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Message: [QUOTE="ClifSpliffy, post: 4385220, member: 9260"] i have a cousin who, long ago, did a lot of hydroponic stuff at his companies hq (a house with some fields) in Weston, next to betty davis' spread. he ended up in some tech mags for it, as he did with a bunch of other stuff that would be considered 'edge' tech. only a few people in that outfit, started by some former nasa guy, the others were there for making a buck, while superficially he was there for that, but not really. a buck wouldn't stick to him even covered in gorilla glue. he was truly there for the research and science stuff. he was the source for almost any bucks they made, which weren't much. he was deeply vested in things like jojoba, pioneering microwave oven dishes, all kinds of 'futuristic' things, including hydro for commercial farming. the theory is sound, and works for some things like small scale farming (the Japonese use it in their grocery stores to make lettuce and such) but it has a built in system weakness in being highly dependent upon [I]24/7 [/I]management. screw up on even one input, and your crop can be toast. no 'bounceback' ability like in nature. i call two of my cannbis plants 'hydro' cuz they're both 6 to 7 feet tall, but living in 12 inch diameter pots. not really true hydro, but sort of. aboot 2 months back, i had to be away for a long week, and the person who was supposed to feed them forgot. almost complete disaster with no rain, but they were outdoors, so any dew or whatever floating around apparently kept the spark of life in them, and after 10 days or so, they were on the mend, and now fully back in business. learning from my cuz, who told me over and over that total and complete management is required for it to work, i did some indoor hydro grows of veggies, with every possible tool (timers, lights, perfect food, the whole thing). didn't matter, just one system screwup in the course of 3 days away, turned that effort to dust as a bug or mold shredded the whole thing. if you have the time and attention span to try it, check out the Japonese or Israelis on the subject. they need it, we don't. at least, not me. imma big fan of the natural way, which is highly resistant to screwups. iffn im counting, measuring, checking, etc all the time when growing something, count me out. too much work for something sooo easily and mindlessly done naturally. back to the now. i could tell a few weeks back that the produce was just hanging on, but it also looked like second yields would bounce back if any kind of rain would show up. irrigation ain't rain. when last weeks rain did appear, the dang thing exploded, relatively. i got cuke flowers and cukes all over, wattys putting out bigtime, some lopes but lots of flowers, jalapenos and flowers charging on, no green pepper action but some new flowers, that ridiculously large output of small beefsteaks turning red, and not tasting weird Septemberish, quite sweet actually. the chestnuts, like everything else, are smaller, but not as small as i would expect. few acorns, so forget them this year, unless some rain makes them jump. idk. the only thing i know aboot the acorns, other than sometimes here, sometimes not, is that only the white oak ones are edible. lots of grapes and cherries (not the good kinds) wild in the forest tho. dragonflies, fireflys, cruising around like the end is far, far away. no/minimal flies, but the skeeters have picked up a tad with the rain. almost a stinging bastid no show this year, but for that brief moment a month ago when humidity was in the air. certainly enuf for me to set a new record for stings in one day -seven. epic year for walking into spider webs in the forest. annoying. the cannabis doing particularly well in size and yield. the weird plant is particularly weird in shape, and stickier than a glue factory. i think that i should wear asbestos gloves going near that thing. lol. on the udder hand, as a grower of my own created seed, and completely different from any year that i can recall, this season the males were almost non-existent. the main difference this season was the lack of rain, and so i wonder if drought makes them focus harder on being female for reproductive reasons. i have always said to any new grower that cannabis hates 'wet feet,' so there's that. and oh, as promised, even the pro farmers will now tell you that they've never seen the amount of crop loss to hungry/[I]thirsty [/I]varmints like this year. [/QUOTE]

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