Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

i would like to grow strawberries.... i also want to grow said strawberries via nft.... and use AP..... and i would also like to grow these strawberries inside with lights.


what kind of lights would work the best? led? fluorescent?
what level of nutrients do they like? ph?

i have searched byap and cant really find the information i am looking for..... while all educated answers are good.... real world results would be better

thanks in advance

ed

Strawberries are very difficult to grow long term in AP, mainly because at some stage we all need to salt the water (or kill all our fish if we dont), and strawberries are one of the first things to go bad with salty water.

Some of us manage to run for years without excessive salting however it is the exception not the rule.
I grow my strawbs in gravel.
Winter has knocked them around a bit
Never used indoor lighting.

I get good tasty strawbs from my plants.

If you make sure to have a separate quarantine system so that when you get new fish, you can salt and keep the separate, you might have better luck not needing to salt the main AP system heavily.

Because as noted above, strawberries don't much like salt.

Strawberries tend to like......
somewhat lower pH so very careful attention will likely need to be paid to keeping the pH from dropping too low for the fish/bacteria and you want to avoid bouncing the pH.

Strawberries will need potassium supplementation and possibly iron supplementation depending on your source water and bio-filter.

Important thing about strawberries is you need to keep their crowns from becoming over wet. Waterlogged crowns will kill strawberries faster than anything else.

As to lighting. You need the appropriate color temp lighting for the different stages of growth. If you go with florescent or LED lighting you will probably need to change color or lamps when you want the strawberries to start blooming/fruiting. Since most of us do outdoor growing, you might have better luck looking to a hydroponics forum to learn more about lighting.

Now to you mention of wanting to grow in NFT channels and using an AP system as your nutrient source.
Please do know that there are several things needed to make an AP system work.
1-Solids filtration
2-Bio-filtration
3-Water with fish in it being fed
4-plant growing space
5-enough aeration to keep everything healthy (they all, the bacteria, the plants, and the fish all need well aerated water)

Most of us use flood and drain gravel beds because they provide 4 of those 5 things all in one. If you don't want flood and drain gravel beds because you are planning on NFT channels, then you need to set up adequate solids filtration and bio-filtration before you send the water to your NFT channels and you will need to provide additional aeration to much of the system.

thanks for the info so far guys....

this is some info i have found out on the web so far as well...

Water quality is important.
Strawberries do not do well if sodium levels your water is too high. For best plant health and optimum crop yields you need a sodium level below 50 ppm. If your sodium level is over 50 ppm you not be able to use recirculating methods. You can adjust the presence of sodium some by adding soluble silica to the nutrient solution to improve plant vigor.

Nutrients should be controlled at good levels for the best fruit quality.
You’ll need to keep the nitrogen at a steady level for best plant growth and runner production to start new plants from. Potassium is what controls sweet flavor, firm fruit and give the berries a long shelf life. The pH range also needs to be kept at 5.5-5.8 for this crop and the EC at around 2.5. The cultivars you choose will also have a lot do with the flavor of your strawberries too.

Temperature is more crucial to strawberry production than day length.
That the strawberry plant relies more on the heat level than light to produce flowers is interesting. For optimum crop performance you want temperatures between 61-82º F. Below 61º your plants will stop producing foliage or begin to show signs of iron deficiency. Heat above 82º will cause wilting and cease producing flowers and fruit.

thanks for the heads up.... i was aware of this info... i assumed this info(points 1-5) was implied and assumed..... lol thanks again for your help.......

i guess strawberies do not like brawndo!!!! (a movie reference idiocracy)

here is a link to the brawndo reference:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y0O7_3o3BrI

it happens about 1:25 into clip

Just so that you know, Aquaponic production is a bit different than Hydroponics in that the bio-filter bacteria are likely to have difficulty at the pH range usually specified to be best in Hydroponic production (a pH below 6.5 or 6 is usually thought to be a little too low by many involved in Aquaponics.)

Also, EC readings are not really useful in Aquaponics since we are not getting most of out nutrients from mineral salts the way hydroponics does.

It might be worth it to you to read the basic info and useful info sections of the forum just to get a handle on the basics of aquaponics before worrying to much about the specifics of growing strawberries. Aquaponics is a balance and making anything specifically perfect for one part of the system is often to the detriment to some other function of the system. It is important to understand the overall function of the system in order to get it functioning in the first place before trying to fine tune it.

Ah, ok. Sorry for not realizing you already have a handle on the idea of Aquaponics. There have been a few people on lately simply trying to hook a pump from a tank and run it through NFT pipes and wondering why there are issues.
Disregard some of my previous comments then if you already got a handle on AP.

it AG baby (AG= all good) while i am a newbie... i have a grasp... but i am nowhere near your level of skill and the skill level of most of you guys.... fyi "elston" and i are friends