Plant Growth Rate Using a Aquaponic System

Found a couple of studies...of course a lot depends on growing medium and nutrients...

http://www.usc.edu/org/quikscience/Projects/2013/HS/Kamehameha-RP.pdf

http://lasi.lynchburg.edu/shahady_t/public/Mader%20Thesis.pdf

many thanks for the two pdf's, I actually found the first one from Kamehemeha, very interesting.

The second one gives me more info, than I found previously

Many thanks

Depends on how much you talk to them.

"Hydroponics" might be more of a generic search term.

nope.. tried that too!

There is a distinct difference between the two!

have you thought about taking a class?

A lot of Aquaponics businesses at least in our area is some what protective of the information, they want to sell supplies.

a bit far for me to travel to classes!

I've been toying with hydroponic herb growing, indoors, under tightly controlled temps and humidity. I have also grown some of the same herbs in a traditional soil medium alongside the hydro tanks.

From purely seat of the pants estimates, I would say the hydro grown plants mature somewhere between 10 and 15 percent faster than soil grown. Seeds from both were germinated in stone wool and transferred to their growing medium at the same time.

It is extremely difficult to get precise data on the small scale I'm dealing with. Seed germination alone varies by days sometimes for the same plant species.

I also do not have a decent way to find out yield differences with herbs. They just aren't harvested the same as vegetables.

Good luck,
Hooker

Growth rate in comparison to what? Standard soil? No such thing.

The advantages for growing without soil for something like lettuce are sufficient in many cases without even considering any reduction in time to harvest or yield.

Try watching Rob Bobs aquaponics video

https://www.youtube.com/user/bnbob01

or

http://aquaponicsnation.com/

http://www.backyardaquaponics.com/forum/

I haven't seen anything on comparison of growth rates but from what I have seen it's going to be a very unempircal more.

I'm going to have a shot at doing the same thing in Dubai.

Good luck

I found this. Not about lettuce but the groth rate of pea beans and tomatoes.

http://www.usc.edu/org/quikscience/Projects/2013/HS/Kamehameha-RP.pdf

For example, you can take a head of lettuce from seedling to harvest in around a month in hydroponics compared to two months in soil. Imagine how much faster you could become a gardening expert with a time savings like that!

http://www.epicgardening.com/hydroponics-vs-soil/

My first thought was that state cooperative extension services/agricultural research stations, which are headquartered at land grant universities in the US, would be good research sources. Here are some references from the National Agricultural Library, including contributions from extension/research sources. You might dig out some info on specific crops.

Take normal soil grown lettuce, and normalized the growth rate by hours of illumination at what intensity, and any other growth conditions. For example, if "normal" lettuce takes 6 weeks with normal length days, and the phosphate (limiting nutrient in most cases) is X, then with aquaponic lettuce, phosphate might be more available, and growth rate will be higher, etc. I do not have hard numbers for this, and only people directly engaged in such farming would have it. Try talking to the folks at Vertigro in El Paso, Texas.