Hi all, I've been documenting this on one of the Plinia groups on facebook but decided to start to post to its own thread here as well. I was inspired to do this as one of my friend's had attempted this with a bit more neglect which eventually led to his plant dying, as well as seeing @skhan attempt (
https://tropicalfruitforum.com/index.php?topic=25450.msg401842) this as well.
About a year ago I decided to take two red hybrid jaboticaba seedlings ~3 months old from seed and throw them into my aerogarden, in short, one seedling (the one that was originally smaller) showed new roots in 3 weeks while the other basically froze with no new root growth for months on end until I finally decided to throw it out.
The result of that is what you see here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1qmmzLQBuHIAdditionally, to provide some more details/data, I've compiled an image album showing some update pictures from
beginning to nearly current day:
https://imgur.com/a/CiQ37HFFew things to add on:
- growth speeds could've been quicker, at first I was extremely conservative and tapering up light and nutrients, I also have given the plant a few haircuts, some quite large..
- dwc from the beginning would've likely been superior to aerogarden, the transition from the aerogarden to dwc showed some shock
- I did deal with burnt tips at first while experimenting with different nutrient blends
- I did deal with algae build-up in the first few months using DWC due to higher reservoir temps, etc this has mainly been mitigated by using Hydroguard
- future plans are undecided, could be solar powered outdoor DWC or a transition to soil, I would like to fruit it in DWC but based on the initial 'runty' genetics I suspect it might take awhile, maybe I'll graft fruiting scions to it..
- plant would be more robust if there was some humidity control/airflow in my tent, I need to run a fan to at-least strengthen some branches..
Nutrients I've tried/used:
* AeroGarden Liquid Nutrients - (4-3-6)
not bad but price..* General Hydroponics MaxiGro - (10-5-14)
too much calcium for me* FoxFarm Grow Big (Hydroponic version) - (3-2-6)
bad idea for DWC, aerating organic nutes turns into compost tea and makes the roots look very sketchy* Dyna-Gro Grow - (7-9-5)
currently using this @ 5mL/galSupplemental nutrients: Botanicare Hydroguard @ 1-3mL/gal
Setup- 5 gallon food-grade safe black bucket from home depot
- two airstones
- small pump + tubing
- SF1000 (2020 edition) @ 16/8 light schedule
Because I rarely top-off or add extra nutrients, every 1-3 months I will do a water change where I completely dump the reservoir and add fresh water + nutrients + supplemental nutrients. Sometimes the plant goes into a light shock lasting 1 week where the foliage will appear a bit thin and droopy but bounces back.
Shout-out to Simon for convincing me to lower my PPM/nutrients, funny, when I started this project I was extremely conservative, then I went off the rails and stunted the plant..
Feel free to ask any questions, I know this may seem tedious but its been an enjoyable experience so far and I hope some of my zone pushing friends will attempt similar experiments - ideally with an even faster fruiting variety such as Scarlet.
