Thanks Dail, I will have to research S/H systems. I am not at all familiar with it, but it sounds like a good system for what I need.
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Maybe you should check out the postings on water culture, too. Once the plant is acclimated to a water environment, and has grown the appropriate roots for that situation, you wouldn't have to worry about taking short vacations, or watering on a daily basis. Fertilizing would be done with a very week solution and would be constantly avilable for uptake.
Thanks Dail, I will have to research S/H systems. I am not at all familiar with it, but it sounds like a good system for what I need.
Do water culture and S/H work together or is that two completely different systems? Thank you both, I'll look into it.
HaHa, Dail, so how many is my limit? So far I am working on 3 plants with this system, and have not killed any yet, but..............
I wonder how much air the roots are getting? I think it would be pretty tight growing?
Another thought is that so much light getting into the medium causes it to heat up, also glass having very low heat conductivity will remain hot for a longer period of time. Most plants don't like to have their roots hotter than the air. Just use a thermometer and meausre the temperature at the root ball and then in the air. Temperature at the roots should be about 5 degrees cel. cooler than leaf temperatures. Also glass beads act as tiny magnifying glasses concentrating the heat on the roots.
I did an experiment as well but i used a mix of hydroton and transparent plastic beads.
at the beging the plant lost his bloom and his spike dried out, i think due to the change of the media that the plant sufered a shock.
Now it's still in that media and it sent a new spike with buds and should start to bloom once more very soon