North Florida REC – Suwannee Valley

Hydroponics – 1 st UF/IFAS Virtual Field Day

By Bob Hochmuth, Extension Agent, North Florida REC-Suwannee Valley

UF/IFAS Extension teamed up with UF Office of Academic Technology to produce the first two “Virtual Field Days”. The two selected were “Hydroponics” and “Irrigation Management”. The Hydroponics topic was chosen because of the unique expertise at UF on the topic and the NFREC-SV hydroponic demonstration greenhouses at Live Oak. The virtual field days will be produced to be available on the web. The plan was to take a photo using a 360° angle camera lens placed in the middle of the greenhouse as the crops matured. Special software allows the 360° photo to be transferred to the web. As you enter the site, you will use the mouse to “move around” inside the greenhouse. Once inside the site, you will select topics (cursor over) on which you want more information.

Within the overall virtual field day, you can get additional detailed information on one of several topics by selecting that topic. The hydroponic topics include:

•  Methods of Growing Transplants – Bob Hochmuth and Wanda Laughlin

•  Selecting Healthy Transplants – Bob Hochmuth and Lei Lani Davis

•  Hydroponic Production Systems – Mike Sweat and Bob Hochmuth

•  Soilless Culture (bags, pots, troughs, Beto buckets, vertical systems)

•  Floating Systems

•  Nutrient Film Technique

•  Soilless Media Choices – Mike Sweat and Bob Hochmuth

•  Perlite

•  Rockwool

•  Peat Mixes

•  Composted Pine Bark

•  Coconut Coir

•  Greenhouse Pest Management – Bob Hochmuth and Richard Sprenkel

•  Irrigation and Nutrient Management – George Hochmuth and Bob Hochmuth

•  Hydroponic Crop Selection and Culture – Bob Hochmuth, Dan Cantliffe, and Linda Landrum

•  Tomato, cucumber, lettuce

•  Bell pepper (color), Beit alpha cucumber, miniature squashes, Galia melons, strawberry

•  Cut flowers, (sunflower, zinnia, snap dragon, dianthus, calla lily)

•  Herbs (basil, chives, dill, mint, arugula, oregano, thyme, etc)

•  Edible flowers (nasturtium, stock, viola, snap dragon)

•  Marketing, Packaging and Postharvest Considerations – Bob Hochmuth and Linda Landrum

Note: Video Director, Al Williams, UF/IFAS Communication Services

In addition, video footage was taken at the Agricultural Enterprise Workshops for North Florida at Live Oak on November 9 th. This included the hydroponic workshop with the farmers attending. Video footage of local hydroponic growers was also taken which ties into the final virtual field day product. The project was new innovative and intense but was also fun and should bring a new very high quality educational product to UF.

[ Bob Hochmuth ]