Growing lettuce for the first time

#1

T plus 3 days
I started three days ago in my Food computer a set of 21 lettuce seeds.
Using @Rckco’s recipe of 50 humidity.

Today some of the seeds have sprouted already but more only 7 of them. still 14 have not shown any sign of life.
Also noticed when I checked the food computer that a family of fruit flies have settled into it… Bastards.

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Bloody buggers were just hanging around not doing anything. Wonder how they got there? Nothing to do with the trash-bin I forgot to empty for few months :smiley:

Well that is a problem. No idea if these guys are harmful for the salad but they are harmful to my nerves. No one stays without paying some rent. Fruit fly family needs to go.

Trap
Setting up a fruit fly trap is something I do at home every now and then. It is quite simple.

  • Take an old jam jar
  • Take some pieces of sweet fruit. In my case I used cherries. I split them in half and took out the seed.
  • Pour in some wine or other alcohol. Had some dark rum handy so poured some of that in.
  • Make a cone from paper or cardboard so that the pointy end has a tiny hole that a fruit fly fits through
  • Set the cone into the jar the pointy end first.
  • Use tape to tape the cone in and seal the jar.

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Now the freeloading fruit fly family thinks there is a free buffet in the jar and will dive in through the cone but can’t find their way out anymore :smiley: EVIL… PURE EVIL :grinning: MUAHAHAA!!!

When I was leaving the shop for the day there was already a party in the Jar. No wonder… Cherries and 7 year old Havana Rum… I wanted to dive in too…

#2

Wow. I’ve had good luck with insects. Had not had a single one invade my plants happy home.

We have been seeding each grow spots with only two seeds then thin at a few weeks.So far, we have had 95.5% germination rate with the seeds we have purchased.

#3

My Kinda Guy, I’m still farting around trying to get the software installed ( can’t even get the rpi image to work ) before putting any more bits into the fridge as there doesn’t seem much point until I can program the food bot to grow things and you are built and into operation growing lettuce seeds accompanied with a fantastic bit of alliteration using the letter, ’ f ’ , and a completely original tongue twister to boot. Top marks, Silversson .

#4

hahaha :joy:. We’ve been prototyping an air manifold for the 1.1 to keep things a bit more sealed in the chamber. For example, here’s a hilariously hacked together rapid prototype:

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…yeah. We’ll have to spend some time making it compact and pretty, but the basic idea is to channel all the venting through one place so we can filter incoming air. Hopefully this will keep baddies from sneaking in :smiley: .

#5

Ok. Opened the cover to clean out the flyes and cut the grow top smaller so it is a raft. It makes so much more sense now :smile:

#6

Looks like the arms from Robbie the robot in Lost in Space !!! Hmm, there is only one hole into the fridge at the moment, maybe I can use the freezer box to do something simiiar. Still plugging away at getting the software to work Set up a HypriotOs card for rpi and downloaded the openag_brain_docker_rpi docker compose script, but instead of running the script just, ran, docker-compose up -d. Hey this worked and started the two containers, what should happen now ? Couldn’t connect to the database or even to the pi through the web browser ??? So now I am trying the open_brain_install_rpi, with a 16 gb card loaded with Rasbian Jessie, Yeh, it’s finished with no errors. What next ? Guess I should use, rosrun openag_brain main,

#7

I got a similar problem or challenge in my next project. I wanted to make a hydroponic tree growing pot :smiley: The grow top is 85mm thick cos I housed the air pump and the electronics into it :slight_smile: It might not work nicely as a raft…
Lets see what I will do for version 2.

#8

Hi all,

I think I might have a problem.
My PFC says through the GRO-UI that ots running a recipe. That one that @Rckco gave us :slight_smile:
Its 7days since I changed the recipe and still no grow lights. Fans are all active and the led strip in the grow chamber is on. Wonder if there is a way to check the RPi that whats going on…?

#9

Inside the RPi there is a log file (I think it’s in the root “/” directory, not in the home directory, because there is one there that was left behind from a run someone at MIT did). If you open it you can see the messages the bot is printing. In some of them it tells you what is the status of the actuators, and if they are active, which variables they are controlling.

#10

So went to my workshop today and PFC was there with grow lights on. I checked the values and the temp inside was whopping 39C.
Opened the window but still I have no idea how long it had been this way.
So odd thing about the relay board that controls the fans and such was not working. All leds were on indivating that all fans and leds strips should have been on but were not. Maybe some sort of error state.
Also oddly the recipe had changed…

Well as I wondered what to do I restarted the RPi.
No effect.
Reflashed the SD card.
Sort of no effect cos now I’m back to the state that It does not let me chage the recipe.

Shut everything down and retired for tonight…

Could replace the RPi…

#11

95%? That IS impressive! Congrats!

#12

Hey all,

For future reference, I’ve made a Lettuce recipe based on some research I read online. I am about to set it up myself, and I’m excited to see how it goes. Feel free to give it a shot and deposit your own into the folder, and I’ll be posting it in the ‘post your recipies here’ thread I made earlier for safekeeping. :slight_smile:

https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B1oSpeGpUM9ubi1LUEk2ZnV5SXc&usp=sharing