Page 157 - Daggabay Magazine Issue 9
P. 157
Feeding your plant is the process of
giving it the chemicals and compounds Top feed drain-to-waste systems can
that it needs to grow out its leaves, be as simple as putting your plants
roots, and ultimately produce the in a soilless medium and watering
heavy, trichome-covered flower them from the top of the container,
clusters called colas. There are two either with a drip system or by
main types of feeding systems: drain- hand.
to-waste and recirculating.
Ebb and flow systems, also known
A drain-to-waste system applies fresh as flood and drain systems, are a
nutrient solutions to the grow medium popular type of recirculating system
every time the plant is fed. Any that uses a pump to bring water and
nutrients that drain through the nutrients from a reservoir into a
medium are then disposed of and not flood tray where the plants are
reused. positioned in their grow medium.
The nutrient solution floods the tray
A recirculating system collects the and gets absorbed by the roots and
nutrients and water that are used, medium before slowly draining
replenishes them, but with a smaller back into the reservoir. This process
amount of fresh nutrients, then repeats itself on a timer to ensure
reapplies the solution to the plants the that plants are properly hydrated.
next time the plant is fed. A grower
will check the solution's pH before and Nutrient Film Technique (NFT) is
after adjusting the nutrients. another recirculating system in
which plants are suspended by net
When using soil as your primary baskets or neoprene collars that run
medium, drain-to-waste is the only along a trough. A thin film of water
possibility. In soilless hydroponic and nutrients continually circulates
systems, it is up to the growers' through the bottom of the trough,
preferences. Most hydroponic growers providing food to the tips of the
will opt to maintain a drain-to-waste roots, while leaving a majority of
system, because it affords them full the root mass exposed to air.
control over the application of
nutrients. Recirculating systems are
typically reserved for the most
advanced and efficient cultivators.
