The Growroom – Tobacco in DWC

We welcome you back to The Growroom for our latest grow diary… and this time around we have been growing Tobacco plants from cuttings using a Deep Water Culture (DWC) system.

Stage 1

To start things off we have taken cuttings from our parent Tobacco plant, which we sprayed with Growth Technology’s Clonex Mist (foliar spray for mother plants) one week previously.

We then quickly placed our cuttings into a jug of water to stop air from entering them before we put them into Root Riot Propagation Cubes.

At this stage we also used Root !t Gel to help seal the cuttings, preventing infection and dehydration, being careful to squeeze only a small amount of gel into each of our Root Riot cubes.

Stage 2

After a week we started to see some really nice roots coming through, which you can see below…

Once our roots started to come through the propagation cubes as you can see above, we then placed our cuttings into mesh baskets containing Vitalink Clay Pebbles.

We recommend a layer of pebbles on the bottom of the basket, then placing our rooted cube on top and backfill with clay pebbles around the plant to fill the basket.

It’s now time to get the DWC system ready and up and running!

Firstly we got our nutrient solution ready, with a combination of water, nutrient, and additives (following the recommended feed schedules).

• Vitalink Plant Start – Base feed for small plants.
• Vitalink Root Stim – To increase root development.
• Vitalink Silicon Max – To strengthen the plant, make it more pest resistant & improve cell integrity.

ALWAYS add nutrients and additives to your water first, then check pH and EC levels 15 mins later (allow everything to mix well first). This is because the food and additives can alter the pH of the water. Should your EC level not be correct then add as required and retest for EC and pH.

Next, we tested our solution with an Essentials pH Meter and a Bluelab Truncheon to set the following pH/EC:

We then attached a Golf Ball Airstone to the air pump to help boost nutrient uptake and increase oxygen levels within the solution to keep it fresh.

Having set our pH to 5.7 with an EC of 1.0, we then move our plants over into our DWC system.

During this time we water our plants from the top until the roots find their way into the solution (using the solution we have just mixed).

This should only take 2 to 3 days.

NOTE: The nutrient temperature should be between 18-22 degrees.