Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Does anyone have a list of daylength neutral veggies?

That is ones that don't flower and friut (for things lit tomato's and capsicums) according to day length.

I'll be setting up my greenhouse for my aquaponics system soon so temperature won't be important, but i know that plants "go" by the daylength not the temperature.

Thanks

Steve

Hi Steve
Im not a expert on the subject but I wiil yell you what I know.All Fruiting plants do so by season or day length as you put it. Temperature has a lot to do with it were I live as its gets below 0. I know that all plants like a certain range of SOIL temperature to germinate and have a temp range preferance for optimum growth. Daylenth as I understand it is = to the total number of sunligth hours over a period of time,ie, winter and summer solstice. Therefore the way I see it any plant that you grow for leaf consumption,eg,spinach (you can get a perenial variety), lettuces,any herb (some dont like wet feet) kale,rocket,parsley, basil.silverbeet,cabbages?, other brassicas(brochilli cauli)?. Sounds like all the boreing veges.
Hope this helps a little Regards Marc

My understanding is plants don't flower/fruit based on day length so much as change in day length. That is in a un-natural light light system if you ramp down the light time per day, they will think it's Autumn, if you ramp up they think it's Spring. This is based on knowing people who have grown "flowering" plants hydroponically in hidden spaces rather than any scientific knowledge.

From the web:

"Plants can be classified into three categories, depending upon their flowering response to the duration of darkness. These are short-day, long-day, or day-neutral plants. Short-day, (long nights) plants form their flowers only when the day length is less than about 12 hours in duration. Short-day plants include many spring and fall flowering plants such as chrysanthemum and poinsettia. Long-day, (short nights) plants form flowers only when day lengths exceed 12 hours. They include almost all of the summer-flowering plants, as well as many vegetables including beet, radish, lettuce, spinach, and potato. Day-neutral plants form flowers regardless of day length. Some plants do not really fit into any category but may be responsive to combinations of day lengths."

I looked around & almost all the specifically day-neutral things were onion varieties.

Sue

Thanks sue.

Not what i wanted to hear though

Was really keen in growing tomatos in my soo to be built green house over winter. but even now down here we're getting just under 12 hours daylight.


Am wondering if a green house will be worth the trouble?

Steve

Steve ,I've been thinking about a hot house for a while, tried a couple of experiments with polypipe and plastic sheet .The best Ive been able to do is extend my tomato harvest by 1-nearly 2months when the frosts hit hard its goodbye tomatoes. I can also get them out in the garden 1 month earlier but the fruit is not much quicker than normal. Combined with the thermal mass of an aquoponics system and maybe even heating the water a little I think I could extend the harvest 2 months in a hothouse. This is an idea I've been toying with for a while to try and create a mini climate where I can grow some other fruit and veges (perenial varieties)around the structure that would normally be killed by our severe frosts. The only way I believe that us colder climaters could extend the growing season further is with uv lights but thats to expensive.
Cheers Marc

Me Marc,

If you're looking for the best type of heat retention then look into "double skinned" green houses. I was going to get a poly tunnel with two linings ( a friend that owns a nursery uses them. the innner film has a hole cut out and a fan inserted that pressurises the space and makes the upper lining ballon out abit, creating a very effective insulation space. He showed me a 15M poly tunnel and the fan just looked like a 3x oversized computer power supply fan! Its not really pumping air so much as maintaining a positive pressure.

As for the grow lights. I know what you mean about getting expensive but when you think about it you only need to run them about 3 hours per day to extend the "day length" to 13 hours. and you dont need UV. High pressure sodium lamps (those really orange ones) have been shown to be fine for flowering and fruiting stages of plants. 1KW of HPS is Pretty damn bright. lets see, 3 hours by 1KW gives you 3KW/H times by 17 cents per KW/H (last time i checked, may be more) gives you 51 cents per day.

I guess it really depends how much we want our of season tomatoes

Thats all i need, the locals jumping my fence and trashing my greenhouse because they think i'm growing hydro dope under lights ouside! (there's some pretty slow people in my suburb )

Joel,

what do you currently have growing in your beds at the moment?

Has anyone else got a system up and running?

what have people planted for the atumn / winter?

Steve

Hey Steve,

I've got a fair variety at the moment, some beds are still filled with summer stuff getting to the end of their time while others have just been planted up...

Some of the new stuff that I'm expecting to grow over autumn/winter in the beds are chives, broccoli, brussel sprouts, cabbage, silverbeet, peas, parsley, celery, and a few others I can't remember at the moment.. I still have a number of warmer veg in the beds as well like basil and tomatoes that are doing quite well still, even though the days are getting a fair bit shorter, and it's a fair bit cooler.

Joel

mmmm... Day neutral strawberries

http://gardening.about.com/od/fruitsber ... ries_3.htm

I think some experiments were done 15 years ago or so with flashes of light in the middle of the dark period to sort of trick the plants into thinking that it was long day period. I think it worked, but cannot remember the details.

(I wonder of plants are really good at thinking? .. Plato eat your heart out we may have some philosophical peas or petunias hiding around here somewhere!)

Steve,
Watercool the 1kw hps and use it to heat the fishtank

Johhnie, strange that you mention that, i read a document once that stated that one strong brief flash of light could deplete the chemical produced during the "night" period........can remember the names...........

Hex,