Mist System for Veggie Starts

As many of you know Im a small commercial grower of starter plants. My main focus is Heirloom tomatoes, peppers, and eggplant but Im not limited to these. Anyway, a fellow grower who starts other types of plants (mostly hardwood cuttings) suggested I think about getting a misting system. However, my first thoughts were bottom water and disease. I do have plenty of air circulation (fans and a HVAC system). I'm just looking for other people's thoughts and experiences. Thanks

This message was edited Nov 14, 2011 11:46 AM

LiseP,
Why don't you check with CalaLily. She's got a whole CG setup, and could probably give you leads for getting one installed if you decide on this.

Thanks GG Im really looking more for input. Ive been doing this for nearly 10 yrs with no mist system and really dont see a need for one. So Im just looking for advise havent even got to the installation part. I also need to edit my first post to say plants. That Im a commercial grower of starter plants not veggies.

Bear in mind that this just something I READ, not something I know:

Some book made the point that intermittent mist systems are surprising - instead of encouraging foliar diseases, they seemed to DIScourage them. As if the frequent light mist washed off spores, or something like that.

Your milage may vary.

Maybe someone in the Propagation forum has suggestions about the pluses andminuses.

We used mist systems in the greenhouses at the University of Georgia for starting cuttings some 35 years ago - they were indispensable for that. We used VERY open media - mostly coarse vermiculite or perlite, no peat or anything like that which would hold water, though I suppose anything that drained well enough (like coarse sphagnum) would work. Some of the rooting beds were just open frames or deep rectangular pots without bottoms, set on fine screens to hold the media in place and provide excellent drainage.

There were several systems used for controlling the mist, ranging from simple timers to complicated spring-loaded devices with pressure switches that acted similar to leaf surfaces (under investigation as a research project at the time). The latter triggered the mist to come on when they dried and got lighter, turned it off when the weight of the water overcame the spring. They had to be fine-tuned for the system and carefully-placed but as I recall they worked very well when proper attention was paid and didn't tend to over-water as much on cloudy days.

-Rich

I appreciate everybody's in put. If I was growing cuttings I think I might have a need for a misting system. However, ATM I just dont see a need for it while growing veggie starts. I have visited a couple local GHs and they had misters in some of their GHs. The veggie starts were not in these, they were in the bottom watering GHs.

The only possible advantage I could see with mist watering veggie starts is adding something to the solution to foliar-feed. That could be a weak fertilizer solution or some natural growth regulator (e.g.: seaweed extract, compost tea). That MIGHT get you some faster growth (faster to market, etc.), but it would require research to determine if there was any effect, and if it justified the additional expense.

-Rich

In addition to the veggie garden I have been an avid orchid grower for many years. My GH has a misting system, automated fans, vents and heaters. The humidity runs between 60% and 80% in the GH which is great for the species plants I grow. I would think that growing vegetables in those kind of conditions would be very conducive to disease spread. In fact, I have repeatedly rotted out veggie seedlings within a week by putting them in the GH when I need to be away. I set my misters to run for anywhere between five and fifteen minutes and every other to every three days during winter. As the weather warms I run them every day. Though our garden sticks to strict pesticide and fungicide rules I'm not beyond using toxic waste (imidacloprid) to prevent pests and disease on my orchids. Many are not easily replaceable. Without chemicals otherwise not safe for food it would be virtually impossible, IMO, to maintain disease free plants in that kind of humidity without disease problems.

Thanks Maypop, I agree my dad grows orchids in Ca and while they are not in a GH they are in a closed in area with a mister. I just don't think it's the correct environment for veggies. Cuttings, tropicals and certain other plants "yes" but not veggies.

I grew Eggplant one year and just getting the leaves wet caused leaf damage. It was a soggy wet spring and even though they were under a covered porch the humidity was really high. The plants did recover but the leaf damage was very obvious. I had to cut it away. Ikind of figured that I would get this response but I just wanted to check. Most of the veggie diseases posted on DG are on plants grown in wet climates, that should tell me enough.