Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
FIGURE 7.7
A recirculating vine crop system for 12 Bato buckets. (Courtesy of
General Hydroponics, Sebastopol, California.)
I have good success with growing tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, and
cucumbers commercially in Bato buckets with a perlite substrate. They all
grow very well with perlite, so I think that it would be better to use perlite
instead of the expanded clay pebbles mixed with coco coir. Just be careful
with the spacing for these plants as we discussed a number of times earlier.
American Hydroponics has a similar system it calls a 210 Recirculating
Vine Crop System (Figure 7.8). This system consists of 10 Bato buckets, a
galvanized steel table frame, and a 35-gallon reservoir with a submersible
pump that supplies the nutrient solution to the plants by a drip irrigation
system. Perlite alone or a mixture of perlite and coco coir (75% perlite, 25%
coco coir) makes a suitable substrate. Twenty tomatoes, eggplants, or pep-
pers (two plants per pot) or 10 European cucumbers (1 plant per pot) can be
grown in the system. This is a recirculating system and costs about $1495.
AutoPot Watering Systems, based in the United Kingdom, has devel-
oped a simple system that is similar to an ebb and flood system; however,
FIGURE 7.8
The 210 Recirculating Vine Crop System by American
Hydroponics. (Courtesy of American Hydroponics, Arcata, California.)
