Cucumber Grow or Die

Hidhut UFO Test 2- Dec 28, 2007


I have the new UFO to try now. Thanks to Justin for swapping me out. This one has the 70 Red - 20 Blue LED ratio.

Besides this change, there are a couple of others. The electronics have been moved from the UFO LED array case and  into a separate power box (see photo). According to Justin, this removes any heat from the electronics away from the LEDs and also provides easier troubleshooting and component replacement should a problem occur. The light now has a long cable that connects to the power box. The power box then plugs into the AC socket. There is now a hanger kit provided. The hanger is a round disk with a hook. Three cables are attached through adjustable pressure fittings and then screw onto the UFO light. This is a nice hanger system. The adjustments let me mount the UFO on a steep angle.

The reason for the UFO angle - I'm going to try and grow cucumbers. As you'll see in the below photos, I've mounted the light to one side and pushed the grow box over to the other side. Once the cucumber vines start to elongate, I can use this open space to provide some kind of cucumber vine support system (to be determined).  The cabling system on the UFO will allow me to change angles if I wish onto the future vines. I'm starting with two plants, but more than likely will be going with one as they get larger. The vines take up a lot of space.

For nutrients, I'm also going to take the advice I recieved in my forum - See 'Cucumber Growing Woes' under 'Growing Status' for details . I seem to have troubles with cucumber vines deteriorating. Milkshake sent my photo into Dr Morgan of the 'Growing Edge' and she suggested using only a Nitrate form of Nitrogen with higher Potassium and Phosphorus. More like a bloom formula. The closest thing I have to this is Flora Nova bloom 4-8-7. it is 3.75% Nitrate and .25% Ammonical N. This is close to custom Cucumber fertilizer mixes as researched on Google. I've also added a little Liquid Karma. Supposedly cucumbers like a high PK, so I also have some Liquid Kool Bloom that is 0-10-10 to try for a boost if needed.

 
Hit the button below for the setup photos. Seeds were planted just today.

Hidhut UFO Test 2- Jan 5, 2008

Got one sprout so far. Thought there would be a second one, but it seemed to stall coming up and not get out. Don't know if the second one will come up. I'll wait a few days and plant another if it doesn't. Even though there's probably only room for one vine, I'd like to have a couple to choose from when that time comes.

The first one actually came out of the ground yesterday. Looking okay so far, the cotylodon leaves are pretty good size.

Hidhut UFO Test 2- Jan 19, 2008

The largest cucumber plant is getting it's third leaf. I'm seeing the beginnings of the problem I always seem to have with cucumbers. The first two leaves are misshapen a little. The nutes are still about 300PPM. I have another cucumber sprout coming up that I planted a few days ago to get two going.

The third plant is a young pepper sprout that came up about the same time as the smallest pepper under the LGM-Grow-Master. I didn;'t have any place to put it, but figured itmight be a good control to see how it grows for a while under the UFO.

Hidhut UFO Test 2- Jan 27, 2008

Quite a bit of growth since last update. The large cucmber plant has big elephant ear leaves with a super-short nodelength. The leaves are stacked one on top of the other and large. I had to pry up the leaves by hand to show the vine underneath. Don't know if this is light, nutrients or whatever yet. I seem to always get weird results with cucumbers. The vine is very sturdy and thick and root development seems good. The younger cucumber is coming along also.

The pepper plant is doing well. I didn't put a ruler up, but it's about 2 1/2 inches tall now. It's the same age as the youngest under the LGM-5s and is at 1 1/4 inches. 

Hidhut UFO Test 2- Feb 3, 2008

The cucumbers and peppers seem to be growing at a fast rate. I'm still having troubles with cucumbers and this same problem happens no matter what I seem to try nutrient-wise and light-wise. I've always had this problem.

Same as I explained a while ago in the forum under the "Cucumber Growing Woes" topic. Growth is real fast. The leaves seem to form correctly and eventually the older leaves get dry spots and the leaf dries up crispy. It looks sometimes like a nutrient burn on the tips, but I've tried really low EC and always get same thing. There is also some yellowing on the very edges of the leaves. The leaves also cup under and get an 'alligator skin" look to them. The EC is about 450 PPM right now and has never been higher than that. If it's a nutrient deficiency, I don't know what. Over time, I've tried all kinds of nutrients and supplements and can't seem to get a grip on this problem with the cukes. On the oldest cucumber plant, I removed two leaves yesterday. They were over 12 inches in diameter. One was so large it was shading and covering the entire plant. I thought I took a photo, but couldn't find it on my camera this morning. The stems and roots seem to be healthy and thick.

The pepper plant I stuck in there as kind of a 'control' to see what the nutrients would do is doing really well. No signs of nutrient burns, deficiencies, etc. Actually it's quite large and doing well for it's age

The nutrients I'm trying now is bloom formula Flora Nova. Reason for this was a suggestion that too much ammoniacal nitrogen was not good for cukes and higher PK was needed. More explanation of why I'm trying this is below in the first update.

Hidhut UFO Test 2- Feb 16, 2008

Lot's of growth and happenings since last update.

Pepper Plant - Good size. Nice thick stalks, stems, and leaves. There's some blossoms forming. Plenty of bushy type growth everywhere. Probably about the only negative is the waviness of the leaves, but this doesn't bother me too much. They're green and healthy with no signs of anything bad going on.

Cucumbers - The oldest plant's growth rate is pretty good. The vines are real thick and laterals are growing out everywhere. Negatives here are still the leaf shapes. I show one leaf that I trimmed next to the ruler. Some of these leaves get really large. Notice the roughness. The leaves still have some yellowness around the edges and tips. It sure looks like a nutrient overdose, but I'm still around 300 PPM and way below the recommended usage. The PH seems to stay steady at 6.0 and I haven't had it swaying too far at all either way. The smaller plant (which is younger) is exhibiting same symptoms, but the leaves seem to die faster and growth rate is slower. Another sign of problems is the blossoms. These are parthencarpic cucumbers and should have female flowers only. Form what I see, the buds coming are mostly male flowers, a sign of stress. I'm pulling the male flowers off as soon as I identify them. There are some female flowers, so there's a chance to see if these will produce any cucumbers. The last cucumbers I grew under the traffic light setup looked about the same way as these and I did get some cucumbers to eat anyway....
 
Bottom Line -  I have a lot of work to do to learn how to grow cucumbers. Whether it be nutrients, growing menthod, missing light spectrum, whatever. I like the progress of the pepper plant though.

Hidhut UFO Test 2- Feb 23, 2008

The cucumbers are coming along better. I took a stab at really upping the EC. Even though the edges and the leaves looked nutrient burned before. I was doubtful from the low EC reading I had. So far I went from 300PPM to 1000PPM gradually over the past week. There seems to be quite a lot of improvement of the leaves since last update. The growth rate continues to be fast, especially if you consider that I've trimmed off almost every leaf from the last update! The plant seems to add 1-2 leaves onto the ends of the laterals daily. I've also been removing male flowers as they appear. The rise in EC seems to be generating more female flowers as you can see in the photos. I've also been attempting to keep only one female blossom per location. I eliminate a leaf as soon as I see signs of the necrosis which seems to be the problem to solve.

I'm keeping 6 lateral vines going on the large cucumber plant. I'll probably eliminate a few of these as I see which ones are strongest and have the most female flowers. There is one fully opened flower already and some getting ready. I was hoping to get a front shot of the open flower, but it's facing the back wall and too hard to get my camera back there. Notice the moisture on the blossoms. Not sure if these blossoms will take yet, we'll wait and see.

The cucumber roots are growing great. I couldn't really get a shot of the largest cucumber plant roots as the cup is in the back hole. However, most of the roots you see floating in the chamber photo are from the large cucumber. The cucumber roots are like fine fishing nets, compared to the pepper roots which have larger shoots with smaller shoots streaming down. The root systems seem in pretty good shape.

The pepper plant is approaching 9 inches in height. Upping the EC for the cucumbers has really darkened up the pepper plant and the EC is probably too high for it as more curl is present in the leaves. This is why I usually don't grow different species in the same tank. The pepper is along for the ride as the purpose of this grow is for the cucumbers. I may have to move the pepper plant out eventually if I want to save it.

Cucumber Grow or Die Marathon, 2008

New name for this grow. My attempts at trying to get the cucumber leaves looking right really just made them worse. I never got off to a great start on the cucumbers and really never do. So eject, clean and reload for another shot. This could be a marathon.

The pepper plant that was along for the ride on the other hand is quite nice. This has been moved up to the Aero unit under the Procyon. I needed to clean the tank and start a cucumber seed over again. Just dedicated to cucumber growing now going forward. I planted a new seed last night.

I'm going to switch lights to the Procyon Prototype. It's not because I don't like the UFO. I'm building another area which will be better for the round UFO shape for Strawberries. The forum strawberry talk has peeked my interest. The Procyon will fit the 3' x 1.5' rectangular growing area better. I plan on running strings lengthwise from left-to-right to try and control this vine using the renewal umbrella system below (only horizontally). I'll run the vine all the way to the other side, then keep trying to bring two laterals back the other way. Kind of like a clothesline between the light and grow machine.

Renewal Umbrella Method form Howard Resh's Hydroponic Website:

1. The main stem should be stopped at one leaf above the support wire. Pinch out the growing point at that level. Tie a small loop of string around the wire and below the top leaf so that the plant will not slide down the main string.
2. Do Not allow fruits to develop on main stem.
3. Remove all laterals in the leaf axils on the main stem, except 2 at the top
4. Train the top 2 laterals over the wire to hang down on either side of the main stem. Allow those to grow to two-thirds on the way down the main stem.
5. Remove all secondary laterals, except two at the top.
6. While the fruits on the first laterals are maturing, allow the second laterals to grow out and downward.
7. When the fruits on the first laterals have been harvested, remove them completely, allowing the second laterals to develop.
8. Repeating steps 5,6,and 7 will maintain fruit production.

Cucumber Grow or Die Marathon - Mar 16, 2008


Next attempt coming up- sprout is up today. It did come up with the cotolydons stuck in the seed shell. I used some tweezers to free it up. Hope I didn't hurt it to much.

Cucumber Grow or Die Marathon, Mar 30, 2008

It's growing, but I still have cupped and alligator looking leaves. Once again the yellowing of the leaf edges is there. Stem and root growth look okay though.

I've moved the plant a little closer to the Procyon Proto and also added an aditional blue bulb today to see if any differences happen.

Cucumber Grow or Die Marathon, May 8, 2008

It's been a whle since last update as I've been trying different things and barely keeping this cuke alive. Different nutrient mixes, lights, etc. Extra blue, red, orange bulbs didn't seem tomake a difference. For two weeks I had the LGM5 bars in there with no success. Last week I putback the Procyon Prototype and also the UFO. It's starting to do a little better. I do have some blossoms on the main stem and we'll see if they grow into fruits. I've been removing laterals, etc, except for the very top where I've left three and I topped the main vine tonight. This should make the laterals start taking off and I'll be into step 2 of the umbrella system keeping two laterals growing at all times.

I'm stil having the leaf cup and dry out problem. The two strong lights seem to be helping a little, we'll see. One thing I notice is only female blossoms are appearing which is a good sign I hope. Male flowers on parthenocarpic plants are not a good sign like the last attempt. I'll keep this one going and see what happens.

Cucumber Grow or Die Marathon, Conclusion July 16, 2008

I did get some 'fair' results and at least ended up with quite a few cucumbers. At peak, I was getting 3-4 cucumbers every couple of days. One day I had five for the most at one time. I'm assuming this was the most the plant could support at one time as picking them would start another few growing.

Using the Procyon Prototype and UFO together seemed to work. So, I had about 140-150 watts of light on the cucumber plant. The Procyon proto uses the XR Royals and Reds. It was the early proto that Ryan sent me and puts out about 84 watts (not quite as powerful as the final Procyon 100). The UFO was the 70/20 red/blue version.

As far as nutrients, it seemed the FloraNova Bloom seemed to work the best so far. The tank was DWC with airstones. Another thing I noticed for future reference is the plant seemed to do better with lower water levels. It didn't seem to grow as well when the water was up to the net cup. Much better with just half of the roots submerged.

There's still some work to do to get the cucumbers to grow better. The leaves still didn't look 100% right and seem to die off a little too fast. I seemed to get better results just leaving them grow wild and just cutting dead stuff off. Every once in a while I'd top a vine off to get more laterals growing. I ended up with a lot of long bare vines, but new laterals kept emerging keeping it going.

I still could be missing a spectrum or two or possibly don't have the nutrients right yet. One thing I know is that cucmbers are definitely different growing under LEDs than tomatoes and peppers. However, this is the second time I've got cucumbers to fruit under LEDs, so it is possible. I think a future cucumber grow test will be in the future. I'm also wondering if a flood-and-drain or possibly a drip system may be better than the DWC due to the observations with the root submersion I noticed. Another possibility might be to try a larger grow area and light like the TI Smartlamp or Smartbar in the future to see what the extra spectrums they have will do to the foliage.

The cucumber seeds were from Johnny's Seeds and were the Divas, which are an F1 breed for indoors. As far as taste, they were delicious and possibly the best cucumbers I've ever tasted. No need to skin these as the skin is very thin and tasty. If you want to try cukes, I recommend these. They are also parthenocarpic (self-pollinating), so no need to worry about manual pollinating between the male and female flowers.