Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hi everyone, I'm new here and want to hurry up and apologize for every stupid question and/or assumption I have. I am just getting into growing plants, not only aquaponics and might be wrong a lot.

Having said that, I have a specific question I hope you would have some experience and/or knowledge about:

I've searched the Internet for answers but cannot seem to find anything about maincrop potatoes being grown in a soil-less environment. Do any of you have any experience or knowledge on the subject?

My idea is to grow potatoes in 3 stages in aeroponic/aquaponic systems (depending on viability):

Incubator for small plants ready to become cuttings
Suspended aeroponic system for maximum yield of seed potatoes
Suspended aeroponic system for growing the seed potatoes to mature potatoes.
Has anyone tried growing maincrop or mature potatoes in aeroponics system? Or in aquaponic?

I was thinking of a plastic net, much like the ones potatoes are sold in bulk, attached to the tank on several heights where you would place your cuttings, with side holes for the plant stem and leafs to grow upwards. The plastic net (if correctly chosen) should provide structure without covering the tubers too much, leaving them no air. Having no other media to take up the space for growth and having top to bottom watering with nutrients might work?

Here are some drawings of the concept: http://imgur.com/a/QfSzw

As you can see in drawing 1, I'm thinking of securing two levels of plastic net with space in between them a bit more than the diameter of a fully grown potato. Those are inside of a barrel or a tube.

The tube has holes on its south facing side where the potato cuttings would grow out and feed on sunlight as described in drawing 2.

Then in drawings 3, 4 and 5 are three separate methods of watering with nutrients
drawing 3: with a mist making machine
drawing 4: with sprinkler type system
drawing 5: with top shaworing system

As for the plastic net, I am thinking of something like this: https://sc01.alicdn.com/kf/HTB1kKALGVXXXXc4XFXXq6xXFXXXO/221237254/HTB1kKALGVXXXXc4XFXXq6xXFXXXO.jpg
Also, as the plants grow, they could potentially be pulled back inside the barrel (in the plastic net area where the potato growth would happen). If the leafy part requires some structure to climb on, I can build a wall from another type of plastic net: http://sure-green.com//media/product_pages/thumb388.jpg That should provide them the area to grow and wrap around, if my logic is correct

Please share your thoughts!

Welcome to the forum

I think what you really mean is can they be grown without media, be interesting to find out. Someone may have done this already, I'm not sure. As far as growing them without soil - many seed potatoes are started this way -

https://www.agriculture.gov.ie/media/migration/animalhealthwelfare/labservice/seedtesting/Producing%20Healthy%20Seed.pdf

I kind of wondered about that myself. I had thoughts about growing potatoes in styrene balls with a fabric over them then I obtained a system with clay balls and since messing with them I can't see why they couldn't be grown in them.

Pete.

The closest I've found so far is this instructables post: https://www.instructables.com/id/Hydrop ... /?ALLSTEPS

You can see in the very end the instruction for the potatoes. The farmer there uses gravel or clay balls to cover the tubers when growing. That's one way to do it, however I would prefer if I can isolate the tubers from the foliage with LDPE or elastomer foam (FDA approved and already in use for table aeroponics) to block the light.

I was thinking of using a 20 lt white plastic pale/bucket (a bigger diameter one of about 450 mm would be better) connected to the AP system water via a dispersion ring and drain directly back to the sump (Not flood and drain).

Plant the seed potato in the middle of 200 mm depth of clay balls then fill with more balls as the plant grows.
Hopefully it'll grow to full size, lift up the dispersion ring, remove the bucket and pour contents onto a plastic sheet - sounds too easy what am I missing?

I guess it would be regarded as aeroponics in clay balls.

Pete.

IIRC it has been done. I thought it was linked to from somewhere on this forum.

From memory, it was a table with black poly sides,and mesh pots in the top. the tubers grew underneath. I do not recall if/what support was provided for the tubers.

If it works in regular aeroponics it will probably work here using AP with the right filtration. Here are some pictures from Google -

https://www.google.com/search?q=aeroponic+potatoes&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjHipj19r_SAhVD22MKHV54DM4QsAQIKg&biw=1120&bih=558&dpr=1.71

Looks like they don't grow really big ones this way, probably a weight problem not that they couldn't do it.

I found this while looking at Scotty's link. http://www.instructables.com/id/Hydropo ... -potatoes/

Pete.