Lets Grow Hydroponic Strawberries 2015 (1)

Cats, kids, and strawberries :) all great!!! This looks like a great system. I know the Kratky will allow you to replace new nutrients you just can't refill your whole reservoir I think if I understand it correctly you leave about 2" or so. That is my understanding. So if I grow a 30 to 45 day lettuce i will not refill it and harvest it when the res was about empty. But with tomatoes or crops that need more care I will change the nutrient every 30 days and just fill it to where it was but maintain 2" min/max level.

Hi, I'm new to hydroponics and I'm having some difficulties. Would you mind watching my video and sharing any advice?
Thank you!
http://youtu.be/BX1RNIWJ4t8

You're giving me ideas :)

I want to try to do aeroponic strawberries at the back end of the season because my kid LOVES them. It looks like I can grow them through fruit and plant em in a bed to overwinter. I'm designing the system so I can just yank the plant with its roots right out of the system so it should be transplantable.

I only ever grew a strawberry plant once and I really didn't know what I was doing. It was a pretty epic fail. Looks like I need to watch your videos :)

What to u do with the plants after they done making fruit for the year. If u save them how, and where.

Getting fruit quicker is always a good thing.

Loving that!

Hi, Larry,
Please post the updated video of those strawberries.

Nice set up there Larry.. Hope it's taken off well for you mate..
Cheers..

I'm a big fan of having that 2 inch air gap between the water and the raft. When I did floating rafts (no air gap), water/moisture would always bubble up on top of my raft, making my berries get wet and rot before ripe enough to eat. I had to use little upside down net pots to hold my berries up above the raft so that they'd stay dry.

Strawberry plants make a different type of root in water vs the air gap zone. Water roots are thin and don't transplant to soil very well. The roots that grow in the air gap area get thick and I presume retain water better than those thin water roots. Plants that I had in an air gap pond transplanted to soil more successfully than the plants with water roots.

In hot Arizona, the air gap zone allows water to evaporate off the surface, which helps remove heat and keeps the reservoir temperatures down. Too high reservoir temperature causes problems, as you well know.

Nice to hear that you are going back to Seascape variety. I too have decided that Seascape's seem like the best day neutral variety. Their berries are red all the way through the berry. I tried some "Sweet Anne" day neutrals, and they are okay, but the plant is not very heat tolerant, berries rot easily if wet, and the berries often leave a white shoulder that doesn't ripen (very frustrating). Albion is okay, but berries are smaller/less productive than Seascape and usually not as tasty either. Seascape is the day neutral king for taste, productivity, and berry size.

I tried "Mara Des Bois" and "Evie" (not "Evie 2") everbearing varieties. Mara Des Bois likes to send out tons of runners, unlike day neutrals. Haven't been able to produce a good quality Mara Des Bois berry to taste yet, since the plants are so busy runnering all the time. Evie seems like a good variety to me: deep red berries (all the way through) and the plants are more heat tolerant.

This ought to be a very cool experiment Larry! You're the hydroponic strawberry king! Always looking forward to see what's next! I give this video a green everbearing thumbs up!

This looks like a really fun method to grow strawberries. Thanks for sharing.

Looks awesome bro wow! the roots sure seem funny with strawberries eh :) Thumbs up bro!

Oh man, I can't wait to see how this works out. I figure I'm biding my time, gathering research and one day BAM! I'll have the most bad-ass hydro strawberry patch ever. If these to well, you should have a nice crop with little work. (And to be honest, I'm just too chicken and lazy to try it, the process just seems so odd... Not starting from a seed and all) Best of luck Larry! I'll be watching the progress.

Awesome Larry, you got it going on my friend. Cant wait to see your berries grow.

Gotta love the recycled door Kratky method ; )

With the Great success you had growing strawberries with NTF, why switch to Kratky. The reason I ask is because I built a NTF modeled after the ones you built.

Without doubt it's s great way to start off strawberries. Good re-use of the door. Best wishes.

Love me some strawberries Larry. Very cool re-purposing the door as well. Looking forward to your grow brother.

Thanks Larry - I'm looking forward to seeing how these strawberries progress. I did have a little try at some Kratky strawberries on a windowsill last year before my greenhouse arrived, and although they started off well, after a month they started to look a bit sad. The nutrients I use don't seem to stay in solution for more than a couple of weeks. My NFT strawberries this year seem to be off to a good start though. Cheers!!

Lets Grow Hydroponic Strawberries 2015 (1)

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