Aquaponics Digest - Thu 03/22/01
Message 1: Re: Barley Straw
from "Sulfercreek"
Message 2: Re: Barley straw
from Mark_Brotman 'at' kinetico.com
Message 3: Re: Barley straw
from fishmanbruce 'at' webtv.net (Bruce Schreiber)
Message 4: Re: Inslation
from REMARCINC 'at' aol.com
Message 5: Re: Barley straw
from "Juan C. Bobeda"
Message 6: Re: Barley straw
from "Adriana Gutierrez"
Message 7: Re: Barley straw
from "Juan C. Bobeda"
Message 8: Re: Barley straw
from "Adriana Gutierrez"
Message 9: Re: Barley straw
from "Juan C. Bobeda"
Message 10: Re: Aquaponics Short Course at UVI "STEVE SPRING"
from Bill Patrick
Message 11: Spirulina --- A Practical small setup for a household...?
from dreadlox 'at' cwjamaica.com
| Message 1
Subject: Re: Barley Straw
From: "Sulfercreek"
Date: Thu, 22 Mar 2001 08:14:31 -0500
Good Morning Paula
I also forgot to mention that the barley straw,will be certified organic.
Thanks Dave Bok
"When wealth is lost, nothing is lost; when health is lost,
something is lost; when character is lost, all is lost."
-Billy Graham
| Message 2
Subject: Re: Barley straw
From: Mark_Brotman 'at' kinetico.com
Date: Thu, 22 Mar 2001 08:19:03 -0500
Juan, the leggy-ness of the plants is indeed a classic indication of light
issues. I ran an experiment while living in the tropical South Pacific
(also used styrofoam rafts) and tested various types of shade cloth. I
determined the following:
1. What the manufacturers rated them for in terms of % shade was rarely on
target;
2. Type of weave and fiber shape makes a difference-- round fiber strands
seemed to let in more light, over all; and
3. The color makes a huge difference. White was best, green and black
worst. In fact, the intense tropical sun, or particular spectrum(s) of it,
didn't make it through well at all, even at the manufacturer's "20%" and
"30%" shade ratings. The Parris Island romaine lettuce came up spindly
(too great a distance on the stalk between leafs) and w/smaller leaves with
all 3 green shade cloths I tested; the three black types all slowed the
growth waaay down as well as creating the leggy symptoms.
In spite of what the meter is telling you, the plants may be saying
something else. Suggest you remove at least the black shade cloth, if not
both, for a while and check out the growth of new plants as a means of
investigation.
Good luck and keep us posted,
Mark
| Message 3
Subject: Re: Barley straw
From: fishmanbruce 'at' webtv.net (Bruce Schreiber)
Date: Thu, 22 Mar 2001 07:42:30 -0600 (CST)
Juan it looks like you know what you are doing your not new to this. So
I would have to say since your problem doesn't seem obvious. But it
started in the mid summer heat and in past years you've had no problems
like this .You must have changed something to cause eather an out break
of pests or low growth rate of the seedlings. So if you use the BT
regularly the grubs or maggots will vanish from the root zone then the
only other probability is the barley straw acting on the young and
unformed roots preventing uptake of nutrients.
After all barley straw has been used for at least 50 years to keep
plant growth to a minimum in fishing ponds and not just algae i mean all
water plants that would foul a hook rooted ones included and its very
effective so if you wont stop its use than start the seedlings elsewhere
and grow some of them in your system and some out of the system as a
control and compare the growth on both populations your answer will soon
be obvious if barley is at fault.
Got to go now the sleeping pills are starting to work and
ill screw up this email Bruce
| Message 4
Subject: Re: Inslation
From: REMARCINC 'at' aol.com
Date: Thu, 22 Mar 2001 09:27:03 EST
--part1_ee.12ce92fb.27eb65b7_boundary
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
David- If your site allows it- earth berming the lowest 3' to 4' of the North
side- with 2" rigid board insulation will be great. For the wall portion-
any foam insulation will be better than fiberglass under humid conditions.
Fiberglass- in fact any open cell insulation- looses it's insulating ability
quickly with a rise in humidity ( it is rated at 32%) and becomes a great
breeding ground for mold. In the closed cell insulations- my choice for
several environmental reasons is expanded polystyrene- it uses no greenhouse
gasses in production- is allergy ineret, and the cheapest per R value-
however- you need to design for greater thicknesses than in the extruded
foams.
A recommendation that would work for your climate is to construct window
insulation panels that you can install from the inside when needed. You need
to be careful, however, or they will freeze to the glazing and take DAYS to
melt off.
I can send you sites with instructions if you write privately.
Kricket
remarc
remarcable country enterprises
1692 Waddy Road
Lawrenceburg, Ky 40342
502-839-4425
502-839-9655 fax
remarcinc 'at' aol.COM
http://www.remarcinc.com
--part1_ee.12ce92fb.27eb65b7_boundary
Content-Type: text/html; charset="US-ASCII"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
David-
If your site allows it- earth berming the lowest 3' to 4' of the North
side- with 2" rigid board insulation will be great. For the wall portion-
any foam insulation will be better than fiberglass under humid conditions.
Fiberglass- in fact any open cell insulation- looses it's insulating ability
quickly with a rise in humidity ( it is rated at 32%) and becomes a great
breeding ground for mold. In the closed cell insulations- my choice for
several environmental reasons is expanded polystyrene- it uses no greenhouse
gasses in production- is allergy ineret, and the cheapest per R value-
however- you need to design for greater thicknesses than in the extruded
foams.
A recommendation that would work for your climate is to construct window
insulation panels that you can install from the inside when needed. You need
to be careful, however, or they will freeze to the glazing and take DAYS to
melt off.
I can send you sites with instructions if you write privately.
Kricket
remarc
remarcable country enterprises
1692 Waddy Road
Lawrenceburg, Ky 40342
502-839-4425
502-839-9655 fax
remarcinc 'at' aol.COM
http://www.remarcinc.com
--part1_ee.12ce92fb.27eb65b7_boundary--
| Message 5
Subject: Re: Barley straw
From: "Juan C. Bobeda"
Date: Thu, 22 Mar 2001 15:49:23 -0400
Adriana, Bruce, Mark and Mike,
First of all, thank you for your answers, they are really helping me
think clearer.
Adriana, 1.- Yes, I use bore well water and 2.- It has been a long time
since I've had it analyzed, but we check the well water conductivity and
pH almost every day and the readings haven't changed. I will have it
analyzed next week just in case. 3.- No, we haven't had drought
conditions recently, just very hot and humid.
I forgot to tell you that I had already removed the shade cloth in
January and then put it back on by the end of February because it didn't
help at all. We need to keep some sort of shade cloth permanently because
we can have hail or very high winds (around 90 Km/hr = 50 Miles/hr) in
any moment with no previous warning, this can happen between 6 to 10
times a year.
Bruce, unfortunately, if I knew what I was doing we wouldn't be in this
predicament, but I am under the impression that maybe there are several
reasons for the stretching, so I will try several probable solutions
simultaneously.
By the way, I am not using barley straw, I was just interested in using
it as a possible solution to our fungus gnat problem.
Mark, I am very interested in your experiments with shade cloths, I have
been wondering about the spectrum that actually reaches the plants. We
started using 50% black shade cloth and afterwards changed to 50% white
shade cloth, this cloth actually gives only a 30% reduction in PAR light
levels.
Have you tested white shade cloth yet?
Anyway, as I already mentioned, we removed the shade cloth (with great
effort) during almost 2 months to no avail.
The other interesting fact is that we have been growing lettuce for 3
years now without spindly plants, although we did have an occasional
spindly plant or two but not ALL plants being spindly as we do now.
I am now changing my nutrient solution formula to see what happens.
Mike, in this case, you are absolutely right! Unless we overlooked
something, I think we already tried all obvious solutions, so now we
should try things not so obvious.
Just in case, we are now keeping the lettuce in separate tanks from the
rest of the vegetables.
Thanks again,
Juan
| Message 6
Subject: Re: Barley straw
From: "Adriana Gutierrez"
Date: Thu, 22 Mar 2001 15:41:59 -0600
Juan,
What about your seeds? Are they from a different supplier or from a
new batch of seeds?
> Mike, in this case, you are absolutely right! Unless we overlooked
> something, I think we already tried all obvious solutions, so now we
> should try things not so obvious.
| Message 7
Subject: Re: Barley straw
From: "Juan C. Bobeda"
Date: Thu, 22 Mar 2001 19:25:44 -0400
Adriana,
Seeds are from same suppliers, I am growing 5 varieties of leaf lettuce
and seeds come from 2 different suppliers. All varieties have more or less
the same problems.
Juan
Adriana Gutierrez wrote:
> Juan,
> What about your seeds? Are they from a different supplier or from a
> new batch of seeds?
| Message 8
Subject: Re: Barley straw
From: "Adriana Gutierrez"
Date: Thu, 22 Mar 2001 17:42:42 -0600
OK Juan, you're really making us work for this one. Is there any
possibility you have an excess or deficiency of micronutrients? (Did
your problems coincide with a new batch of concentrates?) I went
through my book Nutritinal Disorders in Glasshouse Tomatoes, Cucumbers
and lettuce and a lot of the micronutrient related problems resulted
in strange misshapen leaves which could possibly be considered
spindly.
> Seeds are from same suppliers, I am growing 5 varieties of leaf
lettuce
> and seeds come from 2 different suppliers. All varieties have more
or less
> the same problems.
| Message 9
Subject: Re: Barley straw
From: "Juan C. Bobeda"
Date: Thu, 22 Mar 2001 20:16:26 -0400
As a matter of fact, yes, I did buy a new batch of micronutrients from a
local lab that mixes them for me. However, I am also growing watercress,
mustard (2 varieties), chicory, basil (2 varieties) an swiss chard. The
only other plant that is giving me problems that I thought was heat
related is swiss chard, all the rest have no problems.
I am also growing tomatoes in an Autopot system with the same
micronutrients and although the oldest tomato is only 45 days old since I
planted the seed, the plants are growing perfectly and have just started
flowering.
We also suspected a micronutrient deficiency and started foliar feeding
twice a week since last Monday just in case. But it is too soon to notice
any difference.
I went through all my books too, but I still don't know what is happening.
Juan
Adriana Gutierrez wrote:
> OK Juan, you're really making us work for this one. Is there any
> possibility you have an excess or deficiency of micronutrients? (Did
> your problems coincide with a new batch of concentrates?) I went
> through my book Nutritinal Disorders in Glasshouse Tomatoes, Cucumbers
> and lettuce and a lot of the micronutrient related problems resulted
> in strange misshapen leaves which could possibly be considered
> spindly.
>
| Message 10
Subject: Re: Aquaponics Short Course at UVI "STEVE SPRING"
From: Bill Patrick
Date: Thu, 22 Mar 2001 19:42:07 -0500
> > Dear Steve:
> > Our summertime short course includes a half day (morning) in a classroom
> > and a half day (afternoon) in the field. If you got on a plane down
> > here next week you could be an intern for as long as you like.
Sounds to me like the UVI is making an awesome offer here, no better way
to learn than by doing. I wonder what the whole internship deal is
here? I'm sure we'd have to pay for the plane trip down. But what
would room and board cost?
There
> > would be no formal classroom time and you would sweat a little more but
> > you would be harvesting fish and vegetables, feeding 3x a day, grading
> > and sorting the juveniles, installing liners in our new hydroponic
> > tanks, laying blocks for our new 55,000 gallon greenwater tank AND you
> > would have a 5:1 teacher/student ratio to tell you all the details, good
> > and bad, of our systems.
5:1 teacher/student ratio!!! I'd pay a lot sweat to get the opportunity
to pick minds at that ratio. Too bad my day job won't let me go now!
> >
> >
| Message 11
Subject: Spirulina --- A Practical small setup for a household...?
From: dreadlox 'at' cwjamaica.com
Date: Thu, 22 Mar 2001 23:30:36 -0800
Spirulina contains vital unsaturated fatty acids, including
gamma-linolenic acid (GLA), it has many
important minerals including potassium, calcium, zinc, magnesium,
selenium, iron, and phosphorus,
vitamins including B-12 and others of the B-complex, E, and beta
carotene, digestive enzymes,
chlorophyll, and pigments that help liver function. Ounce for ounce,
it provides more complete protein
than meat. This 65% easily-digested protein can in itself give a
boost, especially given the prevalence
of high-carbohydrate diets. Since the protein in spirulina is high
in phenylalanine, it has also been
used as an aid to appetite suppression and weight-loss.
taken from the site....
http://www.vitaminexpress.com/news/weight.htm
Ok friends..I found out this year that I have a high cholesterol level
due to hereditary factors, and need to supplement my diet by more
natural things.. since this yea rIve been eating a lot more food and
vegetables from the land based farm but looking more and more into an
aquaponic system to grow some of my foods too. (Ive tested various parts
but never put the whole together...)
I KNOW there are some serious spirulina guys here on this list.. Any
help to build a small spirulina setup? With my background Ill be able to
design somethign to strain the stuff off... Sidebar, has anyone here
ever ate duckweed? Any recipes out there? I know the protien factor here
is high too.
I AM SERIOUS this year in becoming a LEAN machine... moreover I now have
a wife too to love.. as I love my own body.. :) so I NEED to convert.
Can someone help me with ideas how to setup a sustainable setup to be
able to harvest spirulina?
I also need some folks to "shoot holes" in this spirulina thing if there
are any loopholes or false claims..
BTW I just did a search on Lecithin... and landed on the above site.. so
no vested interests and I screen all I read, so judge me not for my
presence on said site...lol..
G'nite.
Mike B
JAMAICA.
Thinking more and more about homesteading, getting tired of the
"rat-race"...
PS. Could the homeschoolers id themselves...Id like to ask a few
questions.. Cheers..
|
