It’s nice to see you explaining the system in detail. What I like to see is a basic price list of parts, & where you bought them. Have a Great day. Joe
not sure prices would be revalent now we bought these years ago and they came from all over the place. We price shop ag stores, irrigation supplies and the internet for the best price.
Hi Doug, just letting you know you will use less acid if you add it to your stock water before adding the nutrients. The nutrients buffer the water, thereby requiring you to add more acid to end up with the same pH. So the order of your dosatrons should be fresh water, acid, CaNi then your trace elements with potassium etc. Calcium is what falls out of solution the easiest, so always best to add it before your potassium. Many people get the order wrong, but they can't be blamed when even Masterblend can't get it right in their own instructions. I hope this helps.
Thank you, Derek. I did not know that, and you are right no one ever mentioned and everything I can find on the setup always shows PH last. I am going to do that today
@@HomegrownPassion All good Doug. The other advantage of NOT adding the acid last is that the concentrated acid will immediately precipitate some of the calcium out of solution right at the tip of the injection point. You can easily test this for yourself in a bucket by adding several drops of your dosatron acid solution to your fully mixed nutrients. You will see a whitish cloud form which is the calcium dropping out of solution. You can easily get better mixing by adding 2 metres of piping between each dosatron. You can generate a swirling action by increasing the diameter of the piping as it exits each dosatron. I hope this helps.
Great Video!! Very professional looking job you did. For those of us who don't possess your great strength any more, you can heat up the tubing/pipe with a heat gun or propane torch and it will go on the fittings much easier.
Randall that is a great idea. I have a heat gun we use to shrink the wrap for the English cucumbers, but I never thought about using it...thank you for the great suggestion!!
Thanks for all the great info. I was able to germinate spinach for the first time using your hydrogen peroxide/paper towel method. Amazing difference. The drag is that We now have 98 spinach plants growing and there are only two of us to eat them!!!
Peroxide!? I take it blonde spinaches have more taste / fun!! 👍 😁 … sounds about right .. can’t eat more than you have, but you can always give some away ! Just learn your needs and figure out a successive germinating plan 👌👍
We are planning on freezing spinach today... just a quick dunk in boiling water then ice bath... into zip lock freezer bags and plenty of spinach for omelets, smoothies, for the year
Awesome system! You should consider the trollmaster aqua x with a couple of wcs 2's and smaller 2 gallon coco/perlite coco bags. That way you can dial in drybacks and really steer the crops the way you want to.
@@HomegrownPassion pleasure. It massively improved my yields, I use to run drain to waste in coco with 3 gallon pots and would fertigate when the pots "felt" light untill there was 20 or 30% runoff. Since I changed over its a lot easier, the WCS 2 sensors show the EC in die substrate and the moisture so you end up using a lot less water and nutrients because you can dial in what you feed. It's amazing to see how the EC in the substrate rises as the moister level drops and how the EC reacts after an irrigation event in real time looking at graphs. Keep up the good work with the channel 👏
Everything is drained to waste. We monitor the discharge and try to get it to be no discharge but still enough solution to keep the plants hydrated and prosperous. At least that is the goal. It does change throughout the season as temperatures increase, more light, longer lighted days, and plant growth. So, we watch the leaves...make sure nothing gets droopy and then adjust. One thing to note is it is better to water more often with a little amount. It will prevent the plants from taking up excessive moisture all at once and then pushing that to the tomatoes quickly which will cause splitting.
I have been watching your channel for a while now. Love the videos. So helpful in planning my setup. I Would love to come visit your greenhouse. Do you guys give tours?
Great step by step video Doug. Clean , lean, and efficient design and install :) Thank you . Beautiful that most everything in the system you designed is reusable year after year. Just a thought . I figure your greenhouse has wifi? Perhaps address the topic of how are all systems monitored and or when murphy visits , what are tell tail "signs " and how to address each. Not a requirement but might make for some good short videos , for a series , of the seldom addressed topics for farm family's. I know some familys use day /week tasks on a white board. I really appreciate your familys team effort for letting simplicity drive time saving methods , to allow for more life away from the greenhouse , yep the fun stuff , life is not all about work , work , work. :) I see you have a fit bit or a whoop monitor? I am using a vivosmart 4.0 and an amazfit 5 .0 to monitor sleep , exercise , spo2 , etc. Whoop was 1 yr plus behind on any delivery's . We can't manage what we do not monitor . That looked like a 029 with a 16-18" bar, working through those trees ? Looking forward to the next video .
Thanks, WIlliam, yep greenhouse has Wi-Fi sounds like a great idea to do a vid on all the monitor systems we have...thank you! Yep, it's a Fitbit works great I guess... Katy is much more into the steps and sleeping data then I am but its good information. So that's an older Stihl 046 Mag with a 20" bar.
Hi Doug, the dosatron system looks great. Love watching this channel. Have you had any trouble or changed anything about your system since you put it in ? I am going to put one in my greenhouse this spring. What setting did you have your dosatron set to for nutrients and PH ( just so I have a starting point)? Thanks.
Hi Tadd. have not changed a thing. Setting are different every time we mix up the nutrients. Not sure why but we always change the settings. When you get closer to install reach out i will help you with diagrams and let you know what we use in nutrients.
Nice plumbing. Any concerns using large exposed lengths of 'black fertigation pipe' in the greenhouse, if it will increase internal temperature of nutrient solution too much as opposed to 'white' especially in mid-summer? Cheers!
Good point. We have been using the black pipe for years just on the top of the bato buckets and have not seen any problems, but we have never measured temp of nutrient water coming out of emitters. Will check it out. Thank you
Does the water come out of those netafim barbed stakes at the top or bottom of the stake? Also appears that setup does not take standard 1/4" tubing to feed.. That sound correct? I appreciate your time!
Great system Doug, I understood you to say in a earlier video that the floor / concrete is on a 4% grade, which would mean that the drain system is also on that same slope. With the timers coming on and releasing the nutrient solution for a short period of time, [I think I see settings for about 50 sec. every 20 min on the Century Timer in the video]. There must be a sump and recycling pump for the surplus drainage water and nutrient mix on the lower elevation of the green house. . . or is it such a minute amount that it is allowed to just run out on the ground somewhere at the end? Could you share information in detail here? Thanks in advance.
Hi Edwin, first don't look at the timer settings in the video. I just put them on to flush the water threw emitters to make sure I did not have any leaks. I'll get you setting in a few days after we get them dialed in. Everything is drained to waste. We are not recirculating the discharge. We monitor the discharge and try to get it to be no discharge but still enough solution to keep the plants hydrated and prosperous. At least that is the goal. It does change throughout the season as temperatures increase, more light, longer lighted days, and plant growth. So, we watch the leaves...make sure nothing gets droopy and then adjust. One thing to note is it is better to water more often with a little amount. It will prevent the plants from taking up excessive moisture all at once and then pushing that to the tomatoes quickly which will cause splitting. Hope that answers your question. Thanks for supporting us and great comment! Thank you!!
Doug, at about 2:45 in the video you point out you have a "mixing pot" after the Dosatrons. It appears to be a filter holder. Is there a filter inside or it it just the housing to provide a chamber for turbulence and further mixing of the outputs of the Dosatrons? Also if you have something inside, can you specify what it is. I'm about to set up a 2 tank (A&B solutions) injector setup and was wondering about the "mixing pot" as not all setups I've seen have that. Thanks....
Hi David, there is no filter inside. I saw this in a Dosatron setup at cultivate 2021 and figured it was just the housing of a filter so yes, I think it will give me a little mixing effect before the monitor probes. At least that is what I am hoping for.
Great video. Nice setup. I have 14 bato in 4x8ft grow tent in my spare room (2 parallel pvc drain pipes making 4 rows. Bato spaced only 12” OC not your 16”). Same bato, 0.5gal emitters and stakes with tomatoes. I was told 2 minutes every hour during the day. Is that correct or at least ballpark? 60-80 seconds into the 2 minutes, I hear water drain out of the buckets and of course continues to drain until end of 2 mins. I’m guessing that’s long enough but I don’t know. Once an hour? 2min ON and 58 min OFF? Thank you.
Grow tent? Topping with grid or auto flower? 🤣😝 .. grow tent is on the list for winter time tomato .. right now gotta decide what system to set up for summer maters in small greenhouse 😊 ✌️
We try and look at the discharge of water at drain to determine the amount of time on and how long. The goal is to get it dialed in, so you have no discharge, but plants still have enough solution to grow and prosper. No waste is the goal. It does change as the weather gets warm and when the plants get bigger and demand more nutrients. We watch leaves etc....but want to water more often with less solution to try and keep the plants hydrated. If you let them dry and then water heavy, you will get split tomatoes etc... fine balance if that makes sense
I’m researching doing this for my set up. My blue lab guardian has different probes. How do I get these short probes? Also how do you figure up you mixing ratio in the stock tanks vs the ratio of the dosing valves while keeping the an and b valve ratio correct?
The short probes are called in-line probes and are screwed into the system to make a watertight system. The ratio is hard to figure out and depends on so many things. we use bulk nutrients, so we have a recipe that we scaled down to take advantage of the smaller nutrient barrels. We worked with a horticulturist to figure it out, but I think there might be some tables on the internet you could use.
@@HomegrownPassion I really appreciate you responding. I use the bulk nutrients from cropking. And I mix part a and b about equal but i'm wondering how would know each dosatron is dosing equal amounts?
So, in this case I don't have a bypass but in the high tunnel I do so check out the videos with the strawberry high tunnel and it should give you an idea. if not write me a gain and I'll send you a drawing.
No I don't think so. there are check valves on each discharge end of the Dosatron that I think handle that.... but so far not needed as far as i can tell
how do you decide when to use jubilee clips, and when to use those clamp/squeeze clips? is the latter for permanent installation, and the former for temporary?
@@HomegrownPassion Jubilee clips are the ones that you're using for the junctions around 5:23. Here in the UK we call them jubilee clips, technical name I believe is "worm-drive hose clamps", or band clamps.
@@HomegrownPassion oh man! Try to be brief, already have necessary stuff for the bucket system I was going with, but for reasons that don’t need exploring at this juncture it didn’t get implemented last spring 🤷♂️😳… but now know 2 plants in one bato will work 👍 but can’t quite justify not using the food safe buckets & net pot lids etc if at least not seeing if it works before investing $$ in bato system .. hahaha I know I’m screwy 😆 🤷♂️ eventually I’ll pick a direction, I hope 😂
It’s nice to see you explaining the system in detail. What I like to see is a basic price list of parts, & where you bought them. Have a Great day. Joe
not sure prices would be revalent now we bought these years ago and they came from all over the place. We price shop ag stores, irrigation supplies and the internet for the best price.
Hi Doug, just letting you know you will use less acid if you add it to your stock water before adding the nutrients. The nutrients buffer the water, thereby requiring you to add more acid to end up with the same pH. So the order of your dosatrons should be fresh water, acid, CaNi then your trace elements with potassium etc. Calcium is what falls out of solution the easiest, so always best to add it before your potassium. Many people get the order wrong, but they can't be blamed when even Masterblend can't get it right in their own instructions. I hope this helps.
Thank you, Derek. I did not know that, and you are right no one ever mentioned and everything I can find on the setup always shows PH last. I am going to do that today
@@HomegrownPassion All good Doug. The other advantage of NOT adding the acid last is that the concentrated acid will immediately precipitate some of the calcium out of solution right at the tip of the injection point. You can easily test this for yourself in a bucket by adding several drops of your dosatron acid solution to your fully mixed nutrients. You will see a whitish cloud form which is the calcium dropping out of solution. You can easily get better mixing by adding 2 metres of piping between each dosatron. You can generate a swirling action by increasing the diameter of the piping as it exits each dosatron. I hope this helps.
Great Video!! Very professional looking job you did. For those of us who don't possess your great strength any more, you can heat up the tubing/pipe with a heat gun or propane torch and it will go on the fittings much easier.
Randall that is a great idea. I have a heat gun we use to shrink the wrap for the English cucumbers, but I never thought about using it...thank you for the great suggestion!!
Very interesting set up. ThAnks for doing such a great job explaining how it’s set up!
Glad it was helpful! Have a great weekend!!
Thanks for all the great info. I was able to germinate spinach for the first time using your hydrogen peroxide/paper towel method. Amazing difference. The drag is that We now have 98 spinach plants growing and there are only two of us to eat them!!!
Peroxide!? I take it blonde spinaches have more taste / fun!! 👍 😁 … sounds about right .. can’t eat more than you have, but you can always give some away ! Just learn your needs and figure out a successive germinating plan 👌👍
We are planning on freezing spinach today... just a quick dunk in boiling water then ice bath... into zip lock freezer bags and plenty of spinach for omelets, smoothies, for the year
@@HomegrownPassion great method. We’ve been blending and making cubes in ice cube trays for smoothies but your method allows for so much more
excellent set up, clean and very tidy..
Thank you so much...now we need to see results!!
This was good for me. very common sense approach. I have allot to learn for sure
Glad you enjoyed it!
I am, S M, Shamim, from Bangladesh. Wonderful setup.
thank you so much...thanks for supporting the channel!
Awesome system! You should consider the trollmaster aqua x with a couple of wcs 2's and smaller 2 gallon coco/perlite coco bags. That way you can dial in drybacks and really steer the crops the way you want to.
I will check it out thank you
@@HomegrownPassion pleasure. It massively improved my yields, I use to run drain to waste in coco with 3 gallon pots and would fertigate when the pots "felt" light untill there was 20 or 30% runoff. Since I changed over its a lot easier, the WCS 2 sensors show the EC in die substrate and the moisture so you end up using a lot less water and nutrients because you can dial in what you feed. It's amazing to see how the EC in the substrate rises as the moister level drops and how the EC reacts after an irrigation event in real time looking at graphs. Keep up the good work with the channel 👏
Beautiful system! Where does the output of the tomato buckets go?
Everything is drained to waste. We monitor the discharge and try to get it to be no discharge but still enough solution to keep the plants hydrated and prosperous. At least that is the goal. It does change throughout the season as temperatures increase, more light, longer lighted days, and plant growth. So, we watch the leaves...make sure nothing gets droopy and then adjust. One thing to note is it is better to water more often with a little amount. It will prevent the plants from taking up excessive moisture all at once and then pushing that to the tomatoes quickly which will cause splitting.
@@HomegrownPassion Thank you! I expected that the water was collected and reused so the dosatron could measure and correct the nutrients.
Thanks
I have been watching your channel for a while now. Love the videos. So helpful in planning my setup. I Would love to come visit your greenhouse. Do you guys give tours?
Awesome! Thank you! We are planning an open house this spring - summer.
Great step by step video Doug. Clean , lean, and efficient design and install :) Thank you . Beautiful that most everything in the system you designed is reusable year after year. Just a thought . I figure your greenhouse has wifi? Perhaps address the topic of how are all systems monitored and or when murphy visits , what are tell tail "signs " and how to address each. Not a requirement but might make for some good short videos , for a series , of the seldom addressed topics for farm family's. I know some familys use day /week tasks on a white board. I really appreciate your familys team effort for letting simplicity drive time saving methods , to allow for more life away from the greenhouse , yep the fun stuff , life is not all about work , work , work. :) I see you have a fit bit or a whoop monitor? I am using a vivosmart 4.0 and an amazfit 5 .0 to monitor sleep , exercise , spo2 , etc. Whoop was 1 yr plus behind on any delivery's . We can't manage what we do not monitor . That looked like a 029 with a 16-18" bar, working through those trees ? Looking forward to the next video .
Thanks, WIlliam, yep greenhouse has Wi-Fi sounds like a great idea to do a vid on all the monitor systems we have...thank you! Yep, it's a Fitbit works great I guess... Katy is much more into the steps and sleeping data then I am but its good information. So that's an older Stihl 046 Mag with a 20" bar.
love the setup and your beard mate!
Thank you, my friend! Still contemplating cutting it off every morning. LOL Not sure I'm a beard guy!
@@HomegrownPassion No, it's a grand beard!
Hi Doug, the dosatron system looks great. Love watching this channel. Have you had any trouble or changed anything about your system since you put it in ? I am going to put one in my greenhouse this spring. What setting did you have your dosatron set to for nutrients and PH ( just so I have a starting point)? Thanks.
Hi Tadd. have not changed a thing. Setting are different every time we mix up the nutrients. Not sure why but we always change the settings. When you get closer to install reach out i will help you with diagrams and let you know what we use in nutrients.
Doug, do you use Dosatron for the reconciliation system to feed the nutrients to the tank?
no on the nft system we use a fertroller system as an injection for the nutrients
Nice plumbing. Any concerns using large exposed lengths of 'black fertigation pipe' in the greenhouse, if it will increase internal temperature of nutrient solution too much as opposed to 'white' especially in mid-summer? Cheers!
Good point. We have been using the black pipe for years just on the top of the bato buckets and have not seen any problems, but we have never measured temp of nutrient water coming out of emitters. Will check it out. Thank you
Hello. Amazing video. What is that plumbing piece called that you stuck the bluelabs probes in that could then be fixed into the line?
Its just a threaded pvc bushing. I know blue lab and dosatron sell a line system but cheaper to just pick up PVC fittings
@@HomegrownPassion yesss bro I did the same after your video! Saved me a good couple hundred.. cheers bro
Does the water come out of those netafim barbed stakes at the top or bottom of the stake? Also appears that setup does not take standard 1/4" tubing to feed.. That sound correct? I appreciate your time!
it comes out the top but seems to flow down the barb. I'm pretty sure the nutri tube is smaller than 1/4
Great system Doug,
I understood you to say in a earlier video that the floor / concrete is on a 4% grade, which would mean that the drain system is also on that same slope. With the timers coming on and releasing the nutrient solution for a short period of time, [I think I see settings for about 50 sec. every 20 min on the Century Timer in the video]. There must be a sump and recycling pump for the surplus drainage water and nutrient mix on the lower elevation of the green house. . . or is it such a minute amount that it is allowed to just run out on the ground somewhere at the end? Could you share information in detail here? Thanks in advance.
Hi Edwin, first don't look at the timer settings in the video. I just put them on to flush the water threw emitters to make sure I did not have any leaks. I'll get you setting in a few days after we get them dialed in. Everything is drained to waste. We are not recirculating the discharge. We monitor the discharge and try to get it to be no discharge but still enough solution to keep the plants hydrated and prosperous. At least that is the goal. It does change throughout the season as temperatures increase, more light, longer lighted days, and plant growth. So, we watch the leaves...make sure nothing gets droopy and then adjust. One thing to note is it is better to water more often with a little amount. It will prevent the plants from taking up excessive moisture all at once and then pushing that to the tomatoes quickly which will cause splitting. Hope that answers your question. Thanks for supporting us and great comment! Thank you!!
Amazing!!
Thank you! Cheers!
Doug, at about 2:45 in the video you point out you have a "mixing pot" after the Dosatrons. It appears to be a filter holder. Is there a filter inside or it it just the housing to provide a chamber for turbulence and further mixing of the outputs of the Dosatrons? Also if you have something inside, can you specify what it is. I'm about to set up a 2 tank (A&B solutions) injector setup and was wondering about the "mixing pot" as not all setups I've seen have that. Thanks....
Hi David, there is no filter inside. I saw this in a Dosatron setup at cultivate 2021 and figured it was just the housing of a filter so yes, I think it will give me a little mixing effect before the monitor probes. At least that is what I am hoping for.
Great video. Nice setup. I have 14 bato in 4x8ft grow tent in my spare room (2 parallel pvc drain pipes making 4 rows. Bato spaced only 12” OC not your 16”). Same bato, 0.5gal emitters and stakes with tomatoes. I was told 2 minutes every hour during the day. Is that correct or at least ballpark? 60-80 seconds into the 2 minutes, I hear water drain out of the buckets and of course continues to drain until end of 2 mins. I’m guessing that’s long enough but I don’t know. Once an hour? 2min ON and 58 min OFF? Thank you.
Grow tent? Topping with grid or auto flower? 🤣😝 .. grow tent is on the list for winter time tomato .. right now gotta decide what system to set up for summer maters in small greenhouse 😊 ✌️
We try and look at the discharge of water at drain to determine the amount of time on and how long. The goal is to get it dialed in, so you have no discharge, but plants still have enough solution to grow and prosper. No waste is the goal. It does change as the weather gets warm and when the plants get bigger and demand more nutrients. We watch leaves etc....but want to water more often with less solution to try and keep the plants hydrated. If you let them dry and then water heavy, you will get split tomatoes etc... fine balance if that makes sense
I’m researching doing this for my set up. My blue lab guardian has different probes. How do I get these short probes? Also how do you figure up you mixing ratio in the stock tanks vs the ratio of the dosing valves while keeping the an and b valve ratio correct?
The short probes are called in-line probes and are screwed into the system to make a watertight system. The ratio is hard to figure out and depends on so many things. we use bulk nutrients, so we have a recipe that we scaled down to take advantage of the smaller nutrient barrels. We worked with a horticulturist to figure it out, but I think there might be some tables on the internet you could use.
@@HomegrownPassion I really appreciate you responding. I use the bulk nutrients from cropking. And I mix part a and b about equal but i'm wondering how would know each dosatron is dosing equal amounts?
I try and keep an eye on the nutrient tanks and make sure they are dosing at the same rate
Enjoy your videos. How do you take care of the algae on top of your tomato buckets?
So, if you look at the tomatoes planting video, we have tops we use to cover the top of the BATO buckets.
How can I isolate the injector from the irrigation cycle if I wanna to run plain irrigation??
So, in this case I don't have a bypass but in the high tunnel I do so check out the videos with the strawberry high tunnel and it should give you an idea. if not write me a gain and I'll send you a drawing.
Great job! Where did you purchase the injection kit from? Thank you
On line. Put a link in the details...hope you get them...work great
@@HomegrownPassion Thanks again Doug.
Out of curiosity, do you not need a hammer arrestor between the solenoids and the injectors?
No I don't think so. there are check valves on each discharge end of the Dosatron that I think handle that.... but so far not needed as far as i can tell
Great!
how do you decide when to use jubilee clips, and when to use those clamp/squeeze clips? is the latter for permanent installation, and the former for temporary?
Im sorry not sure what you mean. The squeeze clamps are for the pex pipe not sure what jubilee clamps are.
@@HomegrownPassion Jubilee clips are the ones that you're using for the junctions around 5:23. Here in the UK we call them jubilee clips, technical name I believe is "worm-drive hose clamps", or band clamps.
😎👍🏻
Thinking those tomato beginning to look purplish and a little sicklish....Phosphorous?
We were running lettuce nutrient formula which is not the best for tomato plant health. They should pick up with the new nutrient formula
nice
Thanks
👍 … lol 🤷♂️ y’all almost got me to go bato! … 🤨
They work great...do it!!
@@HomegrownPassion oh man! Try to be brief, already have necessary stuff for the bucket system I was going with, but for reasons that don’t need exploring at this juncture it didn’t get implemented last spring 🤷♂️😳… but now know 2 plants in one bato will work 👍 but can’t quite justify not using the food safe buckets & net pot lids etc if at least not seeing if it works before investing $$ in bato system .. hahaha I know I’m screwy 😆 🤷♂️ eventually I’ll pick a direction, I hope 😂
where is the pomp o you no need with this system
No pump it works on water pressure.
Please make ur intro shorter
OK... Just trying different things to see what works. Appreciate the suggestion!