Aeroponics discussion thread for HPA/AAA and maybe another grow

Indoor Growing Hydroponics
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I might be a lil bit the culprit of it getting off track lol

I just speculated that it might be possible and that in that setup it might potentially allow for the tiniest bit to exist because of the constant addition of fresh nutrients to your siphon tank which is also simultaneously being subtracted from…

When you say you know 100% that it doesn’t have any pathogen at all because of the roots, let me ask you a few questions just to think about in that regard (you really don’t have to answer tho lol)

Let’s say your siphon tank developed one microbe, just one, and it got sprayed onto the roots… do you think that one singular microbe would do or show any sign on the roots?

Would it get wash off by the next spray from the nozzle? Would it multiply before that?

So, I think it might be safe to say one single microscopic pathogen might not do or show anything under these Aeroponic conditions… but what about two, four, 100, 1000?

What point would it show and like I said, maybe some is getting washed off so maybe it’s sign of existence is different?

Maybe it’s another type of pathogen that slows growth up top but doesn’t show on the roots?

Honestly, I really have no idea what I’m talking about :joy:

I guess I’m sort of just playing devil’s advocate and a lil paranoid about being sterile :laughing:

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That seed is looking good tho! Must have been the tweezers :wink:

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I think thats a very reasonable assumption - and why I have some concern.

I dont know about microbes getting washed off or not, but I suppose its possible. However, if you have the perfect mist environment, then there should not be much excess water to wash anything off.

In an ideal system, you would be providing just exactly enough droplets to replace the water the roots were drinking.

But - I have never actually had the ideal mist environment. Some parts of the chamber get too much mist and some too little. Plus it varies depending on the age of the babies. early on, I flood them. Later I cut back trying for that elusive ideal environment.

Thats what Im doing now, but its complicated by my having plants at three different ages. One is going on a month old, one is about 10 days and one is three days old. They all really need three different mist environments with three different timing settings.

So Im compromising - leaning more to the too much mist side of things until the baby gets a little bigger. Its growing very fast though, so I expect it will be fine with me drying things out some more in the very near future.

The other thing to remember is that I am keeping the root chamber at no more than 21C/70F. From my reading that temp is the border line between suppressing bacterial growth and plant growth vrs having both grow faster. Under 70F slows bacteria, but if you go much lower, you slow the entire plant down. Above 70F lets both grow much faster.

On top of that, the roots - if healthy - have built in defense mechanisms to fight disease and ward off infections. That will make it that much more difficult for those occasional bad guys to get a foot hold.

So, it helps a lot to keep the roots cool and healthy.

If you cant keep the root zone cool enough, then use of something like chlorine or H2O2 will become far more important and necessary.

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Ahh yes, well you definitely answered my question! I was trying to determine if there was an input other than the regular culprits to turn harmless nothings into an overgrowth of pathogens. Once it gets into the right zone, pathogens are never capable of replicating to dangerous levels.

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