Aquaponics vs Soil - Growing Okra

If you have ever grown okra in soil, you know there is a very small window in which to harvest your okra.  One day's growth can make all the difference between okra that is edible and okra that is so tough and woody you can barely cut it with a knife.

This summer, I have been testing okra in both soil and aquaponics.  I started all tests using Cajun Jewel variety of okra.  This is an heirloom variety and I used organic seed.  I soaked all seeds overnight before planting.  I have to admit, this was great seed from the Southern Exposure Seed Exchange.  The germination rate was almost 100%, with only a couple of seeds not sprouting.

The only fertilizer I used on the soil-based plants was a bit of organic bone meal scratched into the soil as a side dressing two weeks after the plants germinated.  For the aquaponics plants,  I used both flood and drain and deep water raft techniques.  The soil grown plants did begin to produce much faster than the aquaponics plants by almost 10 days. I didn't see much difference in production between the soil plants and the aquaponics plants. All plants produced profusely all summer long.  But I did see one major difference that makes aquaponics the hands down winner.

When grown with aquaponics, the okra was still tender even when it was well over 3 inches long.  The soil based plants produced pods that were quickly tough when they exceeded 1 1/2 inches.  This is important if your schedule doesn't allow you to get out and harvest every single day.  Also, if you are planting for survival, you can't afford to let a single pod go to waste (or the compost). 

As you can see, in this flood and drain set up, the leaves are huge and the pods have been tender, regardless of how large they were allowed to grow. 

Another benefit of the large okra leaves is that they provided shade for my lettuce.  By placing my lettuce in the lower NFT tube, the okra provided needed shade.  I am in South Florida, and our August sun is harsh.  The okra allowed me to continue to grow lettuce with aquaponics when it would not be possible with soil.  This is another survival technique that I recommend.  Layer your garden to take advantage of  what nature provides. It will extend your growing season.

You might notice that I used marigolds on the upper NFT tube as a companion plant.  The only problem I had with pests was a brief encounter with aphids.  I have never been a fan of marigolds, but I am sold on their effectiveness in repelling other pests (especially squash bugs).

So have you tested plants in soil versus aquaponics? I would love to hear your results.

Another reason loop siphons beat bell siphons

If you are just getting started with aquaponics, you are probably reading all you can about the miracle of the bell siphon.

Well, they aren't miracles they are physical science in action and while they do fall in the nifty, keen-o, fine-o category we have found several problems with them.

Add one more to that category.........root intrusion from the grow bed!

We recently stepped out of town for a little over two weeks.  We had someone periodically peek in on our systems and feed the fish a few times.  We were shocked when we got the panicked phone call that one of the systems was over-flowing on the grow bed and loosing water in the fish tank.  While we had a good bit of rain in our absence and that might explain an over-all higher water level we do have overflows installed to take care of heavy rain.  Also, rain wouldn't explain why we would loose water from the fish side of the system.  What fun to troubleshoot from 1500 miles away!

Every thing was humming when we left town.  The plants were uber happy and the fish appeared to be happy (hard to tell when they are smiling) so all should have been good. What happened?

Well, the plants were so uber happy that they grew like crazy and even though we had the bell siphon guarded, the roots grew into the siphon itself.  The entire thing was so totally clogged with roots that the siphon could no longer drain.  Now you know it is a serious root blockage if water, one of the most persistent and powerful forces on earth couldn't make it through that root ball!

So, we will develop a new guard to protect the bell siphon from roots.  But, this has only reinforced our decision to stick with loop siphons on all of our other systems.  The design of the loop siphon does not allow for root intrusion and all of the other systems utilizing this design had no problems with roots.

So, bell = bad
Loop = good