Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hi all,

I have been meaning to get a post out earlier, but better late than never. Also, my apologies in advance for the grammer/spelling errors. I have been so thankful for all of the posts and I am contributing where I can!

In the past year I purchased a house with several avocado trees. (~150). Needless to say, our water bill is rather large.

After a highly successful experiment with my first aquaponics system on a Tomato/Cucumber, etc bed, I thought I would try my hand at a commercial grade Avocado tree from Brokaw farms. My first tree was a Hass on Dusa rootstock.

I used about 1/3 of a 55 gal drum with a 3/4" bulkhead / standpipe with a 2" bell siphon, and 4" gravel guard. In one of the pictures you see that I had to add a T to the return line because the it was the only way to clearly break the siphon. For media I am using pea gravel with some hydroton.

It takes about 8 minutes to fill and 1 minute 30 seconds to drain. This gives me ~6 full cycles/hour.

I planted the tree about 3 weeks ago. The leaves that were on the tree went into shock and and slowly started to dry out. We had a pretty good wind storm that lasted 3 days and as you can see in the pictures, there isn't much foliage left on the tree. I have a feeling that the original leaves couldn't take the trauma from removal of the soil and damage to the roots.

One of the images shows new leaves growing, and if you look real close, you can see some of the young buds on the branches, so I have hope

I live on a south facing slope so the tree is getting about 10 hours of full sun/day.

One thing that is interesting is that bees are hanging out in the rocks drinking water. What a great way to keep bees around!

I just ordered ~2000 red worms to add to the mix to help keep the roots from getting out of control.

I will try to post monthly. Any recommendations or comments would be greatly appreciated and I will try to get back to you as often as I can.

Thanks!

One more picture - This is the T for the vent

Hi All,

I have a couple of updates.

First of all, thank you to all who have provided feedback. As a result, you can probably see that I have painted the trees white to avoid sun burn.

2 months later, here is a picture of the leaf growth on the Dusa. Its it looking pretty healthy!

I also got a lot of feedback on how Dusa and an abundance of water don't mix. Maybe it is the anaerobic environment that they don't like?

Also, I was told that breaking up the rootball was the worst thing one could do to a tree.. While I don't disagree, it seems the avocado tree is hearty enough to withstand the trauma.



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About 2 weeks ago, I added about 2000 worms to the gravel bed. My 3 year old loved it!



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After a few setbacks with getting the bulkhead fitting sealed properly and the bell siphon working, yesterday I finally got the Toro Canyon planted. It was looking terrible and I wasn't sure if it would leaf again.

After 24 hours, the growth has been amazing!



Have a great Thanksgiving all!!

-Jeff

Hey Jeff, any updates on the avocados? I love what you did and am curious to see if everything worked out well. Thanks!

Hi Josh, Unfortunately neither of them made it. One of them started to get to the next leaf flush, but the first wind that came blew all of the leaves off. The leaves were very soft and weak.

I spoke with a guy (Alex) down in San Diego with an outfit called Ag Pals, and he said that it is possible to grow an avocado tree aquaponically, but not in a bell siphon system. It would need to be set up on a timer with better aeration in the substrate since Avocados do not like to have wet feet.

I would be happy to discuss further if you want to somehow connect over email or phone.

Stay cool!
Jeff

I am thinking of growing a willow in a 220 liter blue barrel. They do like water and was curious if you have any ideas. Do you think I should set it up flood and drain with a siphon? That's how it is flourishing in a horizontal half barrel.

If you want to try again with an avocado - try treating the half barrel as a big dutch bucket. I'm doing this with a cherry tree and it's going well so far. I make sure that the water is distributed evenly around the top of the barrel - and it just trickles down the roots/rocks. About 4 inches from the bottom of the barrel I drilled a hole, and put through a 1/2" pvc pipe. That pipe has 90's on both ends, and a downspout on the outside part. When the water gets 5 inches high, a mini-syphon starts, ending up leaving about 3 inches in the bottom of the barrel.

I guess you could just cut your standpipe down and achieve the same effect. The idea is to keep most of the barrel moist, but never under water. If the tree wants, it will put water roots down into the bottom couple inches to drink heavily from.

Does that make sense? I'll add some pictures in another post.

Would a wicking bed work for fruit trees?

My system is just now being built, and I will want to also grow some citrus and avocado.

Avos are fussy bastards.
Root rot is their biggest killer
They can go just fine for years and then their root hits some under ground water and its good night.

They love heaps of water but they also like really good drainage,I don't think a wicking pot suits them.

Ive killed many and tried to resurrect a few others that friends killed.
It seems to always be either over watering or under watering and then root rot when you try to adjust.