Hydro Peas

We are a group of students working on a hydroponics project to grow snow peas out of water! Please follow us for progress updates, photos, and advice on how to grow your own hydro plants!

[hydropeas]

And We're BACK!

Hey, everybody!

Sorry for the week of silence — our school was on Thanksgiving Break, and while we were all catching up on sleep and enjoying some turkey and pie, our experiment was running at school.

Just to refresh your memory, our experiment involves making the pH of one water supply more acidic than the pH of the other water supply and seeing how it would affect the growth (i.e. number of leaves, vine height, etc.) of the peas.

The day before Thanksgiving Break, I got to work (with our teacher's help) figuring out a way to adjust the pH. Initially, we thought that adding coffee grounds would boost the acidity, but then we had a lightbulb moment — citric acid! I juiced a lime and, using a pH probe to get an accurate reading of the water's pH, slowly added it to Tower 2, the Tower whose pH we were adjusting. Both reservoirs had ample amounts of nutrients, a solution that maintained a fairly neutral pH (anywhere along the 7 scale) and kept the plants healthy. By adding lime juice, the pH was reduced to somewhere between 5.5 and 6.0, much more acidic than what the peas needed to stay happy and healthy. 

We returned from break yesterday and saw what we had expected (and hoped!) to see:

Tower 2's inhabitants had dried out and shriveled up, though whether from the acidic solution or the low water pressure is unclear — the water had ceased bubbling up the tube of the structure because there wasn't enough downwards force to push it upwards, but we have no way of knowing how long the water ran before it stopped. Regardless, Tower 2 is no more, though we adjusted the nutrient and water levels to get it working smoothly again.

Tower 1's inhabitants were thriving. Plants 4 and 5 were doing better than 6, who had been kind of squished against the side of its bottle by the end of the lift tube — I trimmed the tube so 6 had more room to grow. It seems that our tower works perfectly, even over longer periods of time, and over the next week, we'll continue to run our experiment, measure variables, and hopefully see a lot more plant growth. 

Keep up with us on our instagram and twitter for more updates :)

Our proud Pea #5:

- Emily

[hydropeas]

Sprouts, Glorious Sprouts...

Hello, friends!

After struggling to maintain our snow peas' health over the weekends (lack of water and all that), we decided about a week ago that it would be best if I (Emily) replanted the peas in better soil and kept them at home with me over the weekends. So far, our results have been excellent! While we've had to say goodbye to our old favourite, Fred, we've had sixteen sprouts (and counting!) within the past few days! A few of the plants are even tall enough to start transplanting into our system.

Today in class, we focused on repairing our second system while our first system kept three strawberry plants alive (our teacher commandeered it). Our airlift tube wasn't working very well, so we had to detach it from the supporting pole and shimmy it further down into the water. Then, because it was already attached and we knew that some thinner piping would carry the water up more quickly, we cut the larger airlift tube and inserted the new, thinner tube, which, after some work (and closing of holes that we didn't make), performed beautifully. While these repairs ended up taking longer than we anticipated, our second system is running better than ever. We plan on transplanting our peas into our systems by Thursday, just in time for Thanksgiving break!

Stay tuned for more!

[hydropeas]

What's Working and What Isn't

Thus far, we’ve tried a lot of different ways of making our window farms.  A lot of it has worked and a lot of it hasn’t.  At one point, in order to increase the rate at which the water dripped from the top of the tube in our window garden, we put duct tape all around it.  This ended up having no effect, positive or negative.  It didn’t work.  We also tried using zip ties, which again, didn’t work so well.  Instead, we decided to shorten the tube and add more water into the window garden, which not only resulted in an increased water drip, but also took up a lot less material.

- Michaela, Rebecca for the photos

Our window farms are almost done, so soon they will be ready to hold our peas. Once we finish attaching our window farms to the wooden block and the extra pipe. Then, once our peas have grown enough, we will transport them out of the cups with soil they are in and into our window farms.

- Claire

[hydropeas]

Our peas are still growing, but we've run into some issues with our second hydroponics system. We're still trying to find a way to stabilise our system and get the snow peas growing at a consistent enough rate before we transplant them. We fixed our tubing issues today and next class (or tomorrow) we'll attach the wooden blocks to stablise the structures. If all goes well, we'll be able to transplant the peas within the next two weeks with less of a chance of them getting root shock. Stay tuned for more updates! 

[hydropeas]

The rest of the Snow Peas family <3

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Say hi to Fred, our tallest Snow Pea!!

[hydropeas]

PAUL?!?!?!

Poor Paul withered, despite our best efforts. Although, when I dug him up to take him out of the soil, I saw that his stalk was still green and white, perfectly healthy. So, I snipped off the dead end and replanted the baby stalk. We'll see in a few days if Paul will sprout again.

I also transplanted Frankie Valli and Axl, since they were getting too big for their little disc of peat. They'll stay in ambient light for the next couple of days, until we see some growth. 

Tower-wise, Michaela, Claire, and Rebecca ran into some issues. The hole in our gallon jug wasn't big enough, and some of the tubes were scraped out of place when we tried to insert the pipe. This meant that the air was bubbling out into the water in the gallon jug, instead of traveling up the pipe. So, they had to go back and undo everything and start re-gluing and re-taping our tubes. Hopefully, we'll be able to finish our structure by tomorrow. Michaela and Rebecca also tackled the issue of stability, suggesting the use of blocks of wood to make sure the tower stays standing. However, this part of the building process had to be put on hold because of the problems with our tubing. 

Stay tuned for some photos of our sprouts!! They're really starting to get big. 

And check out our Instagram and Twitter for updates :)

- Emily

[hydropeas]

Construction: Part Two

In order to transport the water to the top of our windowfarm, we needed to build a sturdy system that could effectively get water to our peas. Each Air Pump system came equipped with two 78” plastic tubes. One end of each tube attached to the Air Pump, while we stuck an air needle into both of the other sides. To make sure that no water could escape from the space between the needles and the tubing, we hot glued the edges and then wrapped them with plumber’s tape.

The next step was to successfully poke two holes near the bottom of our 5 foot-long clear plastic tube in order to allow the air pressure provided by the pump to help the water reach the top of our windowfarm. Once we poked our needles into the larger tube, we hot glued them in, followed by using plumber’s tape to further assure that no water or air could escape.

-Claire

[hydropeas]

SPROUTS UPDATE

Hey, everybody!!

Just wanted to give you a quick update on how our little pea sprouts are doing. Paul, our biggest sprout, started to wilt because his tiny slot in the germination tray wasn't big enough for all his roots. So we transferred him (and our newest sprouts) to styrofoam cups, where they'll grow until it's time to transplant them into the system. George, one of our newbies, now has the title of "tallest sprout," reaching a whopping 10 cm!! And he's only a week old!

Here's our most recent diagram:

If you don't understand who our sprouts' names are referencing, you should rethink your taste in music and literature. 

Remember to follow us on Instagram and twitter for updates!

[hydropeas]

Construction: Part Three

Through experimenting and troubleshooting with our air pump, we realized two main problems with our structure that were preventing a consistent drip from our tube.  The first is that the more vertical our structure is, the better water will flow and the second is that the less amount of room for air in our tube, the better water will flow.  To solve these problems, we attached additional zip-ties and duct tape around the tube and stake to hold the structure as vertical as possible and to make the tubes thinner, decreasing the amount of air flowing through the tube.  These steps allowed enough pressure to build in the tube, producing a consistent drip.

As for our pea sprouts, we have lost one but, our recently planted snow pea  (George) is now 10cm tall!

 - Rebecca

[hydropeas]

Construction: Part One

In order to successfully begin our building process, it was necessary to make the water bottles suitable for the window gardens.  We have two big jugs of water and six water bottles.  Using a soldering iron, we burnt a circle into the bottom of each of the six water bottles.  We then burnt a larger hole into the side of each water bottle.  We also burned a small hole into the top of each of the water jugs, which would then be used to insert the tubing into.  After burning the different holes into the water bottles, we covered the cones of the bottles with duct tape.

- Michaela

[hydropeas]

UPDATES

Hello, all!

We do realize how long it's been since we've given you some updates — please forgive us! We became so wrapped up in the construction of our system that we unwittingly pushed our tumblr to the back burner. Regardless, here are some updates on our snow peas!

We had to say goodbye to Jefferson :'( Poor Jefferson's soil was too damp (we learned our lesson about over-watering) and he developed a root rot. He wilted and had to be thrown away. Paul, however, is still with us, although the confines of the germination tray started to make him wilt. We transplanted him today and we hope (fingers crossed!) that he'll take a good hold by tomorrow. 

The seeds that we planted in the peat were transferred to bigger houses (that is to say, styrofoam cups) and are thriving! [see the circular diagrams at the foot of the data table] We planted three more seeds in some peat and hope to see some results soon. Currently, we have five viable pea plants (assuming all of them survive the transition to the pots we're using for the window farm) and need at least six for the experiment. More than six would be ideal in case any of the sprouts get aforementioned root shock. 

We'll be posting soon with updates on our construction process! Don't forget to follow us on twitter and Instagram for photos! 

[hydropeas]

Continuing our building of our window garden, we cut five feet of the plastic clear tubing and we cut two one inch long plastic tubes for the adapter tubes.  We inserted the air needles into the one inch long plastic tubes an we used a hot glue gun to seal where the needles were inserted.  Then in order to keep everything sealed together, we covered the tubes with plumbers tape.  We cut two slits on the the five foot long plastic tube and, after checking to make sure that air was indeed coming out of the air needles, inserted the needles into the plastic tube.

-Michaela

[hydropeas]

In order to grow successful and healthy snow peas, we need to build a window garden in which we can grow them.  To begin our building process, we took six large water bottles and cut two holes in them.  One in the bottom and a larger one on the side.  The hole in the bottom is used to stack the water bottles and to ensure that the water drips down from one plant into the plant below it.  The larger hole on the side of the water bottle is there to insert the plant into.

-Michaela 

[hydropeas]

6cm tall🎉

[hydropeas]

Well that happened!

Over the weekend, our biggest pea sprout grew from 2 cm to 5.3 cm! A1 (see diagram) is our little giant. In another five centimeters, he’ll be tall enough to transplant into a pot for the window farm. To see if we can sprout a few more plants, we shoved some more pea seeds into two little pots of peat, which supposedly speeds up germination. We’ll let you know if anything appears.

We’re continuing our research on hydroponics and the method we’ll be using to grow our peas (the window farm). Our new knowledge is as follows:

The window farm is a drip hydroponic system. In the drip system, a water solution containing necessary nutrients (phosphate, nitrate) is held in a reservoir that is hooked up to an air pump. The pump switches on periodically and pushes the solution through a network of tubes. These tubes drip water onto each plant. The excess drainage from this process is collected and then returned to the reservoir to cycle through the tubes again. The process of drip-watering the plants repeats 2–3 times a day to ensure that the plants receive the nutrients they need without steeping them in an excess of nutrients.

However, there can be drawbacks to the drip system. If the system is installed incorrectly, the drip irrigation could result in poor root development. If we loop the tubes too wide or install a small amount of water emitters could create drought condition and result in shallow root growth. If there are blockages in the emitters, water pressure could build up and damage the system. We also have to stake the tubing down to prevent accidental falls.

There are also benefits. The drip system prevents weeds from germinating, which is better for the plants and less stressful for the farmers. Additionally, retaining retaining the moisture at the soil level reduces water loss to wind and evaporation and provides even distribution of moisture through the tubes to the plants. There’s also less runoff so the soil remains full of critical nutrients and reduces groundwater pollution.

We’re not planning on changing the original window farm directions we received. We like the idea of creating two towers of pea plants, especially because peas can flourish in half-sunlight. We also think it’ll make the pea vines more reachable and less likely to climb all over the window frames and other plants. Thus, our window farms will look something like the last image in the chain.

- Emily

[hydropeas]

It’s only day four and our peas are already growing! As far as we can see, four out of our sixteen peas has started to grow sprouts. The tallest being 2 cm, then followed by 1.5cm, 1cm, and finally 0.75 cm. Our only concern so far is that each sprout is not receiving the same amount of water. We noticed that the box that our peas are on top of is dented, which could result in the peas on top of the highest point on the box receiving more water than the other peas. We are excited to see our plants continue to grow!

- Claire