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I
look forward to checking on the progress of this project each day, it is kind of like watching an old Saturday serial movie; things are happening, but happening slowly.
Thinking that the major contributing factor to plant growth is light, I decided to change the quality and quantity of the lighting, drastically.
Today the lighting was changed from a small compact fluorescent to a small LED grow light tuned to both vegetative and flowering spectra. The intensity has changed by a factor of 10, from 50 footcandles to 500 footcandles.
Today I "replated" almost all of the seedlings, selecting the largest darkest green seedlings for replating. Replating is literally scooping them out of the vessel and placing them on a plate then transferring them to vessels with fresh media.
They were replated because I noticed the growth slowing down, almost to a halt. Hopefully, I have carried out the replating in time. This is the step that has the most chance of introducing contamination, so I used several vessels to lower the odds.
The slope in the media is deliberate so that the condensation runs to the low side and does not puddle and drown the seedlings.
My wife brought home hydroponic basil from the supermarket recently. It was bare root in a horticube, two stalks for about six dollars. In just a day or so it turned black and was tossed into the garbage, kiss six bucks good-bye.
To prevent any further episodes of buying hydroponic basil I told her I would grow all the basil she wanted. Basil is about the easiest thing to grow hydroponically, so I simply rescued a suitable container from the recycle bin and set to work.
The basil is supported by expanded clay pellets and grown in a 3" netpot. The netpot is suspended in nutrients to a level just below the rim. Any water soluable nutrients will work, but keep the nutrients on the weak side, about quarter strength.
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