Bionically transforms your plants

A breakthrough product when it first hit our shelves and still to this day capable of surprising the very best of growers, HALO unquestionably ranks as one of the most prolific boosters we’ve ever encountered. Let’s take a closer look at what happens when you apply HALO. Here’s the science…

The Science

HALO utilises advanced crop production technology to radically improve the fortunes of plants. The key element is the active ingredient Harpin Alpha Beta – a bacterial protein from commercial farming responsible for triggering the plant’s natural defence system. Various highly beneficial physiological and biochemical reactions are then initiated including an increase in photosynthesis (the equivalent of having more lights!), cell wall expansion, more efficient transport of sugar and improved nutrient uptake.

Furthermore, HALO also consists of a beneficial mix of micronutrients including iron, manganese, zinc and copper. These micronutrients are specially chelated to be slow released over a period of 3-10 days. HALO utilises a patented process for chelating the micro elements with polysacharrides, which maintains the availability of the nutrients both on the leaf and within the growing media, maximising the effects of the Harpin protein.

The Results

Experiment with HALO and you can expect to see significant increases in plant size, number of fruits and root mass as well as early flowering and enhanced resistance to disease – a combination that delivers healthier crops and significantly bigger yields! You might have heard it all before but we say believe the hype this time!

Application

Typically considered a foliar application, HALO proves particularly effective when used 2-5 times throughout your grow. Available as a cost effective 100g tub or in the 5 x soluble sachets – each of which dissolves in 500ml of water to create the ideal strength foliar spray. Treatments are recommended during vegetative growth, flower induction, flower enlargement and one week before harvest. Spray directly onto leaves at low light levels or just before grow lights are switched off.

One of the main benefits of indoor gardening is the complete level of control you are afforded over the growing environment and the associated opportunity to closely manage and finely tailor every aspect of plant development. The vegetative stage of the plant life cycle deserves special attention in terms of the conditions you choose to create, since whatever size your plants end up reaching will largely depend on the work done during this time.

For example – if you are looking to produce a large number of small plants the aim is more often than not to keep the vegetative cycle short, thereby limiting the eventual size of the plant.

To produce massive plants and achieve huge yields, you might want to think about extending the typical vegetative cycle. For some plants this is a possibility, for others there are other steps that must be taken.

Before moving on to take a closer look at those steps, first consider why you would want to extend the vegetative cycle in the first place.

During the vegetative stage a plant is essentially preparing itself for flowering and the chance to reproduce. Indeed plants, like any other living beings, have one sole purpose for existence – survival and the continuation of the genes. The most effective method of survival is reproduction.

A plant in the vegetative cycle uses this time to develop the root system and, as growth continues, generates new flowering sites both on and away from the main stem. By making a plant develop beyond the point at which it would normally bloom, you are encouraging the entire infrastructure to become bigger and stronger for when flowering finally does commence.

Logic dictates that bigger plants will produce more fruit and seeds, as internal changes are made to make the most of the opportunity to reproduce. This is something that every grower should use to his or her advantage!

Indoor gardeners have the opportunity to tweak nature’s intention for a plant. In many cases simply maintaining an 18 hour light cycle will be enough to keep plants laying down roots and preparing points of reproduction. Using growth feed and enzyme products can provide significant aid, as can the provision of a sufficiently large pot or container for your plants. The bigger the pot, the more room the root zone has to develop unrestricted and healthy.

Whilst this approach works for some plants, there are other varieties that flower automatically upon reaching a certain stage of development. These plants present an obstacle for indoor gardeners, as the seeds natural programming kicks in due to survival instinct. Chillis are one such variety of plant, which explains why you hear of some people flowering chillies under 18 hours of light. Basically your plants tell you they need to reproduce.

This obstacle is not impossible to overcome. For the indoor gardener the plant can be kept in the vegetative stage, which in turn encourages the plant to work harder to reproduce.

By simply pinching out the flowering sites of the plant you can postpone the bloom cycle until you are ready. It does seem a drastic step, but removal of what will become the focus of all the plants energy forces them to redirect this back into vegetative growth.

To relate the procedure to a natural occurrence, think about a freak late spring hail shower. Most chilli growers know how easily the flowers drop, and it is not beyond the realms of probability that in such a hail storm a chilli plant could lose all flowers. In nature the plant then quickly adapts and works to produce more flowers for the same season.

The plant pictured is an overwintered Dorset Naga chilli plant. Vegetative growth does not seem as abundant as it maybe should be going into the second year, and whilst the foliage admittedly appears quite dense, longer and stronger stems are really what you need. Already you can see some flowers have developed but the size of the plant is not ideal and unlikely to contribute towards fantastic results, even though a little growth will still take place.

The flowers and developing flowering sites were all removed, forcing the plant back into the vegetative stage. Often indoor gardeners force flower plants, by making them flower when perhaps in nature they would not – this is essentially the reverse of that process, an often overlooked measure in the pursuit of efficiency.

After any type of pruning – whether it be for this, taking cuttings or general shaping – always give the plant a nice dose of stress relief tonic such as SuperThrive to help with recovery.

Tips for plants in the vegetative stage.

1 Use the biggest size of pot available. The more space the plant has to develop its rootzone, the more secure the set of foundations

2 Give your plants plenty of blue light – this is what they crave in the vegetative stage

3 Water little and often. Instead of saturating the media, let it become quite dry so that the roots search out water. By sticking to little and often watering you keep the rootzone active and healthy.

4 Nutrition-wise, make sure the plant has everything it needs to develop healthily. Plants in the vegetative stage require plenty of nitrogen. Watch out for signs of underfeeding, like the yellowing of leaves.

5 If a plant is going to be held in the vegetative stage for some time, pruning may be necessary. When a plant is growing too high, prune the main stem so that the plants energy is focused more on the remaining stems.

6 Be patient. Whilst extending the vegetative cycle can seem like an odd thing to do, the rewards are often amazing.

On the 6^th and 7^th of May stalls selling everything from sauces to sausages were set out in the castle courtyard, circling around a performance area that various different entertainers used… well, entertainingly over both of the days. Educational cooking demonstrations and continuous live music also added a little bit extra to the event.

Understandably a lot of the people who attended the festival came with the intention of sampling edible goods – and we couldn’t really blame them! The overpowering smells and aromas emanating from nearby chilli-based food makers had us hungry from the off!

Yet little time could be spent drooling over the exciting, unusual and undeniably tempting products on show or gawping at the fantastic parts of the building that towered over us. We had a job to do!

The presence of a hydroponics equipment retailer at the event generated a pleasing amount of interest, with visitors commenting that the GroWell stand offered an intriguing insight into the future of gardening and the “grow your own revolution”. When it hit home just how affordable, flexible and fun the hobby of raising plants often proves to be, we saw peoples faces change to reflect the realisation that they could get involved too!

Having reviewed the findings of past festivals and exhibitions, we again altered our display to better demonstrate the advantages of hydroponics and indoor gardening. With a renewed focus on showing products in action, the GroWell stall featured no less than four grow set ups! Each one was housed in a smart intermediate BudBox tent and included a T5HO Sunblaster Propagation Light, T5 Propagation Grow Light or Sun Mate Grow CFL Reflector and Eco-Light. These lights are already quite popular amongst chilli growers and definitely helped us get the attention of numerous passers by.

To promote the latest breakthrough product in indoor gardening, we had several plants growing from the phenomenal new Rhizo-Pots. Some onlookers refused to believe that these low priced, lightweight, fibrous items delivered results… until they noticed the evidence right in front of their eyes!

Despite the soaking everyone endured on the Monday morning, the very first Eastnor Castle Chilli Festival went down as a success in our book. There’s certainly room for improvement but it nevertheless attracted a good crowd and had some decent exhibitors. We are enjoying introducing the concept of hydroponics and indoor gardening to a section of dedicated growers who never knew it existed before and plan on doing so for the foreseeable!

Following several very successful recent public outings, GroWell have gone and signed up for another exciting event – the Eastnor Castle Chilli Festival!

What immediately sets this one apart from the others previously attended is simply the fact that it takes place in the grounds of a massive 19^th century castle… quite a sight to behold let us promise you!

Impressive scenery aside, the brand new Midland’s based festival promises to offer up a fine range of hot and spicy dips, sauces, spreads and more, made available through the 30+ stalls set up and run by self confessed chilli fanatics. There will also be plenty of food demonstrations, live music, entertainers and fun activities to keep the kids busy.

The main reason for our planned appearance during the two days in May is to continue promoting hydroponics and indoor gardening as a modern and effective means of growing incredible chilli plants. To do this even better than before, we will be showcasing a number of complete grow rooms specifically put together with producing chillies in mind. Expect to see working displays of quality tents, lights, growing systems and extraction kits. If that’s not enough, you can collect a free copy of the only-just-released GroWell 2012 catalogue and ask onsite Tech Team members any questions you may have about your plants or gardening in general. Don’t be shy!

The Eastnor Chilli Festival runs over Sunday the 6^th of May and Monday the 7^th of May 2012.

Getting to Eastnor Castle is relatively simple, but we have been told to advise you not to follow Sat Nav directions (Sat Nav reference: HR8 1RL) beyond Eastnor and Clenchers Mill Lane – instead stick to following the brown tourist signs.

Traveling by car from London, take the M4 West and exit at junction 15 (Swindon). Then follow the A419 to Cirencester and the A417 to Gloucester. Just before Gloucester, exit the A417 onto the M5 North (towards Birmingham) at junction 11A. Exit the M5 at junction 8 onto the M50, then exit the M50 at junction 2. Turn onto the A417 to Ledbury and from here follow the Brown Tourist signs for Eastnor Castle, going via the bypass and through Ledbury Town Centre onto the A449 (signed Worcester and Malvern). After 1 mile take a right onto the A438 (signed Tewkesbury and Eastnor) – the castle entrance will appear after another mile on the right hand side.

Traveling by car from the North or South, exit the M5 at junction 8 onto the M50, then exit the M50 at junction 2. Turn onto the A417 to Ledbury and from here follow the Brown Tourist signs for Eastnor Castle, going via the bypass and through Ledbury Town Centre onto the A449 (signed Worcester and Malvern). After 1 mile take a right onto the A438 (signed Tewkesbury and Eastnor) – the castle entrance will appear after another mile on the right hand side.

Recently we took a look at the several different ways that you can save plant genetics and then decided to put them to the test.

It all came about following a demonstration on tackling aphid infestations during the fruiting stage, whereby the question was asked; “if things somehow escalated and became worse, what options are available to try and save plant genetics?”

Having identified and explained the three main methods of saving plant genetics – overwintering, stratification of seeds and taking late cuttings – let us check up on the trials and examine our results.

The first method attempted was to overwinter the plant. This involves cutting everything right back to leave nothing but the main stem. Overwintering causes plants an incredible amount of stress, and without the ability to photosynthesise, can often lead to them hanging on for dear life! Even when you are successful, overwintered plants will still appear to be dying – so it’s tough to call! You must keep them in a fairly warm stable temperature, near a window to allow for some light. Fortunately this exercise took place over the actual winter months, meaning the light cycle was naturally the right one. Throughout summer months you would ideally house them in a tent and use a grow light to produce between eight and ten hours of light a day.

Signs of life started to show after several weeks, with tiny green shoots slowly emerging from the stem. At this point you put the plant into a tent and gradually increase the hours of light it receives until back up to the regular 18-hour vegetative light cycle.

As you can see, the growth has continued, suggesting that the overwintering process proved successful, and thus saved the genetics. Because the plant is mature, there are some flower buds starting to form. You do not want to start the flowering cycle yet, so these need to be pinched off to encourage the plant to continue the vegetative process and increase foliage. When more foliage is present, you could take cuttings from it to further improve the long-term chances of saving genetics.

The second method involved harvesting the seeds. Due to the fact that we were treating each exercise as a last chance scenario for saving the genetics we took the extra step of actually stratifying the seeds too. Placing the harvested seeds onto some kitchen towel that had been soaked in an Oxy Plus solution to prevent mould, you seal them in a plastic bag and move to the fridge for one to three months (depending on the species) to replicate winter conditions.

At the 8 week mark it was time to get them started. The process does not differ to starting seeds normally, but we will run through the steps again briefly.

Equipment required for this task includes a Propagator, Jiffy Pellets, Rhizotonic, a litre of water, and a saucer to soak the jiffy pellets in.

Add 4ml of Rhizotonic to the water to help develop a good root structure and then pour the mixture into the saucer holding the jiffy pellets. A few minutes later the jiffy pellets will absorb a sufficient amount of water and expand.

Next you place a single seed into each jiffy pellet, before gently pushing them into the pellet and disturbing the top so that they are covered. The jiffy pellets then need to be put into the propagator, with the lid placed on top and the vents closed. Position the propagator in your propagation area/tent and soon the seedlings will start sprouting. We expected a long agonising wait here as the Dorset Naga variety are notorious for taking a few weeks to get going. Only three weeks on though and there had been some germination success, with about a third of the seeds sprouting and developing into seedlings. Hopefully some more will sprout over the next couple of weeks, nevertheless, as it stands this can be counted as a success in so far as saving the genetics of the plant is concerned.

The third and final method of saving plant genetics is to take late cuttings. We had sprayed the infected plant with Pyrethrum, which turned out to be very effective in clearing the problem, allowing for this to become an option worth at least trying. Yet since the plant was already in the flowering stage, with chillies present, the odds of getting cuttings to take always remained low. Due to damage inflicted by the aphids, all cuttings unfortunately failed to root – hardly surprising given the damage caused by the aphids. The chances may have been slightly higher using an Aeroponic Propagator.

Overall the exercise has been a success, in as much that the over wintered plant seems to have made it, and some of the seeds sprouted!

You could be excused for thinking that there’s little room to innovate with something as simple as a plant pot. Yet the clever folks behind Rhizo-Pots have managed to prove the doubters wrong, developing a highly imaginative and – even more importantly – incredibly effective new design capable of significantly improving plant growth!

Established growing method, fresh thinking product 

Nothing is more familiar to a gardener than growing a plant in a pot full of media. Rhizo-Pots brings this basic technique bang up to date, so you still systematically water plants from the top but get much, much better results!

It almost sounds too good to be true, right? In the quest to understand why you are able to enjoy such success, direct your attention towards the unique fibrous structure of the material used for each product. By allowing you to fully harness the phenomenal benefits of air pruning roots, the products actively stimulate secondary roots to branch out from your plants! You can then expect to find additional root development, increases in overall root mass, better nutrient and water uptake, and quicker growing times due to the additional amounts of air able to get in and around the roots. Take a closer look at Rhizo-Pots by clicking here.

The nitty gritty!

As a plant grows, roots are sent out into the soil. When these roots hit the inner wall of a standard plant pot they will change direction and begin to circle – sometimes causing your plants to become root bound and potentially limiting their ability to take up nutrients and water. The fibrous construction of Rhizo-Pots encourages the roots that reach the pot wall to continue forwards and start growing through the foam-like substance. Once the root tip hits the air, it stops growing and stimulates the plant into sending out two new roots. This air pruning process continuously repeats leading to exponential root growth with no circling whatsoever.

Rhizo-Pots are sold flat pack for easy storage and work well with all types of growing media. Six different sizes exist – see the table below for the maximum number of each pot that will fit onto our five Garland Trays.

Citizens of the UK’s second city and its many surrounding areas can look forward to discovering a unique, specialist hydroponics and indoor gardening retail outlet, conveniently located within a few minutes drive of all the major road links. There are plenty of parking spaces accessible out the front and a loading bay for larger orders – meaning you won’t need to desperately search for somewhere to leave the car!

To help you pick out the products that best suit your requirements, we’ve made the informative displays at GroWell Birmingham one of our biggest priorities, alongside the usual consistently high stock levels and outstanding customer service. Upon opening to the general public, the store will feature numerous fully assembled growing systems, tents and lights, thereby allowing you to get a good idea of the size and workings of more complicated pieces of equipment before making a purchase.

We are proud to offer expert advice and guidance on growing plants at each and every one of our stores and GroWell Birmingham is destined to be no different. So if you have any burning questions about hydroponics feel free to pop by for a chat – we enjoy helping fellow gardeners!

GroWell Birmingham will begin welcoming visitors on Tuesday the 8th of May. Please keep checking our website for further updates including the launch date and opening times.

When is GroWell closed for Easter?

All the shops and mail order division will open between 11am and 4pm on Friday the 6th of April and Monday the 9th of April, only closing once over Easter on Sunday the 8th of April. If you want to use our guaranteed delivery service for getting your growing goods before Easter, order no later than midday on Wednesday the 4th of April. Purchases made through the website and mail order after this point will be dispatched from Tuesday the 10th of April.

GroWell’s debut couldn’t have gone much better thanks to the knowledgeable crowds’ appreciation of our lights and other equipment. We were successfully able to introduce the principles of hydroponics and indoor lighting to a great number of curious visitors.

Our stand certainly captured the imagination of many people passing by, mainly due to the eye catching display tent on show. We enjoyed talking to gardeners from all over the country about various different topics, one of the most popular being fluorescent lighting. With the world of hydroponics becoming ever more popular, and regarded more and more as having a crucial role in the future of food production, members of the GroWell team were also on hand to discuss the possibilities of becoming self sufficient.

James Wong, ethnobotanist and award presenter of award winning herbal remedy television shows gave talks on growing plants that would not normally be found in the UK, such as wasabi and the Stevia plant – whose leaves are 200 times sweeter than sugar. The main guest speaker helped demonstrated the untapped potential of what can be grown for those in attendance, and those visiting out stand either before of after were able to see how hydroponics and indoor gardening could help them achieve these goals.

Another celebrity guest, John Burton-Race, a Michelin star chef and television personality, gave cookery lessons and extolled the virtues of fresh produce. This was a popular source of conversation among visitors to our stand, interested in having fresh herbs or salad goods available to them all year round.

Despite the wide range of stands available, from solar power to bee keeping, seeds to organic meat producers, we all felt connected in doing our bit for the grow your own revolution. Throughout the weekend the amount of genuine interest in GroWell and Hydroponics proved quite staggering. We look forward to welcoming many new customers as a result of the show!

Current owners of grow tents should already know the product benefits, namely making the most of the light generated from a lamp and gaining heightened control over the environment. They are fantastic if you have grown large plants to fill the available area, but for small, young plants eventually heading outdoors there often seems to be a lot of wasted room. Setting up Ezi-Roll Light Hangers to optimise the position of the light does help, although a lot of vertical space still ends up being unused. Fortunately you can overcome the problem of empty vertical space by installing a utility shelf, which essentially adds another layer to your tent. They are robust enough to support propagators and a light, allowing you to create 2 square metres of floor space from a 1 metre square tent – clearly advantageous when propagation time comes around.

This article aims to walk you through installation of the utility shelf to double the amount of your available space.

First things first, check that everything you need is present. A factory packed kit can still be subject to errors so find out before you start work rather afterwards.

The next step is to completely remove everything from your tent – you do not want to damage plants or equipment should something go wrong. Clear an area around the tent since you will be required to dismantle parts of the tent in order to fit the shelf.

For simplicity’s sake assemble the utility shelf frame now, remembering to insert the centre support bar before adding the second side of the frame.

Once the shelf frame has been put together, remove the top of the tent by unzipping the zips, folding back the cover and disconnecting the framework. Carefully lift the shelf frame, since it is not totally stable at this stage, and ease over the top of the tent poles. Then move the shelf into the desired position, ensuring it is even, and tighten the screws to secure in place.

Clip the wire mesh support shelving onto the framework, making sure that each one sits as close to the respective pole as possible. Make sure the shelf is secure by pushing down on it. You’re now done, so reassemble the tent!

Fix the light back up, in this instance a SunMate CFL reflector. With the top shelf now free, some lighting can go here. Two T5 fluorescent tubes will suffice as these can sit straight on top of the propagators. The final step before reintroducing the plants is to make sure the lights work.

There we have it, twice as much available space for pretty minimal effort.