Rockwool

[Justin Taylor]

Hi Everyone!!  I used rockwool to start my seeds. I put the seeds in the rockwool, then during a cycle stuck the cube in my rocks so that just the bottom touched the surface of the water and therefore wicks the water up into the cube.  Everything is sprouting nicely and doing well! Is there a time where I will need to pull the plants out of the rockwool or tear the rockwool away and take it out of the system. Or will it be ok to just leave them in and let the plants grow through them? This is just lettuce type plants in this garden.  Will they stay too wet at some point and rot?

Thanks for the help!  

[Roger]

Once the plants have established roots in the rockwool you will not be able to pull them out or even tear the rockwool away without damaging the root system.  I recommend using composted bark plugs like Root Riots or Sunleaves Super Starter Plugs.  However, realistically you should just be able to start the seeds in the media of your GB.  Just be sure not to plant the seeds too deep as the suction of the ebb/flow cycles will pull your seeds too deep into the GB. 

[Justin Taylor]

I have tossed 10-15 seeds directly into the GB and had about 4 plants sprout so far.  How do you ensure they find the right depth in a flood/drain system?  Do you just hope? :)

[jim mckee]

When you harvest the plant you should gently remove it so you remove the wool and as many roots as possible.

I think for rockwool to decompose you would have to wait till past the end of your life time.

I'm heading for sprouting some types of seeds then planting them.  Seeds I'm not sprouting are larger seeds like vine plants and even some lettuce type that have a large seed.  Small seeds just have too many problems for me.

I trying different methods to grow lettuce vertically so I'm getting a better survival rate if I pre sprout.

My grow beds are gravel med to coarse so micro seeds have the same move around probs that others have, so I'm sprouting those.

If you use worms in your grow bed maybe a seed tape concept would work.  Use a paper material that will decompose and the worms will eat the microbes from the paper and they eat the paper also.

If your looking for worms I've purchased from this company and they are top quality worms and worm info:

http://www.RedWormComposting.com
 

jim