Culling Lettuce

[Tabasco]

I'm growing lettuce for the first time.
Do you bring it down to a single sprout for a head?
Here they are today...

[Lindsaylew82]

I'd wait until they are bigger. That way you can harvest the baby lettuces when you cull. Are they gonna be transplanted?

[Tabasco]

I'd wait until they are bigger. That way you can harvest the baby lettuces when you cull. Are they gonna be transplanted?

At that point do you bring it down to a single sprout?

Not transplant, the net cup goes into a deep water culture...

https://www.ctahr.hawaii.edu/hawaii/down ... ettuce.pdf

One of the coolest things I've ever seen!

[Lindsaylew82]

Yes, I would cull them down to one plant. But seriously, wait until you can get some type of baby lettuce harvest.

[imafan26]

When you cull, snip off the other seedlings so as not to disturb what remains. Even if you left two seedlings in a pot in the hydro tank, you will still get two good sized heads, it just won't be pretty.

[Tabasco]

Thanks people, lettuce is weird, you see all this stuff coming out of one place, a single sprout just doesn't seem right!

[Lindsaylew82]

Haha! Not at first!

I LOVE seeing rows of 2-3" tall lettuces before thinning! So full and lush! I prefer baby lettuces, so they get thinned out really quickly at that point.

[Rairdog]

What media are you using Tabasco. Rockwool? One seeds per cell and no culling here.

[Tabasco]

What media are you using Tabasco. Rockwool? One seeds per cell and no culling here.

Good point!
I'm new to gardening and even newer to hydro.

[Tabasco]

Haha! Not at first!

I LOVE seeing rows of 2-3" tall lettuces before thinning! So full and lush! I prefer baby lettuces, so they get thinned out really quickly at that point.

As impatient as I am, that's what I'll do with these since I already way over-seeded the rock wools.
It'll give me something to graze on early in.
Lettuce seeds require reading glasses for me

[Lindsaylew82]

I'm just too impatient to sit and pick out one seed at a time. I'd have to use tweezers!

[Rairdog]

In the garden I will cull. For the AP my girls with good eyes put one seed per cell. It makes it easier to rinse the roots off before going into the media when they're not all tangled up. I also use the peat pellets with one seed each and place the whole pellet in the media for spinach and lettuce. It will rot the stems of tomatoes, peppers and other plants. Rockwool is too expensive for me. There are some foam type disks that has a slit in it. I'm not affliated but it is a cheaper greener sustitute. Great for cloning also. Here is a link but they are easy to make.
https://www.bigelowbrook.com/Products/Gr ... fault.aspx

[Tabasco]

In the garden I will cull. For the AP my girls with good eyes put one seed per cell. It makes it easier to rinse the roots off before going into the media when they're not all tangled up. I also use the peat pellets with one seed each and place the whole pellet in the media for spinach and lettuce. It will rot the stems of tomatoes, peppers and other plants. Rockwool is too expensive for me. There are some foam type disks that has a slit in it. I'm not affliated but it is a cheaper greener sustitute. Great for cloning also. Here is a link but they are easy to make.
https://www.bigelowbrook.com/Products/Gr ... fault.aspx

I went to the only online store I could find and the disks aren't for sale yet, so I don't know if they are cost effective.
I will say that their roots are ok looking, and that's being generous.
Also, their own picture shows some nasty algae on the bottom of the plug, not thrilled with that when it comes to re-use.

Rockwool cubes are about 18 cents each. That, nutrient and any electric bring a head of lettuce to about $1.
I can certainly live with that.

It's rock, and the amount left after say a year of what I grow wouldn't fill a small trash bag.
It could easily be pulverized and mixed into soil. I would hesitate to do that with that pool float material.

[imafan26]

You can use oasis plugs. you don't need a lot of media. The media is mostly for stabilizing. we used the oasis plugs in a seeding flat that has flow by water to keep it moist. After that the plugs are dropped in a 3 inch net pot on a floating raft system. When it is time to harvest, the roots have filled the net pot and are dangling in the water.
The only thing you have to be careful about is to make sure the plug has a level bottom when it is taken out or it is nearly impossible to keep it upright in the pot. Plugs can be planted in other media too, like hydroton, cinder, or even in a regular garden bed.

https://www.oasiseasyhydro.com/oasis-eas ... roduct.asp

[Tabasco]

You can use oasis plugs.

https://www.oasiseasyhydro.com/oasis-eas ... roduct.asp

Those look interesting, a lot like rock wool, but cheaper if you don't mind buying in bulk.
I can't find them in less than 20 sheet lots!

Still, it brings the cost down by about $5 per sheet.

[Tabasco]

Well they're in...

[rainbowgardener]

So you have this big beautiful system with all that equipment, feet of lighting for four little lettuce plants? Doesn't seem very cost effective.

[Tabasco]

So you have this big beautiful system with all that equipment, feet of lighting for four little lettuce plants? Doesn't seem very cost effective.

Thanks, it is beautiful to me.

I do hope they are four BIG lettuce plants!

[Lindsaylew82]

So, I don't know much about hydro. If 4 plants all that the system can manage?

[Tabasco]

I haven't done the math down to the level needed to answer that question.
I only know that each of my plants are occupying about the same volume as other examples of this technique.

I'm just a tinkerer experimenting with this technique.
I did what I did according to my own unique designs.
I had no square foot agenda, but if anyone does, here is the tech data...

https://www.ctahr.hawaii.edu/hawaii/down ... ettuce.pdf

I sort of followed that and other examples that I studied on youtube.
I'm pretty stoked, they are growing fast!