Day 104, April 28

(That water is brown looking because of the nutrients I use)

I'm very happy with my plant, a new leaf has been coming in for the past couple of days, and the leaf will continue to mature for the next few days. I notice with this plant, leaves don't come in green, hey come in a kind of a purple color, and the purple kind of fades out to green in a week or so. Anyway this is the 5th leaf, and I can see that the 6th leaf is not far behind it.

Today I will talk about oxygen and the role it plays to the plants health, and vigor.

I in fact didn't know much of this until recently, I'm still learning every day about plants, and hydroponics. But here we go!

So you have yourself a hydroponics system, and you give your plants a balanced nutrition, a good light source, and maybe even supplements, but you think your plant(s) could be either sick with disease, or are not growing as they should be. Well, one thing you can look at is oxygen. See, a good nutrient solution is not just a blend of minerals and fertilizers, there are a bunch of factors we don't commonly take into consideration and one of them is Dissolved Oxygen (DO). Plants need to breathe, just like everything else, and we are used to thinking plants breathe cO2 and produce o2, which is true, however plants still consume oxygen, but the amount of oxygen used in the soil (or nutrient blend for us using hydroponics) is dwarfed by the amount of oxygen produced by photosynthesis. Oxygen is an essential nutrient, required for Aerobic Uptake; which is an essential process, which releases energy for root growth and nutrient uptake.

Dissolved oxygen requirements are greater during the flowering stage of life, because by then, the plants have matured, and are probably huge, haha, but you need dissolved oxygen in all stages of growth for good results, the more the better!

Most growers know they need aeration in there water, because of the high surface tension, or they already know this stuff, but most growers don't know how much they need. First of all, the lower the temperature of your water, the more dissolved oxygen is can hold, BUT, the colder the temperature of your water, the less DO your plants can uptake, and the hotter, the less DO your water can hold, but more your plants need, so its is a hard balance to maintain with a lot of mature plants, for one or two, you don't have to worry as much. A good way to keep a good balance is to keep your temperature even threw the day and the night, with only a difference of 10 degrees F if you can. Another way to keep good aeration is to have a large reservoir, about 5 gallons or more per mature plant or more, but don't go too crazy.

If you monitor your DO with a meter, great!
50 F (10 C) should be about 13 ppm
68 F (20 C) should be about 9-10 ppm
86 F (30 C) should be about 7 ppm

Whether you do or don’t measure ppm of DO, keep your reservoir well oxygenated with an air pump and air stone, there are lots of shapes and sizes to choose, get one to fit your needs, the bigger the reservoir, the bigger the pump needs to be, or the more pumps you need. Also, keep your water temperatures in between 70 degrees, and 80 degrees or lower if you can.

Damage from low or no dissolved oxygen will usually start in the roots, but will differ in severity depending on your plant. A common first sign of low DO is wilting under warm temperatures and light. Without enough oxygen to supply your roots, your roots will not absorb enough nutrients or water to support vigorous growth, or any growth in some cases. This stresses the plant, and can cause diseases to form, or fungi to grow, a common fungi from low DO, is the Pythium pathogen, this pathogen is called a secondary infection, because, the spores from it are EVERYWHERE, but they will only attack the plant if it has been damaged. There are products out there to fight off this pathogen, so you can probably recover.