Aquaponics Digest - Tue 06/22/99




Message   1: Re: Lettuce germination chamber

             from Joy Pye-MacSwain 

Message   2: Fwd. - [ET-ANN] preliminary announcement - IC-MFA-IBS 2000

             from S & S Aqua Farm 

Message   3: Lettuce germination chamber

             from Adriana Gutierrez & Dennis LaGatta

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| Message 1                                                           |

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Subject: Re: Lettuce germination chamber

From:    Joy Pye-MacSwain 

Date:    Tue, 22 Jun 1999 10:03:13 -0300

Details...yes details, please....

Joy Pye-MacSwain

Adriana Gutierrez & Dennis LaGatta wrote:

> I just had my first succesful germination with a homemade, portable

> germination tunnel for lettuces or other crops that require cooler

> temperatures to germinate.  This lets you germinate directly in your

> growing beds, avoiding double handling and allows you to seed as densely

> as you like.

>

> The key ingredient is a room air conditioner.  If anybody's interested,

> I can post the specifics.

>

> Adriana

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| Message 2                                                           |

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Subject: Fwd. - [ET-ANN] preliminary announcement - IC-MFA-IBS 2000

From:    S & S Aqua Farm 

Date:    Tue, 22 Jun 1999 08:57:13 -0500

Thought this might be of interest to some of our members.  Paula

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Date:         Mon, 21 Jun 1999 15:36:52 +0200

From:         Jacky Foo 

Subject:      [ET-ANN] preliminary announcement - IC-MFA-IBS 2000

Preliminary Announcement (June 1999)

Internet Conference on Material Flow Analysis of Integrated Bio-Systems

( http://segate.sunet.se/archives/et-w11.html )

The Conference will be an online conference in 2000 and to be organised by

the Institute of Advanced Studies of the United Nations University (Tokyo)

and the Integrated Bio-Systems Network

(http://www.ias.unu.edu/proceedings/icibs/ibs), in cooperation with other

organizations. It aims to bring together researchers, practitioners,

developers and policy makers involved in the application of

integrated bio-systems for resource utilisation, and waste management and

treatment in industry, agriculture, fisheries, and environmental and urban

planning. The Conference is a follow-up of the 1998 Internet Conference on

Integrated Bio-Systems (http://www.ias.unu.edu/proceedings/icibs) and will

encourage discussions on material/substance flow/balance of a wide variety

of integrated bio-systems.

Material flows involve the quantification of substances/wastes/nutrients

and energy that are being exchanged between sub-systems of nature and

society. Information that is generated from such studies can be very useful

for a number of purposes;  e.g. to optimize or make bio-systems more robust

to changes; for improvement and development of waste management systems by

cities; minimisation of raw material utilisation in industry,

decision-making and planning of complex systems, life cycle and

environmental impact assessments, problem solving in tracing sources of

environmental problems, discover potential future problems, and they also

form a basis for regulation in material handling, prediction of

effectiveness of pollution abatement measures, identification of technical

development and research needs, etc. .

The scope of the conference is currently being defined by a planning group.

If you wish to join this planning group, please send your self-introduction

with information on your work and publications (if available) to

foo@swipnet.se . A future announcement on the "Call of Abstracts" will

provide more specific themes and topics for the Internet Conference.

Future announcements, scientific programme and funds for authors and

participant groups will be made via the mailing list ET-W11.

REGISTRATION

To receive further information and update on conference activities, please

register :

- via http://segate.sunet.se/archives/et-w11.html

- or send an email to listserv@segate.sunet.se and use the subscription

command:

SUB ET-W11 yourfirstname yourlastname, organization

e.g. SUB ET-W11 Ted Tschang, UNU/IAS-Tokyo

For personal help in registration, contact:

Mr. Jacky Foo 

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| Message 3                                                           |

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Subject: Lettuce germination chamber

From:    Adriana Gutierrez & Dennis LaGatta 

Date:    Tue, 22 Jun 1999 13:13:07 -0400

Ok, guys, here's how to make your own portable lettuce germination

chamber.

Equipment

----------

Room air conditioner - 5,000 - 7,000 BTU

Rolling cart or typing table

Long extension cord

Greenhouse plastic  or clear vinyl 2 feet wider and longer than your

growing bed

2 or 3 bricks

Nursery trays

Duct tape

PVC pipe (optional)

1.  Put the AC unit on the typing table or cart and center it at one end

of the growing bed with the bottom of the unit level with the top of

your growing surface.  You don't want to block the air return.

2.  Drape the greenhouse plastic over the growing bed leaving at least

one foot on top of the AC unit.  This excess will be used to make the

end panels next to the AC unit. 

 To keep the plastic off the surface I used nursery trays positioned

about every 3 feet in addition to 2 PVC pipes at the end of the bed.  

Another option for making the tunnel is to run a line from the AC unit

(probably need to drill a hole to attach it) to a fixed point at the

other end of the bed) and drape the plastic like a tent.  You'll

need to create end panels to totally enclose the space.  I did it by

leaving some excess plastic on both ends to fold back.  To close in the

long sides I used duct tape to tape the pastic to the underside of my

trays.  (Another option to "seal" the long sides is to put a length of

PVC pipe on top of the plastic on each side of the bed.)  It was

necessary to anchor the plastic to the top of the AC unit with bricks

since the duct-tape could not withstand the humidity from the  monsoon

rains blown in

through the screens in my greenhouse.  The end panels require some

creativity with scissors and duct tape.  You want the chamber fairly

well closed in but not necessarily air tight.  

3.  For good measure I strung some 30% shade cloth over the tray to

minimize the "greenhouse effect" from heating up the chamber.  After 2

days I had 50% germination and by day 3 I was ready to remove the

chamber and move it elsewhere.

Before you buy a used AC unit test it to ensure that it can get down to

62 degrees or lower.  This will allow some margin for heat infiltration

and still keep the temperature below 70 degrees.

I hope this works for everybody.

S&S Aqua Farm, 8386 County Road 8820, West Plains, MO 65775  417-256-5124

Web page  http://www.townsqr.com/snsaqua/



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