I needed to make space in my Aerogarden Bounty to plant some new seedlings, so rather than kill the entire crop I decided to try and save them by transplanting to my Kratky container.
Transplanting from the Aerogarden Bounty can be quite difficult; the fine roots of the hydroponic lettuce wrap around the plastic support bars, and unfortunately rip easily when removing from the cups.
I was also using the Jiffy 36mm Peat Pellets which have a very fine mesh wrapping, and removing this mesh would rip any remaining small roots. Normally you wouldn’t have to remove the mesh, or even seperate the lettuce from the peat pellets, however I wanted to try out my new cloning collars.
By the time that the lettuce was removed from the Aerogarden Bounty container and the Jiffy had been removed and all peat washed off, only the major roots of the lettuce were left. The poor plants were definitely going to go into shock, and may not survive at all.
Day One
Ouch. It doesn’t look like the lettuce is going to survive; I think I pulled off too many roots and shocked the plants way too much.
Since the roots are so short now I have the water level half way up the net cups. This leaves very little space for any air roots to grow, especially given the size of the lettuce already.
Day Two
They still look bad, but thankfully at close inspection they seem to be recovering slowly. It’s hard to tell in the photo, but they are a little perkier than on Day One. You can see the centre back lettuce sticking one of his leaves straight up now, compared to yesterday’s droop.
The lettuce at the front right seems to be the last to start recovering; none of his leaves are currently stiffening up again.
Day Three
I pulled off some of the biggest leaves that did not look to be recovering (and ate them); I want the plant focusing on fresh growth of roots and new healthy leaves rather than saving pre-existing leaves.
The lettuce are definitely recovering by this point; the centres are much more perky and green.
Generally you shouldn’t expose the Kratky nutrient solution and roots to light, but I couldn’t resist a quick look to see how the roots were recovering.
The roots are all slightly brownish, with several potential reasons: firstly the nutrient solution is a brownish tinge and could be discolouring the roots, or secondly there could be root rot developing. If the roots turn dark brown or black and become slimy then I have root rot.
The lettuce that seems to be recovering the most are on the left side of the container, which is reflected in their root development; these two lettuce have already grown roots beyond their net cups! Surprising how fast they grow!
You can’t see it in the photo, and its hard to see in person even, but some of the roots have started to develop a white fuzz. Here is an example of a reddit user with the white fuzz on their roots. This is not mold and is actually a sign the plant is “healthy” (or in this case recovering) as it helps with nutrient absorption. The roots are expanding their surface area and will either develop longer roots from these points, or remain fuzzy.
I’ll keep an eye on the lettuce and post an update in a few days. Fingers crossed they will fully recover. Until then, have you had any transplant success or failures?