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Timed irrigation and towers

I am experimenting a bit with towers on timed flow. So far (winter) they are happy with 15 minutes on and 45 minutes off. Anyone have experience with towers on timer during hotter weather?

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Permalink Reply by RupertofOZ on July 19, 2011 at 9:39am

I think the media used, and the actual tower material might result in considerable differences to watering regimes, and even possibly results...

I've utilised strawberry towers containing coco-coir media, contained within a panda film wrapping... that only required watering once or twice a day, sometimes only once or twice a week... during winter... but about 4-6 times during summer, depending on day temperatures

What media are you using Kobus, and what are the towers made from...

Permalink Reply by Kobus Jooste on July 19, 2011 at 10:13am

Rupert, nice to hear from you again. I have a trial unit of 4 inch PVC pipe and it is filled with coco coir. I have no idea what panda film is. I want to keep flooding on the same routine as the water, once drained through the towers, will go to my sand bed.

Permalink Reply by TCLynx on July 19, 2011 at 11:03am

Panda film is the plastic that is white on one side and black on the other.

I've only ever done towers with constant flow but I've never used coco coir in aquaponics either, the media in my towers is the matrix that Nate came up with.

Permalink Reply by RupertofOZ on July 19, 2011 at 11:12am

The media in Nate's towers appears to be basically self draining, and hence suitable to a constant flow...

Other possible media, like hydroton, or even gravel (probably too heavy for towers), may also drain fairly freely...

But other media, like vermiculite, perlite etc holds water to differing degrees, and Coir is very water retentive....

So the media will have a very definite effect on the frequency of watering in itself, and the drying of the media through heat transfer of the tower material, particularly during summer, will also be a significant factor in determining watering intervals...

I think, with these factors, it's going to be a matter of individual trial and error for each system location to determine the best regime...

Permalink Reply by Kobus Jooste on July 19, 2011 at 11:59am

TC Lynx - what I am trying to do is irrigate my towers and my sand bed at the same time. This means that the sand bed rotation gets preference (cannot flood all the time). The strawberries in there is looking very good up to now. I planted the tower a few months ago and it seems to be working fine on a rotation of 15 minutes flood and 45 minutes off.

Rupert, I hear what you are saying about the water retention capacity of the media. I have not given up on my cheap pvc based media for light towers, but these will have to be flooded permanently as they will not hold much moisture.

Permalink Reply by TCLynx on July 19, 2011 at 12:47pm

I expect the coir will hold plenty of water to go on the same cycle as the sand bed unless you find the coir to hold too much moisture. If it's working now, I expect it should work through the hot season as well.

Hum, I recall some one else made up some home made towers of sorts kinda/sort of like Nates, If only I could remember who that was and what media they were using. I'll post if I remember or come across it again.

Permalink Reply by Chris Smith on July 19, 2011 at 2:31pm

I have had a timed flow strawberry tower operating for many most of the year. The berries bid great until recently. Now they are putting out tons of runners. I have had to dial back the water entering the top of the tower because of so many roots reducing the flow down the center. I am running 15/45 cycle and use black cinder.Since this picture was taken I replaced all the herbs at the base with strawberries. If the plants do not stop running soon I will replant it. During the peek of the season we were getting about a dozen berries a day. My daughter ate most of them and didn't want to share.

I have two other towers that have a slow steady flow. They were recently planted out so it will be a while before I can compare growth rates between timed towers and constant trickle towers.

Permalink Reply by Kobus Jooste on July 19, 2011 at 9:42pm

Thanks for the input Chris. I have a coir filled tower with 10 plants in on timed flow, while I have a 4 inch pipe set up horizontally with 20 plants in it. The two structures get fed from the same pump on the same timing cycle, but obviously the horizontal tube stays filled with water in the lower 50% of the pipe. Then I have a horizontal pipe with 12 plants getting permanent flow in my research system. The nitrates stay at around 8 ppm there. I will be watching these 3 set-ups for the rest of the year to see what differences I get. Could the "lots of runners" scenario by you be related to nutrient peaks? I was told that strawberries put out runners when the nutrients gets too high.

Permalink Reply by Chris Smith on July 20, 2011 at 1:05am

Wow Kobus, sounds like you have great experiments going on. I will be very interested to hear how plants in a timed horizontal tube will do. I found that 4" vertical pipe planted with longer term plants will result in the tower becoming root-bound using 5/8 cinder media. My trials show 6" pipe and 5/8 cinder works better.

My strawberry tower has recently sent out runners. I just assumed that we have recently passed the longest day of the year and the plants have to reproduce. Last night I started researching strawberries and now believe I have a junk variety. I never considered nutrients could cause runners.The tower will get replanted soon. I have some new ideas and will adapt the tower to a demand.

Keep in mind that towers do not have to be suspended. If a tower is not suspended the weight of the media is less a concern. I am using base mount towers filled with cinder. They could be filled with most any readily available media and work great no matter or how much it weighs.

Permalink Reply by Kobus Jooste on July 20, 2011 at 1:19am

Hi Chris - really like the supported tower idea but cannot modify my setup right now to make it possible. I will keep an eye on roots in the smaller pipe but that is in part why I went for the media-less horizontal configuration. The permanently flowing horizontal one is also media free. I'm not sure what quality my plants are but they are all I can get here without going to a specialist grower and paying almost $2.20 per plant. I initially bought 6 and everything I have now are populated from runners.

The 4 inch pipe I use is very cheap, but that is an experiment in itself - it is underground pipe thus I'm not sure if it is UV stabilized at all. Time will tell. Will keep you posted about how the plants respond to the different treatments. Right now I cannot see any real difference yet.

Chris Smith said:

Wow Kobus, sounds like you have great experiments going on. I will be very interested to hear how plants in a timed horizontal tube will do. I found that 4" vertical pipe planted with longer term plants will result in the tower becoming root-bound using 5/8 cinder media. My trials show 6" pipe and 5/8 cinder works better.

My strawberry tower has recently sent out runners. I just assumed that we have recently passed the longest day of the year and the plants have to reproduce. Last night I started researching strawberries and now believe I have a junk variety. I never considered nutrients could cause runners.The tower will get replanted soon. I have some new ideas and will adapt the tower to a demand.

Keep in mind that towers do not have to be suspended. If a tower is not suspended the weight of the media is less a concern. I am using base mount towers filled with cinder. They could be filled with most any readily available media and work great no matter or how much it weighs.

Permalink Reply by Averan on July 20, 2011 at 8:58am

I have a ton of strawberries that all came from runners from a single plant 3 seasons ago. Just because they produce runners doesn't make them worthless. I understand there is another variety that supposedly never grows runners?

I've always felt that the plant naturally enters a phase of vegetative reproduction after the fruiting season...that's what strawberry plants are designed to do! It works fine for me as that's when I get a bazillion free new strawberry plants! All of my strawberries grown from runners have produced berries so this cycle of fruit/multiply works just fine for me.

Permalink Reply by Kobus Jooste on July 20, 2011 at 9:43am

Averan - The issue for me was not runners between fruiting, but no fruit and continual runners the whole of last summer. As soon as my fish came out in winter, the runners stopped and the fruiting started. I then got feedback that high nutrient levels suppresses fruiting in favour of producing runners.

Averan said:

I have a ton of strawberries that all came from runners from a single plant 3 seasons ago. Just because they produce runners doesn't make them worthless. I understand there is another variety that supposedly never grows runners?

I've always felt that the plant naturally enters a phase of vegetative reproduction after the fruiting season...that's what strawberry plants are designed to do! It works fine for me as that's when I get a bazillion free new strawberry plants! All of my strawberries grown from runners have produced berries so this cycle of fruit/multiply works just fine for me.

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