Hydroponic supplies
Submitted by Mike on Tue, 2012/03/20 - 14:29.
We are going to be doing small-scale hydroponics experiments with berries and would like to get our hands on some small quantities of commercial hydroponic liquid nutrient concentrates or powders (we plan to compare results against a tea brewed from worm casings). Any ideas about where we could find this in Nicaragua?
If not, I will have to have it sent to me from up north. Should I expect the usual enormous bullshit from Customs and the post office, or am I worrying over nothing?
My good friend Roger is trying hydroponics but he is not using concentrates developed specially for hydroponics, and as for the results, well you had better ask him.
A company called Ball is planning a big hydroponic operation in Esteli but they are not up and running yet and so of no use to us.
At first we will be using a very simple system that we can make locally, but if anyone has any hydroponic equipment they would like to get rid of, please send me a PM.
By the way, if you are interested in running some hydroponic experiments yourself, please contact me. It would be very productive to start a network of people doing different field trials in different parts of Nicaragua.
Please do not use this thread to discuss aquaponics or aeroponics because that is beyond the scope of what we are trying to do.
The usual up to $500 every six months rule would apply
If I were ordering something I hadn't ordered before from a firm that didn't often ship internationally, I'd try a small amount first, but I haven't had any problems with Correos/Aduana on shipments of things up to $500 every six months. Correos has been reliable (books, two shipments of camera gear).
Rebecca Brown
commercial basis
If you are doing this on a commercial or large scale basis you need to have a customs broker and pay the applicable fees. i suspect the taxes on agricultural materials are much less than for consumer electronics, but you never know till you try. I hope, in addition to these costs, you don`t get any obstructionist behavior. It can come with the terrritory, but that is what your customs broker is for.
Along the lines of Rebecca`s comments, make sure whoever is shipping from abroad has the exact contents documented in english and Spanish. This should be no problem with a commercial shipper because they live with a million laws all the time, but explain it to them anyway.
For my hobby projects I have decided to use local materials only to avoid the hassle. This does involve starting from square one. For example, for hanging baskets I buy maseteras locally or recycle various plastic containers. Then I drill more drainage holes and holes for the wire hangers. Then I buy galvanized wire by the pound at a local hardware store and make and attach the hangers. Needless to say, all of this is time consuming. Stateside, I would just go online and the finished hanging baskets would be UPSed to me within a week.
I will bring a couple small items from the States next time, such as nursery tye tape and plastic labels, but these are small items in the total process. Meanwhile, I make aluminum tags from beverage cans and tye tape from the plastic bags that supermarket milk comes in. Again, all of this is labor intensive, but beats folling with local or Managua suppliers for small projects.
Don`t expect a big outfit like Las Limas to provide you with materials unless you smooze them a lot and get real lucky.
If there are any local greenhouse projects in your area, you might want to go chat with them to see their materials and suppliers. There are a couple nursery wholesalers in Managua you may want to visit if you haven`t already. One of them is named something like technoriegos.
"You can avoid reality, but you cannot avoid the consequences of avoiding reality." Ayn Rand
No taxes
There are no taxes on agricultural imports including equipment. That said, it may only apply if you are doing it commercially. I know Roger had a disaster when he did not get a container of argricultural supplies pre-approved.
The catch is the "secondary" category...
The one that maybe overriding.
e.g. Environmental, green and energy saving products may be listed as tax free. Luxury items are not.
A solar powered water filter/cooler combination unit from china was deemed to be a luxury item - ergo taxed at 40%.
Thanks
Thanks for the information Billy Bob. I am doing this as a hobby, not on a commercial basis, but this information is nonetheless very useful.
I see from another post that you are growing plants in soil in containers. Are you also trying hydroponic?
No
The veggies in containers are to grow my own supply of Mexican chiles and to try to get a crop of tomatoes without all the fungus disasters. Hydroponics seems like a high-tech answer to a low-tech problem for me. Next project is to rig up a plant structure to keep the rain off the plants while still allowing air circulation and keeping the costs down. Usually this is done here by making a roof of plastic supported by a minimalist structure of wood or iron. I`m aiming for dry season tomatoes but will also try some in the rainy season. peppers seem to be more resistant to moisture problems. Note than in more critical stuff I am using heat sterilized soil as part of the mix. This can be done economically by putting trays of soil in our wood fired oven after finishing with the cooking for the day. by morning it is cool and ready to use.
The advantage to hydroponics would be to have the whole system sealed in a greenhouse to keep out the rain and the insects which spread diseases. Mother nature is not always your ace boon coon down here--white flies spread diseases, the sun in the latter part of the dry season is too intense, heavy rains physically damage plant parts, flooding kills roots, and unsterilized native soil splashing on leaves also spreads diseases. A hydroponic greenhouse system could fix all of this, but it all has to be done at the same time and done right to justify the costs.
The nursery trade here is very primitive to say the least. Standard potting mix is pure clay! Imports like peat and perlite are pricey and environmentally unsound. I was talking the other day to some contacts at the Botanical Garden in Leon and they had expressed some interest in my efforts to make a decent planting mix with locally available materials. I`m working on this. It`s doable, but I need to get my ducks in a row before the raining season when everything can become a pita very quickly. I am working on 3 mixes--standard, cactus and succulent, and epiphyte. Probably need a seed starter mix, too, but the standard mix can work for this.
"You can avoid reality, but you cannot avoid the consequences of avoiding reality." Ayn Rand
Very interesting
Good to get your take on things Billy.
Some thoughts .....
Have you considered putting your plants under shade cloth when it's threatening to rain? When it rains heavily, the fat drops splatter when they hit the cloth and little water actually drips through. The benefits of cloth are that it's cheap, easy to find here, and you can reuse it during dry season to protect the plants from too much sun.
Also, as local alternatives to peat and perlite, have you thought about busting up the clay by using risk husks and/or coir (the fibre from coconut husks)? Both are free and abundant here. As well, coir is supposed to contain lots of aspergillus terreus which helps control bad fungi.
I have thought about using coir as a hydroponic growing medium but to use it, we would probably need to shred it, and then it would clog the pots. So we will probably use pumice instead.
You are right of course about the benefits of a hydroponic greenhouse, but its capital and operating costs I think are beyond the budget of a hobbyist like myself. Also, a greenhouse-based hydro system is very complex and a small mistake could lead directly to failure.
It strikes me that you are baking the soil for the same reason I am trying to experiment with hydroponics --- to minimize damage done by the ferocious soil-borne organisms of the tropics. I know people who try to solarize the soil for the same end.
An outdoor hydro system would achieve the same result and might offer other benefits. Most notably, by chilling the nutrient solution somewhat, one should be able to cool the root system. And it should also be possible to put the plants into crude but effective evaporative cooling chambers. This might enable someone to grow plants that otherwise could not quite tolerate the heat of the tropics.