another photo.

Thanks for sharing your experiment.

Next year, try some coco-peat and also a perlite/vermiculite mixture (70/30?). I would be interested to see how those mediums compare to the peat moss.

i am planning on trying the perlite/ vermiculite mix. i have a local source for 14$ for a 4 cubic feet bag. i would like to try the coco but cant find a reasonable price on it considering the shipping cost. it gets expensive when you grow 1000 plants. lol

interesting test.
is this using a drip system? is it run to waste?
what was your nutrient concentration and over what timespan was this done?

they are run to waste. i use .5 tsp chem gro per gal of water every 2-3 days with plain water in between. i will be moving th plants to my drip system this week. i've been hand watering so far. here is my drip system i set up.

oh yeah, the plants are 4 weeks old approx. transplanted 2 weeks ago. grown from seed.

Is there a reason the yellow feed line is in direct sunlight? If it were me, if I couldn't berry the line I would use pipe insulation to insulate it from the above around heat/sun. No reason to feed your plants with hot water.

HH;
I believe that line is to fill the rez. the black line is the one that goes to the drippers.

correct. thats just a water hose. it is not under continuous pressure. the other end isn't even connected to the water source. i connect it when i need it. the black line is buried also i only have to water once a day in the morning and the lines are not hot then. i only use nutrient 2-3 days a week. the medium is peat moss and perlite which has a decent cec. the other days i hook up the water hose and use straight water. my water has alot of sodium in it and has a ppm of around 450 from the tap. the medium needs regular flushing.
btw this was my first attempt at growing anything really and next time i will be doing things differently. i am gonna buy an injector of some kind to inject nutrient. if i dont run straight water through the system regularly, the drippers start to clog. they barely drip. i'm lookin in to an ezflo injector. they are fairly cheap.i'll get two if i go with this brand. one for chemgro, one for calcium nitrate. i also plan on automating the system with a timer and controller. next year i will be growing around 1500 plants.i want to start using perlite/vermiculite mix also. the plants in peat look good and all, but wetting it up is a total pain. i have some floating in water for 3 days and its still dry. it makes my sneeze too. lol i wanted to use pine bark because it is so cheap but i am not getting good results from it. the plants in bark are light green in color and noticeably smaller than the ones in perlite or peat moss. the bark may be using up the nitrogen. idk

the pine could be lowering the pH making the nitrogen unavailable. Also, if you didn't filter the fines out of the pine bark, maybe it's compacting to cause the plants to put more energy into roots than into leaves?
just a couple of thoughts.

thought i'd post an update. the plant in the peat moss medium has excellent vegative growth, more so than those in the bark or perlite. however i have noticed that the perlite and bark plants have 3 bloom clusters, while the peat plant has only one and they haven't opened yet.i know peat supplies some nitrogen so that may be responsible for the differences. i wish i had tried multiple plants to get a more accurate experiment.
i think grizzman is on to something about the compaction of the bark. the plant in the fresh bark is ok. it has a much more uniform particle size than the composted bark. i started some seeds in bark and perlite last week. the seedlings in the straight perlite are 10 times bigger than the seedlings in the bark.

do you have a filter on the drip feed line?

i use drip with raw salt nutrients.. calcium nitrate, monopotassium sulfate, magnesium nitrate,

i mix em myself instead of buying store bought hydro nutes

if anyone was gonna have clogged drip lines i would.. but i dont

filter.. you can get different microns.. the isreali filters are good but they need to be close to plants and you can only run so many drip lines thru one of these so you may need a couple...

i also used a filter designed for chiller with a 1" inlet and outlet and it works well for what you got

i got 80 dripp lines on 1 filter and it works great

i couldnt find the actual casing but heres the replacemnt filter for the one i have

i bet the ones they sell at lowes for well sediment would be good also.. the filter looks like yarn rapped around a 12" tube

oops forgot to giv you the link

http://www.altgarden.com/ecoplus-sediment-filter.html

Did you add any lime to that peatmoss?

The funny thing is the cheapest media grew the best tomato plant!

This is one of the best grow media tests ever! :)