Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

A thought about measuring produce. Why not harvesst all beds at once and weigh the produce then replant with the next crops. This would give a point in time estimate of the produce, a good comparison of the growth under the different watering regimes and keep the systems in sync for the next set of crops.

What is the heaviest producing item? And are there any things in there that would require waiting any longer than the Chili's and Caps?

I'd say once they are harvested, then clear and re-plant.

Or get seeds started for re-planting and once the seedlings are ready for planting out, do the clear and re-plant then.

Wouldn't harvesting and replanting each bed as needed give a better indication of how each system performs against each other throughout a growing season, vege wise that is

but hard to compare if they were not planted with the same things at the same time really.

I'm with you on that one TCLynx. Though it might be good to just clear the beds partially (leaving the longer producing stuff like peppers), a better test would be to clear the beds entirely. We already get the idea of what is doing the best from start up (as in, from a new system). Would be be good to see how the systems fair now that they are all equally cycled and have some nutes built up in the system (semi matured system). You never know, we could find different results.

I think clear the beds completely and re-plant the same crops.

I disagree with that. This test is about how BYAP's clients would run their systems, and they wouldn't clear out longer term plants. I vote for using the system as a person buying one.

Not as scientific I know, but more of a 'real world' trial.

Cheers
Wazza

Might make it hard to compare plant growth in systems from now on if that happens?

Can't strip the whole beds... AP 101, have to leave some plants in there for nutrient removal.. I'll see how things look next week and make a decision then.

[quote
Might make it hard to compare plant growth in systems from now on if that happens?[/quote]

But if you were to harvest like plants at the same time, ie remove all silverbeat from all systems at the same time, replace with the same type of plant in each at the same time, and just add the tally of the produces for each system, then at the end of the year you would have an amount each system has produced.

Yea, that would probably be the way to do it. Strip all of one or two items and re-plant those sections of all beds with matching stuff (matching from bed to bed not from previous planting.) Then when some of the longer term stuff is getting done you re-peat the procedure.

Well I was going to post up the results for this week, but after trying multiple computers and rebooting, it seems that for some reason I can;t post pictures from work at the moment...

I'll take them home and try tonight.

Aint technology great

Think I might be back in business, reboot of the modem seems to have solved things I hope....

Heres growth picture, will post the data in a few minutes..

And the figures..