Hydroponic Dwarf Cavendish Progress
 

It has been six weeks already since I started by hydroponic banana project. It has been challenging at times to address the issues that have come across but I am making good progress.

The plant suffered from transplant shock and started to wilt. It lost a few leaves and it took about 3 weeks to recover. Then it started to grow new leaves. I just did a complete water/nutrient change a couple of days ago and it started to wilt as it had to adjust to the new water. The drain at the bottom of the bucket had a slow leak that got worse after I changed everything out and it made the water level drop down to halfway over 4 or 5 days. I switched out the bucket so I can repair the leak in the valve.

More in depth details can be seen at the link in my signature.

Re: Hydroponic Dwarf Cavendish Progress
 

how many watts??? metal hild or high pressure sodium or cfls???

Re: Hydroponic Dwarf Cavendish Progress
 

GE 20watt CFL daylight bulb. It is working for now but I need to upgrade the lighting soon.

Re: Hydroponic Dwarf Cavendish Progress
 

Once the thing is really growing you might need to change the nutrient solution more often. Bananas are heavy feeders and will reduce the concentration of the solution quickly. I made the solution up at the maximum recommended concentration and changed it twice weekly and wow did that thing grow.

Water you inground stuff with the spent solution and they will love the extra boost over time.

Keith

Re: Hydroponic Dwarf Cavendish Progress
 

That is a good idea to use the spent solution on the soil grown plants. I plan on getting a different nutrient solution once I have used what is left from what came with my system. I think what I am using right now is okay, but I keep on hearing how great General Hydroponics nutrients are. so I want to try them.

Re: Hydroponic Dwarf Cavendish Progress
 

GH maxigrow - great stuff for bananas.

Re: Hydroponic Dwarf Cavendish Progress
 

I took my hydro setup outside today on the balcony. I started to wilt a bit a few hours after being outside so I am hoping that it will recover soon from the shock of changing environments.

Re: Hydroponic Dwarf Cavendish Progress
 

Here is my banana plant 4 months after planting in the DWC bucket. So far it has been pretty low maintenance after it got over the shock of being moved outside. I add about 2 gallons of water every 2 or 3 days when the water level reaches halfway. It has two pups that are growing. I was going to take them out but then I read that it needs at least two for best fruit production. It is not close to busting out of the container yet, so I can still hold off on transferring it into something bigger.

Re: Hydroponic Dwarf Cavendish Progress
 

How did it all ended?
Did you gain fruits?

Re: Hydroponic Dwarf Cavendish Progress
 

what should be the water hardness average in ppm and what level of ph shall I keep for planting dwarf cavendish? and what nutrients does the plant require?
Also did you get any fruits in the end ? how much? and how long did it take?

Re: Hydroponic Dwarf Cavendish Progress
 

Good result! Keep it up!