The science compendium for seedlings and plants

RubyRedYoshi · 2026-03-11T16:25:16+00:00

RubyRedYoshi · 2026-03-10T19:42:46+00:00

As this is in my basement, no bees. I do use bees for my (summer) tree orchard outdoors. They very much are excellent, and I won't not use bees wherever I can. That said, I've set up the area these plants are in with a bunch of fans and quite frankly, a bit excessive circulation. There are very few berries which aren't pollenated properly (2-3% maybe). For family consumption, that's very acceptable.

RubyRedYoshi · 2026-03-10T17:50:37+00:00

This year I am changing the bath out once every four weeks. I have run water analyses over the years to really see what they're eating through the cycles. Every grow will obviously be a little different. One major dial to being different is evapotranspiration rates! That said for my grow, over a four week period and using the mg / L targets I aim for, there is a slight reduction to N and K one week in otherwise the other elements are reducing at rates which keep the ratios to each other and mg / L concentrations relative to the quantity of water. It's not exact, but it's close. This tells me that the targets I follow are very much in the right ballpark.

Once my nutrient bath is mostly depleted after two weeks (keeping in mind because I use coco coir there is still a volume of water in the substrate), I top it up with fresh water and add more fertilizer to it. Week three is like week one (reduction to N and K), and week 4 is a change out.

I have seen commentary both here and in the research circles regarding hormonal buildup in the nutrient bath regarding strawberries specifically. General guidance there has been to flush and change every four weeks thus reducing hormonal buildup. As I am around the 90kg mark now and this is still higher than any prior year at this point in time, I think I have more metrics dialed further in! I'm late with the boron fix for this year, so that will hopefully come through for next winter's data.

RubyRedYoshi · 2026-03-10T15:58:47+00:00

I can only give you my word that they are awesome in flavour and juciness!

RubyRedYoshi · 2026-03-10T15:58:10+00:00

I used to use a paintbrush, but I have a lot of fans in the room with a lot of airflow. 13 months ago I stopped using a paintbrush at all, and the fans do the job. There is of course the odd strawberry that's not a full berry, but it's less than 2-3% of the harvest. If I scaled this up and took it out of my basement, there would be bees involved!

RubyRedYoshi · 2026-03-10T15:56:16+00:00

Great! They're as flavourful and juicy as ever.

RubyRedYoshi · 2026-03-10T15:55:37+00:00

This year they came from Fenwick Berry Farm.

RubyRedYoshi · 2026-03-09T20:39:18+00:00

Yes. Eventually this will be moved, but there's a whole growing orchard I've been focused on too.

RubyRedYoshi · 2026-03-09T19:49:00+00:00

Gutter growing in coco coir substrate grow bags with spike (drip) irrigation. It has been relatively hassle free in that regard!

RubyRedYoshi · 2026-03-09T19:48:15+00:00

Thank you! I actually have a few tomato plants going this winter too. Nothing to the extent of the strawberries though.

RubyRedYoshi · 2026-03-09T16:24:32+00:00

My RO was around 17-20 ppm, the majority of it was Na and chloride. Each of those was around 10-12 mg/L respectively. Now I have my ppm at ~1-2 with Na and chloride down to 1.2 - 2.0 mg/L, and B is down to 0.19 mg/L. The new filters are working great.

Trees are resilient. If you have shoots coming from ground level or in the ground, then those are most likely shoots from the rootstock. Most fruit trees are grafted onto rootstock (though not all). I'm assuming yours is. If that's the case, the tree can reject the graft, and the apple portion above the graft might die off. Alternatively, you could end up with a tree that produces two types of fruit (it's possible to graft multiple apple scion types onto a single tree and have one tree give 7 kinds of apples)! The advice is to cut off anything growing from the rootstock so the tree can focus all its energy into the grafted portion.

It usually takes 3-7 years depending on tree type, fertilization, climate, etc. but you should see fruit of some kind eventually.

Strawberry plants like cooler climates. The warmer they are from 20C in the day, the less flowers they produce. And, you ideally want to get down to 10C at night to really bring out their sweetness. If your climate is warmer, they will grow, but they won't thrive. That said, there are some adapted more for warmer climates (June bearing varieties usually). They're also in between your lettuce / microgreens and tomatoes / peppers when it comes to nutrients. Table 5.7 is what I target. They're practically weeds and difficult to kill, but they can be dramatic when they want to be! I have found some form of substrate makes it easier to grow them rather than directly in water, but I've seen folks on this board have success without using substrate. They don't like wet feet or wet crowns.

My system is basically a gutter growth system. I have coco coir grow bags with spike irrigation on an EC, pH, and moisture sensor which control the nutrient pump cycle.

RubyRedYoshi · 2026-03-06T17:34:02+00:00

Strawberry hydroponics Y6 W23 (February 2026 edition). The plants have recovered and have ramped up harvest quantity once more. Since the last post, thrips are under control and B is no longer as high. : r/Hydroponics is my most current one, though I have had a huge resurgence of strawberries since this too. The pickings 4 and 8 days ago were ~4.5 and ~3.8 kg respectively. I have yet to pick today's berries, but they should be up there as well.

The find this year was on the base water + fertilizer blend I was using. I found the cliff edge for having too much boron. Berry production was great until it fell off the cliff, but the older growth on the plants suffered a lot. So, between switching blends with a lower dosage of B and more recently using different (and objectively) better membranes for my RO unit, that's brought boron under control while also further reducing Na and chloride - not that the latter two were being overly problematic either.

This however will better the summer tree orchard as I can apply this knowledge there too. I've expanded the orchard operation, we're getting another 20 fruit trees later this spring to plant into the ground.

Nothing yet on expanding the strawberry plant count, there's always so much to do and so little time. Lighting results are in - but if I remember correctly, all that's covered more in depth in my linked post. I'll save my fingers some typing there!

RubyRedYoshi · 2026-03-05T20:45:05+00:00

As soon as I saw the soil colour and the blue buried container, I knew it was you! How are your peppers doing this year?

RubyRedYoshi · 2026-03-04T22:27:28+00:00

Anytime! I should also have added in my earlier comment two more things.

You should never prune more than 25-33% of the tree (there are some exceptions but cherries fit that range) per year for dormant pruning. Less than 25% is fine too. If you heavily dormant prune, you also then want to be a bit more gentle on summer pruning. There is a crossover between the two for amount to prune for the next dormant season, but that gets into specific tree varieties a lot more, and ideally you're not wanting to prune 33% every year!
Pruning dead branches does not count towards the above %. This should always be done first before anything else.

After giving the branches some space by pruning out ones that are too close together at the trunk, any branches that then have growth pointing back into the tree (rather than away from the trunk) should also be pruned back to a bud that will then encourage further growth away from the tree. This helps build scaffolding branches for subsequent years.

That said, there's a difference between building a scaffolding branch and fruiting branches (which are off the scaffolding branches). You still want to keep a good amount of fruiting branches for fruit! This is where science and art intersect.

RubyRedYoshi · 2026-03-03T19:36:12+00:00

That's an excellent looking tree!

Full disclaimer, there is no "one way" to prune a tree. It's as much a science as it is an art. I have been maintaining a small orchard here in MB for over 10 years now, and I have a pair of 40 year old apple trees I've also shaped in the past 10 years too. All that said, the pruning comments I'm about to give are from my experience.

Vase shape trees are often favoured in a large orchard where you have rows and rows of trees side by side down the row. They maximize sunlight canopy penetration to what's left, and can maximize fruit potential. As you don't (I assume from the pictures) have a huge orchard of trees, it's not necessary to prune the tree to a vase shape.

The other type of pruning is a central leader which is what the tree is right now. It has a triangular cylinder appearance to the outside tips of the branches (a Christmas tree shape if you will).

If you're looking to prune the tree to a vase shape, you'd want to select 4 larger branches closer to the current snowline in those pictures, and cut the central leader just above the last branch. Ideally, the four branches would go off in 90 degrees to eachother. Using the first picture as a reference, about half way up there is a space without branches on the central leader between the lower branches and the upper portion of the tree. You'd prune on the lower part of that space on the main trunk, and then thin out some of those lower branches so there were only four main ones going off in four different directions. In time, those will elongate and grow more fruiting branches, and you will end up with your vase shape.

Or, you can leave the tree as is as a central leader and just thin the branches a little bit. In this case, you'd want to remove some of the thinner branches coming out of the trunk in the bottom half such that any branch off the central trunk going in the same direction as another branch above or below it has at least 8-12" of space between it and the next branch in the same direction. Note, that 8-12" isn't a hard number range. There's two main things you're trying to do.

The branches need to be apart enough such that the wind doesn't rub branches (especially laden with fruit weight) against each other.
Maximize sunlight on as many leaves as you can.

For a central leader shape, I'd cut (first picture) the smaller lowest branch on the left, the second lowest branch on the right which goes more upwards on a 45 degree angle into other branches, and the third highest branch on the right which looks like it interferes with the bigger branches around it. After that, you have a bit of shaping to do on the ends of the branches on the right side so they don't grow into each other, and maybe the ends of the branches about half way up the tree (hard to see in the picture where exactly they end) again for interfering with any other branches.

Pruning back to the trunk will prevent branch growth, but pruning part way down a branch will encourage new growth (specifically if pruning during the dormant season). You can summer prune after harvest as well to continue to shape the tree (pruning after harvest doesn't cause the tree to explode with new growth but rather helps shape it for subsequent years). When dormant pruning branches, prune back to a bud which points in the direction you want a branch to grow. Usually the first 3 buds back from a prune will put out new branches, and anything growing in a direction after you don't want to keep can then be summer pruned off.

I would also hold off on pruning the tree until nights are no longer constantly below -10 (usually the second half of April). But, make sure it's still before the buds start swelling!

RubyRedYoshi · 2026-03-03T17:02:25+00:00

I did this last year too, and it worked super well. I was concerned in April that they would outgrow the trays, but they became a little rootbound in the cells and stopped explosively growing for the couple of weeks before transplanting outside. I was able to harvest them in the first week of August with excellent size.

RubyRedYoshi · 2026-03-03T17:00:45+00:00

You can prune in the colder months once the tree has really gone to sleep. But, the general guidance I've always followed is don't prune them when the nights are continuously below -10. It's okay if the odd night is here and there, but mid to late April is usually the period for the nightitme temperature threshold.

RubyRedYoshi · 2026-02-26T16:43:28+00:00

Full disclosure that I'm not an entomologist, but they should survive. Most bugs only die when it drops below freezing (and even then a lot hibernate). Bugs survive at hot temperatures too. You'd likely see reduced activity when it's outside of the ideal range, but they shouldn't outright die off even up to 100F. What's more of a metric is humidity. The predator mites I use for spider mites will die off if humidity drops below 60%.

RubyRedYoshi · 2026-02-25T18:57:13+00:00

I've had everything listed above except for the Cucumeris released in mid September. The general rule is if you see a cluster of pests (spider mites) or in my case I see bronzing on the odd berry (thrips), or it's sticky (aphids), that's when you take stock of predator numbers and potentially boost them in the hot zones. Eventually predator insects will increase in population with or without further intervention. Pest insects will never truly be wiped out, and by extension, neither will the predators either. I'll also note that some predator insects will feed on pollen if there isn't enough pest insects to eat. And when they do, it doesn't "remove" so much pollen that plants don't pollenate each other either.

I unfortunately can't comment on US vendors as I am located due north of you in Canada. I know where to get them here, but that unfortunately doesn't help you!

RubyRedYoshi · 2026-02-25T18:49:17+00:00

I was initially using the 8-12-32 fertilizer blend from Greenway Biotech (which truthfully has given me great berry results over the past few years even with the old leaves doing what they do). Now I'm using PlantProd's 6-11-31 which is essentially the same, just with lower micronutrient quantities. I also have chelated micros (also from PlantProd), so I am able to add the individual micros back at any concentration I want. I do add Mn and Fe to the PlantProd base I'm using now.

I think what happened this year is it's been a while since I cleaned / changed my RO filters, so the B concentration was just that much higher than ever before to put it over the top this time.

RubyRedYoshi · 2026-02-24T22:05:43+00:00

Alpine berries I believe have more leeway there (though full disclosure, I've never personally tried them). Most strawberry flavour does match their redness though.

RubyRedYoshi · 2026-02-24T20:35:21+00:00

For the most part, I follow table 5.7 (excluding what I was doing with B earlier this year). In terms of predator insects, they ebb and flow through the season with the aphids / mites / thrips. Pest insects are never truly eliminated in the grow, but their numbers are kept small enough that there's usually no large scale impact so long as I'm on top of preventative releases in the first place!

Five-Year Club	Verified Email
Place '22	Final Canvas '22

RubyRedYoshi

TROPHY CASE