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Heated Propagator: An emersed growing experiment . . .

Konsa said:
You have chosen a little more challenging plants for propagation but tbh growing things emersed its really easy and you seem to complicate your setup way too much.
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Ofcourse - where’s the fun if you can’t completely over-engineer it! 😂

Konsa said:
Sth else to consider in regards of Cryptocoryne sp.
When planting those you may want to plant them straight into the bottom tray without the cube insert tray.
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The root stocks on most of the are far too small to do that, they’re just drop through the hole in the bottom. Once they’re established with some half decent roots, I’ll transfer them to the aeroponics propagator which will allow them to grow unrestricted and substrate free.
 
Right, so that’s the swap over to a flood and drain system complete. It took a good few hours to pull all the plants out and try and clean off as much of the nasty slime as possible with a soft paintbrush under the tap, and then repot in the rockwool. With less space some have had to share pots.

97460C01-0C47-40A2-80C9-0F3C98751E85.jpeg

A few of the plants have suffered a fair bit with the slime, so I’m hoping they’ll be able to bounce back.

Others are doing quite well though and had some decent root systems.

For the flood and drain tray I botched together a simple spray bar (copying what Tropica had in the video). I’m not sure what the purpose of that is, whether it is to aerate the solution as it’s added to the trays, or something else I’m not sure, but it was easy enough to implement so I did.

I have attached the tiny pump I was using before. On its lowest power setting it takes about a minute to fill the tray, and then two 4mm holes at the other end allow it to drain fully, which takes about two minutes after the pump stops running.

B23904AA-1ACE-49D3-B6E9-18BB18569E56.jpeg

That puts the water level about half way up the rockwool cubes in the pots.

I’m happy that the 3 minutes of filling and draining is sufficient to soak the rockwool. However does anyone have any suggestions for how frequently I should run the flood/drain cycle? (I have 20 maximum entries on the Tapo smart plug, so can set 10 cycles max.)
 
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dw1305 said:
Hi all,

I'd guess probably not, but you could give it a try.

cheers Darrel
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Hufsa said:
Second this 😀
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I'll give it a go - the 'leaves' (if you can call them that) are very unusual, they are quite solid, not soft at all, and have hundreds of tiny roots on the underside. I've moved them to a windowsill tray that I'm growing on some moss in for now - that's shallow enough to keep the roots wet, but the leaves above water.
 
I use JI2 plus peat for all my emmersed crypts, Varying the amount of peat I hope to suit individual species
with rain water half way up the pot. A neutral to acid soil mix seems to help control mosses.
I prefer using Invitro plants. With the numbers of identical plants you can plant in varying soil mixes both emerged and immersed and find out a good protocol for a particular species, should you wish to.
For example here is a dark form of nurii that is reluctant to grow immersed, whilst the green form romps away and flowers readily.
I use varying sized Kilner jars for the larger crypts. with soil but no capping and some water
 
Atragene said:
I use JI2 plus peat for all my emmersed crypts, Varying the amount of peat I hope to suit individual species
with rain water half way up the pot. A neutral to acid soil mix seems to help control mosses.
I prefer using Invitro plants. With the numbers of identical plants you can plant in varying soil mixes both emerged and immersed and find out a good protocol for a particular species, should you wish to.
For example here is a dark form of nurii that is reluctant to grow immersed, whilst the green form romps away and flowers readily.
I use varying sized Kilner jars for the larger crypts. with soil but no capping and some water
Click to expand...
Would love to see some photos of your growing setups
 
Atragene said:
I use JI2 plus peat for all my emmersed crypts, Varying the amount of peat I hope to suit individual species
with rain water half way up the pot. A neutral to acid soil mix seems to help control mosses.
I prefer using Invitro plants. With the numbers of identical plants you can plant in varying soil mixes both emerged and immersed and find out a good protocol for a particular species, should you wish to.
For example here is a dark form of nurii that is reluctant to grow immersed, whilst the green form romps away and flowers readily.
I use varying sized Kilner jars for the larger crypts. with soil but no capping and some water
Click to expand...
Sorry for hijacking the threadslightly..
I am a bit worried since peat is getting banned somewhat soon and by then I might have quite a large collection of Cryptocoryne and wouldn't have figured out what to really use for them substrate wise. I know from some German websites that a lot of growers use simply sand + clay for common species. I really would suggest people try alternative substrates that are more sustainable. I am not particularly keen on the use of peat either, and try to avoid it from now on when possible.
 
greenbliss said:
Sorry for hijacking the threadslightly..
I am a bit worried since peat is getting banned somewhat soon and by then I might have quite a large collection of Cryptocoryne and wouldn't have figured out what to really use for them substrate wise. I know from some German websites that a lot of growers use simply sand + clay for common species. I really would suggest people try alternative substrates that are more sustainable. I am not particularly keen on the use of peat either, and try to avoid it from now on when possible.
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I would have thought standard potting compost could be used instead, many of which are now peat free. A bit too messy for my purposes, and the humic/fluvic acids can be added to nutrient solution separately in my case.
 
Hi all,
greenbliss said:
and by then I might have quite a large collection of Cryptocoryne and wouldn't have figured out what to really use for them substrate wise. I really would suggest people try alternative substrates that are more sustainable. I am not particularly keen on the use of peat either, and try to avoid it from now on when possible.
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Oak (Quercus spp.)<"Leaf mold">. Used by a number of <"Cryptocoryne growers">.

cheers Darrel
 
Wookii said:
I would have thought standard potting compost could be used instead, many of which are now peat free. A bit too messy for my purposes, and the humic/fluvic acids can be added to nutrient solution separately in my case.
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Yes you could. But I did recently find a website online that said the reason leaf mould/*leaf litter works so well is not entirely due to the composition of the soil, but due to the microorganisms and fungi found in the leaf mould. I am not entirely true how sure this is at all but I think it is a reasonable suggestion. When I got my leaf litter from underneath a beech hedge it was full of mycelium, so much so that I had to physically break it apart with my hands. It was also absolutely crawling with all sorts of small insects and worms, which made me dread using it for my plants. But when I added a top of layer of this leaf litter onto the soil in my L. nairii tub the plants actually started to look a lot better after a few weeks. Coincidence? Probably.
Now I'm not sure how true any of this is. It could be all wrong but it doesn't seem like a totally absurd claim for someone to make.

*Cryptocoryne matakensis <This link shows a C. Matakensis flowering + developing fruit in what seems to be simply half decomposed leaf litter rather than leaf mould. On this same website you can find many claims of people using "beech leaf litter" rather than "leaf mould".Considering it is a website run by people who have many years hands on experience with Cryptocoryne sp, I don't think we have any reason not to trust them.
 
Hi all,
greenbliss said:
This link shows a C. Matakensis flowering + developing fruit in what seems to be simply half decomposed leaf litter rather than leaf mould
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I'd use the fairly leafy bits as well, rather than just the really decomposed black stuff. If I only had the the fine black mold I'd add some potting bark to it.

cheers Darrel
 
I appreciate the concerns over using peat but when you experiment you want to eliminate as many variables as possible.
I did collect various beck leaf compost samples and found the ph varied from 4.2 to 6.8
Many of the articles are written in another language and the translation is often a little dubious
 
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