Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hi Steve,

I'd propose 200 litre drums cut in half (as you suggested) with a 25mm drain hole (or two or three) about 50mm from the base of the drum.

Fill with course coco-peat and plant your tree - preferably dwarf stock.
Add fish tank water until it weeps from the drain holes.

Every few days, add more water. Adjust the watering intervals so that the pot dries out a bit. The trick is to have the tree use each lot of water before it gets more........like a manually operated smart valve.

If you anticipate problems with strong winds, you might want to place some stones around the base of the tree once it gets a chance to develop some roots. This won't be necessary if you espalier the tree onto a fence or trellis.

That's it!

Gary

With a long term plant like a fruit tree, I'd be inclined to go for an inorganic media like gravel or hydroton. coc-peat will eventually break down and you don't want to have to try and repot a large fruit tree.

The hydro shop nead me has many trees in half blue barrels using hydroton and they are surprisingly heavy and stable..

If the coco peat breaks down, just add some more on the top, easy.

Murray

I don;t think it is so easy Murray. If all the media in and under the root system breaks down and you drop more coco-peat on top, the tree will end up slowly sinking down into the container, the trunk will then become water logged and surrounded by damp copo-peat. Not a good thing for trees..

The only problem I can see with that is as it breaks down, the whole tree will sort of sink, and then the level of the peat up the trunk will rise, and could cause rot. I know I have always been told to keep mulch away from the base of trunks, I am assuming the same rules would apply here.

Same post, same time....

I will have to plant an orange tree and see what happens, can't see it as a problem really. I think I will use a blue barrel and stand the tree in a mix of gravel and coco peat with mostly gravel in the bottom and mostly coco peat in the top. I imagine that when the coco peat is breaking down, then the tree will have a good root system by then and not be inclined to sink down.
I will set one up soon and see how it goes.
Murray

My lemon tree is starting to set new leaves the fruit have over doubled in size and one looks like turning yellow

questions. What's wrong with flood and drain for fruit trees? even if only to a low height? I guess as I ask this, I can see problems. My dream is a whole row of fruit trees, linked to an ornamental pond ... aren't dreams ... dreamable?! so if we trickle into the pots, flooding them to say half height, to minimise hte requirement of water, but keep the media pretty wet ... problems?

Another idea I've considered recently is using those self watering pots. we know they have the reservior at the bottom and that could cause some problems. But I've been thinking that in a trickle fed system, the overflow hole from the reservoir could become the outlet hole for the water to return to the tank, or sump, whatever. Or I guess, the hole could even serve as the outlet for an autosyphon. BUT would the reservior be a problem? the large ones at Woolies currently have a holding depth of about 1.5cm.

I have seen for hydroponics, kits of linked pots, similar to the concept I mentioned above. sorry no link to offer just now. I think they work on a pot in pot system, thus offering the possibility of twisting the pot to break roots tempted to grow into the piping.

Another thought. Unlike most veges, fruit trees are ... trees. Their roots grow lots and expand lots. It seems to me that there is a potential for the gravel to cause problems for the roots growth, in that there will be a lot of weight and many sharp edges. Maybe clay or rounder pebbles will avoid this? Maybe the big strong roots are big and strong enough to stand up for themselves?

Yes, I've thought about this once or twice!

Lenny

Lenny, I've got our fruit trees in flood and drain with river gravel (nice rounded stones). They seem to be doing fine. They are flooding to within 3cm of the top of the gravel. I've got 3 different citrus in and they are all getting new leaves at the moment. All seems good to me

I rckon the main problem with using F&D will be loss of water through transpiration. Although fruit trees have a tough shiny leaf and would probably not transpire as much as vegie type plants, I'm not sure this will be the case in an AP environment where water is in constant supply. Big plants mean potential for greater water loss (but only experimentation will find out for sure).

What I can say is that I have been using quite a lot of water in my system and I put most of this down to transpiraton as the tanks are coverred and the bed now only floods to an inch or so below surface. I think the main culprit is my Paw Paw which is about 1.6 meters tall at present - getting bigger all the time.

we lose a fair bit of water too, but I think a lot of it is from the fish splashing it out during feeding frenzies they can get you about 3m away

It's more of a problem when you are on level 5 water restrictions like me.

BTW - level 5 is very very tough, but allows filling of fish ponds by bucket and time of week.

i feel for ya VB it sounds horrid

wish we could send you a relief cloud from perth but they are buggerst to catch

Why would F&D cause more of a transpiration loss than other methods



Very true but also big (potential) production.