When you’re growing high value hydroponics crops you’ve invested a lot of time and money in, you rely on your plants and gardening skills…but you also rely on trusting the folks who make hydroponics nutrients and supplies.

Check out this article from Rosebud Magazine's very own grower guru, Erik Biksa. This one is straight from the pages of the latest issue of Rosebud Magazine, and talks about a very important issue arising for growers: smart meters. For those of you who don't know, smart meters represent a serious threat to the privacy of everyone, indoor growers and non-growers alike. A concerned grower wrote in to ask Erik about this, and in true Biksa fashion, Erik served up the masterful advice of a hydroponics expert. This article will give you all the info you need to protect your grow and your personal life. Check it out!

It’s tough to argue against aeroponic cloning if you want big, healthy root systems fast. That’s why this spring, when beans pop and prop domes crop, we’re outfitting you with this run-down and comparison from the Big Three of comparibly priced aeroponic cloning systems. Plant ’em if ya got ’em, and good luck out there this season!

For many indoor gardeners, everything starts with cuttings (aka clones). If you can’t get rooted plants, you will never have a functioning garden. So how do we get stem cuttings that will root quickly and thoroughly? And how does a plant stem generate roots in the first place?

Q:

I want to construct a grow operation that uses IN/OUT ventilation, but only have access to one eight inch diameter duct for IN and one eight inch diameter duct for OUT. I want to run about 12 lights (not all in the same room or timer), and don't have a problem with supplying some supplemental air conditioning for the three or four weeks of the year where fans just won't cut it around here.

Check out this piece covering one of the hottest growing topics in the hydroponics industry – Networked Growing Systems. This is the talk of the town and is ripped straight from the pages of the latest edition of Rosebud Magazine. And best of all, this one is courtesy of the inimitable expertise of grower guru Erik Biksa. Enjoy!

Hey growers, here are some tips for navigating your local hydroponics store. Enjoy!

I never thought of myself as a guy who looked down on women. I love and respect my mom and sisters. I’ve spent a lot of my adult life trying to find a good woman and feeling lonely when I didn’t have one.

Of course, you never know what you’ll find when you go out looking for something. When I decided to get serious as a gardener, I went to the hydroponics store looking for advice, but there were only two employees and both of them were female.

Since their introduction as a practical electronic component in 1962, LEDs (light-emitting diodes) have found their way into millions of devices. And to say that LEDs have made their mark on the indoor growing industry is an understatement. Because LEDs differ so greatly from our current HID/MH horticultural lighting technologies, many growers don’t know exactly how to make LEDs work for them.

Grow tents have been popping up all over for the past decade or so. It used to be that you had to construct your own grow room, and the old-fashioned way left you with a labor-intensive, clunky, inflexible space to grow your crops in. It functioned well enough, but it was nothing like what the people at Homebox have come up with.

This week we’re discussing something often overlooked by new growers - container sizes. This is a key factor in your successful grow, but many newbies stumble along the way when learning about getting your plants into the right pots. In this edition of Hydro 101, I'll tell you how to pick out the correct container size for optimal results, and also what to expect from the container size you choose.

Springtime in the suburbs. Here’s how my suburb came to exist…

A farmer and his family grew corn, greens, and alfalfa here for six generations.

Until 19 years ago, the rains came reliably in the right amounts and times so his crops grew fine.

Then the rains went away and the winters got warmer. The farmer struggled on as long as he could. Finally he gave up and sold out to a developer. The developer cut cul de sac roads and crammed as many houses in as possible.

Answers for April's Quiz:

1. C

2. A
3. B
4. A

Hey Folks, c’mon down and join us here in Hydro Lingo Bingo-the game where you get to show your level of hip-talk in hydroponics. Check with us online at rosebudmag.com/lb for the correct answers.

Nobody likes to admit it when it happens, and you rarely see IT alongside the glory shots. That’s right, we are talking about when growing disasters strike. And if you have been growing for a while, you know that “it” happens, sometimes almost overnight. However, more often than not, there is a gradual ramp-up leading up to your crop falling over the cliff.

Here is one such tale: