Hydroponics and bonsai

[Bonsai Nut]

I am going to start a thread discussing the use of hydroponics for the propagation of bonsai.

I have zero experience in this area, so I am going to have to link resources. If anyone has experience, it would be extremely helpful if you could jump in.

In order to be successful, a hydroponic setup would need to provide: water, oxygen, nutrients, physical stability. This assumes the presence of adequate light.

Questions:
(1) Can you use hydroponics in the propagation of woody plants?
(a) Best practices?
(b) Benefits / shortfalls?

(2) Can you use hydroponics to grow larger trees / full bonsai-sized trees?
(a) What would be different with the system versus what you would do in (1)?
(b) Benefits / shortfalls?

 

[A. Gorilla]

If one is using an inorganic mix, isn't it already essentially hydroponic?

When I go to the designated "hydroponics store" I see the the same fundamental concepts of bonsai-culture. Coarse, jagged substrates (Growstone, Perlite, Hydrocorn, coconut husk etc), and fertilizers.

The only difference is that the hydro people might have pumps running a nutrient solution over their plants constantly in an indoor set up with extra coarse substrate and nothing to break down (i.e. akadama or organics).

 

[Bonsai Nut]

First, an article about propagation in hydroponics.

Second, an article about Mycorrhizal Fungi in hydroponics.

Third a couple of interesting comments:

The problem of growing woody plants in hydroponics as against herbaceous plants, is the need to support the tree that will attain normally a large size and will tip over if not supported properly. So a better approach is to grow the tree in a container on a innert medium that will give the tree the proper support. I grew fruit trees like peach trees in complete hydroponic system in aerated nutrient solution of 8 liters, in volcanic tuff in plastic bags of 10 15 and 25 liters and in perlite in 15 liters bags. This was part of research that reached commercial stage where tens of thousands trees were grown. The size of the container dictated the size of the tree: the larger the container, the larger the tree .As the medium was to a large extend inert, we used diluted nutrient solution. In all these systems good aeration of the medium is critical.

Does someone have the habit to cultivate woody plants (preferably indigenous plant) in hydroponic culture and would be able to share his experience wi.... Available from: https://www.researchgate.net/post/D..._and_would_be_able_to_share_his_experience_wi [accessed Apr 17, 2017].

 

[Bonsai Nut]

If one is using an inorganic mix, isn't it already essentially hydroponic?

There are different types of systems. I think what you are describing would be very similar to a "flood and drain" hydroponic system where the plant is being grown in inert material that gets flooded (and then drained) periodically. However there are other hydroponic systems that are mist-based, or that keep the plant constantly suspended in an aerated fluid solution.

 

[A. Gorilla]

I've also affixed (rather random) rooted plants amongst of the current of a fish pond, and it always seemed to work fine. Roots just keep growing happily.

Suspending them in water on a floatie does seem like it's the plant's "happy place" provided you don't need dormancy. Not sure how you'd transition out of a water solution into winter. That's kind of a head scratcher.

 

[AZbonsai]

I have run both hydroponic and aquaponic systems. Flood and drain as well as raft systems. Can not say I have grown any woody plants purposefully in them, however, I have grown basil plants that have become very woody after several years growing. Biggest issue, and most expensive, is the proper lighting. I think that may be an even larger issue with woody plants. That is based on intuition, nothing scientific.

 

[Ironbeaver]

I currently have a rooted piece of ficus benjamina (approximately 8" long by 1" thick) and some sort of lemon seedling growing in homemade flood and drain systems. Too small of a sample size to really test, but both seem to be doing okay.

 

[Random User]

I can't be much help to you B'nut, but have you seen this product?... I posted the same link on another thread.

http://www.rootrescue.com/site/home-gardeners

 

[BrianBay9]

I have run both hydroponic and aquaponic systems. Flood and drain as well as raft systems. Can not say I have grown any woody plants purposefully in them, however, I have grown basil plants that have become very woody after several years growing. Biggest issue, and most expensive, is the proper lighting. I think that may be an even larger issue with woody plants. That is based on intuition, nothing scientific.

Does no one use hydroponics systems outside in natural light?

 

[AZbonsai]

I am not sure it would be cost effective grown indoors. The nutrients can be expensive, the initial set up can be costly, and the media they use (hydroton) is expensive as well. I was looking at a new light system the other day about $1,300 LED technology. Could you do it cheaper, yes...I had a blue barrel system set up in my backyard that worked very well. I introduced hydroponics and aquaponics to my garden club kids as an alternative gardening method. In my opinion....you can not beat DIRT and mother nature.

 

[AZbonsai]

Outdoor hydroponic set up by Travis W. Hughey. He calls it Barrel-Ponics. If you want to build an outdoor system this one is easy to do and has well laid out plans. It comes in PDF form...about 100 pages but well worth the download IMO.

 

[cbroad]

I've been experimenting with a Deep Water Culture of a ficus microcarpa since about February. After the initial planting and acclimation, things are starting to take off.

People here have poo poo'd the idea but I don't understand why? One of our biggest limitations with bonsai is time, and hydroponics has proven you can potentially cut growth time down by half. I don't necessarily want to keep my plants in this setup forever but if my results are good I might do just that. I initially wanted to try this for propagating cuttings and if I could grow cutting worthy whips in less time than all the better.

I don't think this setup would be good for ramification but for growing out trunks and primary branches this may be a very good alternative.

I wasn't sure how well this would work for woody plants but I thought a ficus could handle it. My setup is pretty simple, it's just a bucket of water and an air pump...

The first two pictures are from today, the last one was from February when I first put in the dwc setup.

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• cbroad
• Apr 17, 2017
• 1

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• cbroad
• Apr 17, 2017

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• cbroad
• Feb 14, 2017

 

[timetravel_0]

For what it's worth, aeroponics may be worth investigating. I typically get healthier root systems that are thicker, hairier, and more well ramified than DWC or NFT systems.

A product that's available at hydroponic shops is Fox Farm Ocean Forest. It's a potting soil that is very free-draining and loaded with nutrients out of the bag. I usually get thicker stems growing in a felt bag with Ocean Forest.

For the question above, many forms of hydroponics are done inside in order to be able to grow year-round and to have control over photo periods to induce flowering.

 

[cbroad]

@timetravel_0
I really want to buy an aerocloner, that is the next step since my plant is finally responding well to the dwc. I always assumed the biggest hurdle with hydroponics is the inclusion of oxygen into the root zone. With aeroponics, this shouldn't be an issue. I bought 3 different air pumps until I decided this one would work and I think it's still on the lower end, it's around 130 gph.

I also want to try a constant drip method, and have come up with a few designs. I haven't liked what I've seen with ebb and flow compared to dwc. I've also been tinkering with a design to incorporate soil for its stability and buffering qualities but still using water for nutrient delivery and using air pumps for the inclusion of oxygen for superior root development, but I'm not there yet enough to talk about it much...

 

[timetravel_0]

So far I've only grown vegetables- tomatoes, potatoes, peppers, and cucumbers.

In all of the different systems, humidity is king for root health. While the roots are suspended in air, they're healthy, thick, white, and hairy. As soon as they hit water (with or without nutrients) they turn slimy, thin, and brown/tan. Any amount of aeration of the solution makes no difference.

I build all of my own equipment, my aeroponic system is two stacked 5g buckets with a lid in between them. The bottom is the nutrient solution reservoir, the top is the "growth chamber". I use a small fountain pump to move nutrient solution from the bottom bucket to the top, and excess drains back down through a pvc pipe that sticks through the bottom of the top bucket. The pvc pipe sticks up about 2" and creates a little pond, where I have a small and cheap reptile ultrasonic fogger. The fogger creates a super ultrafine "dry" mist loaded with nutrients. As long as the roots don't reach the pond, they look great and top growth is rapid and vigorous. Root pruning will result in new healthy white roots. However, for my purposes a little stress is good, as it makes the flowers pop.

Currently, I've been comparing the aeroponic setup to Ocean Forest in a grow bag with bottom heat. The aeroponic system has produced fruits that are beginning to ripen before the 'good' potting soil has even produced flowers. The Ocean Forest has produced 2x-3x as many (and smaller) leaves though. Stem thickness is also greater in the Ocean Forest. Overall plant height is 2x greater with the aeroponic system.

My next experiment was going to double the height of the humidity chamber, but now I may want to try Ficus, Schefflera, or a Chinese Elm to see what happens.

 

[timetravel_0]

I should also add- lighting (assuming we're talking indoors).

Hydroponics shops offer great products. I think they keep their doors open by selling lighting systems $$$. A cheap spectrascope, a set of color filters, and any light meter can tell you a whole lot about different inexpensive lights from Home Depot, Walmart, etc. Most incandescent bulbs throw off too much infrared, red, orange, and yellow. LEDs will provide a "full spectrum", but soft white bulbs are skewed towards the warmer side of the visible light spectrum. Cool daylight bulbs offer up blue and violet light in greater amounts- though most still throw out primarily yellow light. The GE Bright Stik is a great option, and comes in some large 150w equivalent sizes, I've had good success with these.

Non-conventional research is starting to find information contrary to what most of us learned in biology class, green light is required sort of. It's not the most photo-active color, but plants grown in the absence of green light are not as healthy as those with green light included. Not all green light is reflected, some must be absorbed. The fancy blue and red grow lights (the pink looking ones) typically only produce those two colors, and light starve the plant from other colors. It seems like these have become less in-style in the hydroponic shops as well.

Jerry Meislik's metal halide setup is in a class all of it's own, but the power consumption and heat requires a lot more special equipment than simple screw in 120v bulbs and lamps.

 

[cbroad]

@timetravel_0
Thank you, very very interesting! I wanted to build my own aeroponics chamber but couldn't figure out how to build something to hold the misting nozzle, I never thought of using one of those foggers. I have a corn snake and have a waterfall fountain that can hold one of those foggers but never bought one because it isn't conducive to his habitat. That setup would be the perfect problem solver for my situation. Wow, so the mist will still carry the nutrients, that's really interesting?

I haven't really tried any of Fox farms soils yet but I have tried a lot of their fertilizers years ago. We sell a lot of their products at my work but I usually use Espoma's soils then add a ton of perlite for my outdoor trees, but I may give it a shot.

As for lights, right now I'm using a 4' 4 bulb HO Agrobrite, but I realize this isn't enough for full growth and it's better for cuttings and seedlings. I think my next purchase will be a dimmable 1000w MH that can be set at 600w, 750w, 1000w, and 1150w. This way I can start at 600w and gauge the plants response and ramp it up if need be. I don't think the technology is quite there yet for LEDs and they're still too expensive... I have a bunch of old used HPSs and MHs, but haven't ever used them. Have you looked into the newer LECs (light emitting ceramics)? Supposedly they're more full spectrum than halides but energy consumption is way lower and they give off much less heat, but what I've heard is plant growth isn't as vigorous...

If I can start producing cuttings my greenhouse will buy them off me, so I hope to be able to start really pumping them out Thank you for all of the info.

 

[timetravel_0]

The LEC's look like quite the improvement over metal halide systems (and much better than HPS/LPS).

I did a little comparison between the Sun System LEC and a 100w equivalent GE Bright Stik:

LEC:
Color 3100K
Thermal Output 1102 BTU
CRI 80-96

LED:
Color 5000k
Thermal Output 4.6 BTU
CRI 80

It would be interesting to see a side-by-side comparison between the two.

 

[cbroad]

Here is an update on my hydroponic Ficus microcarpa. It been in the system since 2/13/17. It seems to be working, almost ready to start taking cuttings.
Here's a link to my thread about it: https://www.bonsainut.com/threads/ficus-experiment.27965/
*EDIT: hopefully the link works this time... Thread name is "ficus experiment"

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• cbroad
• Jun 5, 2017

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• cbroad
• Jun 5, 2017

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• cbroad
• Jun 5, 2017

 

[AZbonsai]

Nice roots!