BlogGrowstone | Growstone

How to Plant Seedlings in Growstones for Hydroponic Growing

Posted on February 21, 2012 by admin

Part of our “How to Use Growstones” series, here’s how to plant seedlings in Growstones for hydroponic growing – from germination and planting, to irrigation and maintenance.

by Paula Costa, PhD
Growstone Consultant for R&D Applications

Start Up

Most vegetable growers start growing from seed. Other growers either start with seeds or rooted clones. Both have advantages and disadvantages, so for these growers the decision depends on personal preference, cost, growing space, crop risk and turn around time. This article will focus on starting up from seeds.

New Mexico Business Weekly: “Growstone Ramps Up Glass Recycling”

Posted on February 15, 2012 by admin

From New Mexico Business Weekly, February 3, 2012

Growstone Ramps Up Glass Recycling

Growstone turns glass waste into plant growth medium for hydroponic and commercial uses

A homegrown company soon will operate 24/7 at Albuquerque’s Cerro Colorado Landfill to grind and bake scrap glass into an agricultural product. Growstone Inc. makes an environmentally friendly growing medium from glass that reportedly can aerate soil and improve production for hydroponic and commercial growers.

The company, which runs an 8,000-square-foot plant at the Westside landfill, just closed on a $3 million capital raise from private investors and the State Investment Council’s Co-Investment Fund to ramp up operations tenfold over the next six months, said Growstone CEO Mike Langone.

“We’ve increased our processing to about 30 tons per month now, but we plan to reach 300 tons per month, or about 3,600 tons annually, by June,” Langone said. “We’re getting out of startup mode and into full production.”

Jill Holbert, acting director of Albuquerque’s Solid Waste Management Department, said it’s a win-win project for the city and the company. Growstone pays $20 per ton for the glass it receives from the city, which collects about 3,000 tons of scrap glass annually. “There are limited opportunities to recycle glass in New Mexico, because the nearest recycling operation is in Colorado,” Holbert said. “This is a local recycler, so it eliminates shipping and other costs, and we get $20 for every ton.” Holbert said scrap glass is difficult to recycle because there are few commercial end-products. “Some municipalities grind it up for use in road base or in street medians, but there are limited opportunities,” she said. “If [Growstone] can compensate us and create a viable market for the glass, that’s very positive.”

How to Prepare Growstones for Hydroponic Use

Posted on February 9, 2012 by admin

Growstones are an ideal substrate to grow a wide variety of crops in different hydroponic system They are very flexible and simple to use, and can be used in all types of hydroponic systems – from simple manually irrigated containers, to advanced automatically irrigated ones such as top-drip systems, Ebb-Flow or NFT tables.

Also, because Growstones drain extremely well, plants growing in this substrate cannot be over irrigated, and thus the irrigation schedule can also be quite flexible and easy to adapt to potential limiting situations. For example, if you don’t have an irrigation timer on a top-drip system, you can still safely grow a healthy crop using Growstones, with no risk of root rot, or lack of oxygenation in the root zone.

Before using Growstones for the first time, it is recommended to prepare the medium. Below are simple recommendations for best results.

It’s Time to Strip Away Your Perlite and Hydroton Habit

Posted on January 30, 2012 by admin

If you ever visited a perlite and Hydroton strip-mining operation, you would see the havoc the production of these products cause. We don’t believe that anything as ugly as a strip-mine operation belongs in an industry that creates beauty. Instead, Growstone has gone in exactly the opposite direction. You might actually say we are in the double beauty business.

Growstone takes ugly piles of discarded glass from the landfill. We grind that glass down to a fine powder and turn it into Growstones using no excess energy and no precious water in the process. That’s how green our thinking is.

The results are a dust-free, 98% recycled, non-toxic, chemical-free products that researchers say are “better than Hydroton clay.” Their finding reported that Growstones “hold air and water better, are an excellent home for biologic life and make a great layer for in-soil growing keeping nutrients and oxygen freely flowing to roots. Everything got better with the addition of Growstones.”

When you are making your purchasing decisions, remember how much power there is in your purchase. Use your buying power to support products that add to the environment instead of detracting from it. And if you can choose products that do even more, than all the better.

Choosing Your Growing Medium

Posted on January 23, 2012 by admin

Maximum Yield article by Paula Costa, PhD, Consultant for R&D Applications for Growstone.

There are many different options for growing media available for hydroponics. Most growers, as anyone else involved in some regular activity, tend to develop personal preferences for a particular growing medium and no longer question its suitability for their current growing condition or crop, regarding physical characteristics, efficacy, cost and country of origin, or environmental impacts. Personal preferences aside, there are several key factors that should be taken into consideration before deciding which medium is best for you.

This article lists important factors that should be considered while choosing a growing medium, and explains the reasons for its importance.

The main purpose of a growing medium is to provide physical support and a buffering reservoir for water and nutrients in the root zone while maintaining an adequate supply of oxygen available to the roots. The medium alone is only responsible for providing physical support to the roots. The grower is co-responsible along with the growing medium, for the other functions. This means that crop, nutrition management, and the adequate choice of growing medium for the crop, determines how much water, nutrients and oxygen will be available to the roots and ultimately, how well the roots and plants grow.