Growing Medium

[grimleybob]

Does anyone know of a supplier of clay-ball growing medium in Thailand?

[WatersEdge]

Hi grimleybob,

Learn at least one new thing every day...

Today's my day top of the morning

I'd never heard of such so turned to Google.

Found the explanation here with photo

http://hydroponics-gardening-information.com/Mediums.html

They are made in the same way as pottery, fired in a kiln.

So if they are not available, it's not hard to make as much as you like.

The Burma laborers make slingshot ammunition by rolling fine clay into balls and dry in the sun.

So they come pre-qualified for the job

Further bake those in the fire, and there you have it.

I'm looking for ways to productively use the volatile off gas from corn cob charcoal,

so a pottery kiln could consume a small portion of the grand excess

A method that I learned in the process of testing two different clays against each other,

for possible calcium carbonate content

is dosing clay slurry with Sulfuric Acid.

The result was water impervious after sun drying,

making interesting possibilities for plaster, unfired brick and packed earth walls.

It may be a no kiln variation on clay balls as well.

I'm not in hydroponics,

so will wait to hear the call of those who are,

but in a country filled with Coconut husk,

it would seem unnecessary to make clay balls.

I have approaching 30 tons of Coco fiber from 7 months of hauling it away for free

from two city wholesalers who consider it a disposal problem

I'm not even in a major coconut growing area

Imagine what's available in the South of Thailand

I've read that India produces 7.8 million tons of Coir per year,

with only around 30% going to use.

Expand that estimate across South Asia and tropical Africa,

and you have Coir for all.

[rice555]

Hello grimleybob, it's been a few years since I was looking for 'hydrotron', the only place then was through

Dutch Greenery in CM, the Take Me Home brand of hydro toms that are sold in The Mall's "Hyper Mart".

All the contact #'s are in some of the TV hydro threads.

The only other thing I can suggest is call the other places listed(BKK) in the hydro threads and ask.

Hydrotron is $$ fot growing green vegies, the cheapest to use is the foam cubes and special net pot that

you can easy in BKK.(or have shipped)

If you do find some, please post the info, I still have 10 net pots that fit on 5gal buckets that some day I

would like to set up.

Hello WatersEdge, this is what my coir looks like, it's now in it's 3rd grow season. Not something you want

in a system with flowing liquids.

rice555

[grimleybob]

Hello grimleybob, it's been a few years since I was looking for 'hydrotron', the only place then was through

Dutch Greenery in CM, the Take Me Home brand of hydro toms that are sold in The Mall's "Hyper Mart".

All the contact #'s are in some of the TV hydro threads.

The only other thing I can suggest is call the other places listed(BKK) in the hydro threads and ask.

Hydrotron is $$ fot growing green vegies, the cheapest to use is the foam cubes and special net pot that

you can easy in BKK.(or have shipped)

If you do find some, please post the info, I still have 10 net pots that fit on 5gal buckets that some day I

would like to set up.

Hello WatersEdge, this is what my coir looks like, it's now in it's 3rd grow season. Not something you want

in a system with flowing liquids.

rice555

The main advantage of hydrotron is that it can be sterelised between growths and used for years.

W.E's homemade solution might work if all else fails

Bob

[rice555]

Good luck to you.

rice555

[WatersEdge]

Hi grimleybob,

Silica fuses (Glass melts) at 1,100C

That's what holds clay together as pottery.

Clay is a mixture of Silica SiO2 and Alumina Al2O3

in a varied blend with other things as well.

There is another material here that may be interesting as a growth medium,

while available in the thousands of tons.

A white porous Silica layer in the area of my farm.

I thought it was Diatomaceous Earth, because all the features agree on paper

but a friend who knew DE said it wasn't abrasive enough.

I tested it with acid to determine that it is not limestone related,

not one bubble.

It is easily broken out of the seam with a heavy hoe,

absorbs water to become a damp paste after hammer milling to dust

but never allows water to remain on the surface.

Even though it has fine particles it remains completely porous.

Combining the two concepts, I think it would be fascinating to kiln fire in balls,

because the material wants to hold water, and yet the surface would lightly fuse to hold form.

I think the tricky part would be to not fuse it too far,

completely into glass marbles.

Yet another fun project on the boards.

Hi rice555,

Your coco medium in the photo appears to be the dust that is thrashed out of the husk,

so that the fiber can be used elsewhere.

The stuff that I have in abundance is the unprocessed fiber and dust together

in crude form just as it comes off the shell, but without the outer smooth cover.

My next plan for it is to dig a water level trench 0.40 m deep,

packing it 0.30 with coco husk,

then throwing a layer of soil around 0.10 m thick over.

In this way any water that passes through the surface soil

will be captured in the coco, readily available for the plant still.

It then amounts to a retention trench, without costing lost field space.

[edgarfriendly]

Very interesting!

hows it working out?

my coco dust supplier of 8 years seems to have been washed away in the recent flood...