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Continuing my quest for unusual tropical plants Ecbolium Viride has been added to my collection. This plant has a most unusual flower of aquamarine, which is rare in the plant kingdom.
This small shade loving greenhouse plant is native to India and Malaya, where is it used for medicinal purposes to treat: jaundice, menorrhagia, rheumatism and tumors.
The seeds were only started on August 8, 2013; they are now in the domed tray under the LED grow light where they are really thriving.
Out of curiosity I checked for root development on one of the olive cuttings today. I was astounded to find adventitious roots forming on one of the cuttings taken two weeks ago.
Apparently, the combination of 80/20 agricultural perlite/peat, along with the heat mat, spraying the inside of the dome and the nutrients I conjured up are working.
Time will tell......
So far all of the cuttings planted in perlite and peat are looking really good. Spraying the interior of the dome and using the heat mat has kept the humidity constantly at 99%, with the temperature in the 80s.
Even with the humidity that high, it has been necessary to give the cuttings a slight watering every few days, as I can feel the pots getting lighter. Apparently, the 80% perlite and 20% peat mixture readily gives up moisture.
The older trees in the greenhouse have been showing signs of over watering lately, to the point that I ordered a new Manzanillo tree thinking I might lose the one I have. Deciding to intervene, and take corrective action, I repotted all of the older trees using a mixture of 70% perlite and 30% peat to avoid over watering. In doing so, I noticed that the coir was compacting and holding too much moisture, all right for tomatoes and cucumbers, but not for olives. Going forward, I will let the olives almost completely dry and just give them a sip of water from time to time. The days are getting shorter and I want them to go dormant this year, so they may as well get used to it.
The Manzanillo olive tree shown above was received today, and I am quite pleased with the deal. Last month I ordered a tree in a 4" pot, after waiting almost a month I decided to write and inquire about my order. The guy wrote and said they were out of trees in 4" pots, so he said he could refund my money, or send me an orchard tree, but it had to be shipped bare root. I told him to send the orchard tree, as I would have to remove the soil in any event.
Three days later the tree arrived from California, the guy paid almost as much to ship the tree as I paid for the tree and shipping. The tree has been planted in a 70% perlite and 30% peat mixtue in a large self watering container.
Also, the tree had a large branch with twin trunks growing from the base, almost at the soil line. The branch was removed along with a small section of the trunk to form a heel cutting, and, the twin trunks were separated, so I have two heel cuttings now being propagated.
All in all, not a bad deal.
The roots on the basil in the aeroponic cloner, mentioned a few posts back, are long enough to reach the nutrients in the reservoir, so now it will really take off.
Most likely I will dedicate one of the aeroponic units to basil, using a small CFL light to grow it. My wife really loves fresh basil, yesterday she bought seeds for Lemon Mrs. Burns and Purple Petra basil, so I guess she expects me to continue to grow it.
For this crop the EC is 1.5 with the pH at 6.1, which is working out nicely, so I guess I will stick with that.
After a few day's experience of having the domed trays in the greenhouse I decided to move them indoors. Conditions in the greenhouse were just too variable to deal with. When the sun was out the temperature in the trays would be over a hundred degrees, even with shade covering in place.
It was the constant battle to control the temperature and provide diffuse light for the cuttings which finally made me see the light, literally. Actually, the conditions I can provide indoors are superior, and much more consistent than I could ever achieve in the greenhouse.
Checking the temperature and humidity in the trays after they were indoors for about twelve hours the humidity was 99% and the temperature was 77 degrees Fahrenheit.
The red/blue/white 90 watt LED adds absolutely no additional heat to the tray, while providing ideal lighting for cuttings to root.
The tropical seedlings were potted in self watering containers today and the cuttings were replanted in a different media.
The tropical plants in the containers were started from seed 59 days ago. The center plant is
Caesalpinia pulcherrima - Red Bird of Paradise and the two on either end
are Majidea Zangueberica - Black Pearl Tree - Mgambo Tree.
Above is a closer view of the Majidea Zangueberica, which is native to East Africa. It is kind of nice when your tropical plant looks like a tropical plant.
Last night I read online the procedure an olive farm uses to propagate olive cuttings. The media they are using is 80% perlite and 20% peat moss, so today I transferred my latest batch of cuttings into this mixture also. Of course the olive farm has an automatic misting system in their greenhouse, which mists the cuttings for 8 seconds every 8 minutes. I am just going to have to rely on misting the inside of the dome periodically and hope for the best.
Rather than let the cloner sit idle I reactivated it today to grow six basil plants to completion. This is the first time I have really used the small 150 watt LED, which is only running on about half power, as I am only using the vegetative stage. Still, the light level at the plants is about 2,500 foot candles, which is more than enough for basil.
The major improvements in this aeroponic unit over the other units I have built in the past is that it will not leak, and, as it has six spray heads, it will continue to function if one head clogs.
The tomato clones that I just removed from this unit are the best I have ever produced, so building it was well worth the effort and the ten bucks I spent for parts.
The second batch of tomato clones, the batch that I added kelp extract and nutrients to, has rooted. These were the actual growing tops of the plants in the greenhouse; they are much better than the previous batch, so I decided to plant these.
After potting, the seedlings were thoroughly watered, misted, and placed in a shady spot to recover. Tomorrow I will transfer them to the greenhouse, where I will let them fully recover in filtered light until I am ready to replace the existing tomato plants.
At this point I plan on using the aeroponic unit to grow basil to completion; six plants of a variety of basil called Plenty are just about ready to plan in the unit. The basil will be grown indoors in one of the tents using an LED grow light.
Having grown basil aeroponically previously, using fluorescent lighting, I am looking forward to seeing it grow using the LED lighting.
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