool Temperatures- Millet is one of the moderators in another citrus forum. " To help answer questions towards methods of getting citrus trees to flower, especially when cool temperatures cannot be given. I've read elsewhere, a post asking how to get citrus buds to "break dormancy" so that the dormant "floral buds" will begin to flower. Advice given included to provide the tree with cool temperature stress, drought stress, or light stress, (the latter I never heard of). To begin with, there is no such thing as "floral bud dormancy" in citrus trees, because initially there are no flower buds. All citrus buds are vegetative buds, that will produce new foliage. What cold stress and drought stress accomplishes is to change a foliage bud into a flower bud by a biochemical process called differentiation. Differentiation = to change from one type of organism to another type of organism. In other words, the cold treatment or the drought treatment biochemically changes a bud that would have produced foliage (leaves) into a bud that will now produce flowers. Normally in temperate regions, this change is caused by the tree experiencing a period of cool weather. However, in many regions of the world there are no periods of cool weather to promote differentiation. In these regions flowering is accomplished by the dry season, where the tree experiences drought stress. Water stress can play a role in flower induction. In the hot and humid lowland tropics, there is little seasonal variation in temperature. In these areas, flowering is usually rather continuous throughout the year. Greater flowering intensity usually occurs when rainfall returns after a period of dry weather. Water stress has been used for more than a century in Mediterranean countries to stimulate flowering in lemons. By withholding water during certain periods, the timing of flowering can be altered so fruit can be harvested at a time of higher prices (this is the case with 'verdelli' lemons), or drought stress can be used to just promote a tree to flower. It is important to determine the optimum level of stress at which irrigation should be started after the dry period. Too little stress can promote an inadequate flowering response. Too severe a stress can cause excessive leaf and fruit drop. Moderate water stress is recommended to induce sufficient flowering without excessive fruit drop, if fruit is present on the tree. For trees without fruit, this of course is not a concern. In Sicily, to promote the blooming of Lemon trees, water is withheld until the trees show wilt, then water is once again given and the trees put forth a nice bloom. Water stress can also be accomplished in container trees, by moderately withholding water to lower levels causing a stress to the tree. I have seen, more often than I would like, a few of my citrus trees bloom forth, after I have inadvertently failed to water causing the tree to became wilted. In one case quite wilted. - Millet"

Thank you flyingz. I thought I had it set to public, I just copied the link while I was signed in. If this one doesn't work I will fugue out what I am doing wrong. Don't worry about the name it is label a psychologist gave me so I just ran with it lol. I did find what I was looking for from a note here about an article at mother earth news. I need to germinate in a cool/cold place. My frig is the wrong one. The link seems to work in the preview. AAron Here is a link that might be useful: Aaron's Greenhouse. good link I hope

After going back and forth with Freeman on this in private e-mails, I am becoming disenchanted with R/O for plants, too. My biggest concern was the chlorine because of falling for marketing hype in the hydro publications. I normally don't take magazines to heart because the authors are always writing to promote their own self interest. You'll notice all the "experts" are coincidentally reps or owners of R/O system companies. But, I also read it in commonly recommended book. Anyway, Freeman pointed out that chlorine evaporates pretty quickly. I dug a little deeper to find it to be quite true (spoke with the lab at our waste water treatment plant like he suggested). The minerals in water that will keep your EC high are actually good for you plants. Especially the calcium. The only good thing about the R/O system is that you can get water for drinking that doesn't contain a bunch of drug residues that treatment plants don't remove. I just wanted to put that out there because I thought you might be hearing some of the same R/O hype I've heard. So, even if you feel R/O is a must, you might find it more cost effective to go with a small unit and mix it with tap. Then the stuff you might find bad is at least being diluted. Is there research out there concerning how much of the pharmaceuticals in the water are being taken up by plants? Am I eating estrogen laced tomatoes and peppers?