It's been a long and badly-signposted road into the world of biostimulants up until last week. The market exists in that gray medium where expectations and promises are high, untethered by a lack regulatory standards and fishy marketing. Combined with the sheer variety of products promising monster roots and unbelievable harvests it's quite easy to feel overwhelmed with the options. 

There are many many different bacteria and mycorrhizae that can promote plant growth, and most research repeatedly shows that a rich diversity of microorganisms is optimal since there's more of a "net" if you where to look at the flow of energy as opposed to a single "linear" flow from the single metabolism offered by only one type of microorganism. Additionally, amino acids have been shown to be best in a combination of each, but glycine (thanks to the bare-bones simplicity of the molecule) has been observed to produce the best results when used as a nitrogen source. 

Some trial and error has led me to a couple certain improvements to my nutrient solution. I now start my seeds with some Superthrive and mix my substrate with small amounts of Great White and Agro Silicate powder. I add about 50 ppm of Silicate and half the recommended amount of Great White into my fish tank as well some 25 ppm of glycine. In one week my arugula shoots have exploded and my potted plants perked up like they just had the plant equivalent to an strong coffee.

In these past couple of months Kodaponics has entered a new phase of research and development. As Connor and I began Kodaponics one of the motives was to create a legal embodiment of our shared passions and curiosities with which we could compile a compendium of the botanical knowledge and aquaponic wizardry we discover along our path. The more we learn, the more it becomes evident that we know nothing about how fantastically intricate the lives of microbes, mushrooms and plants are woven together. 

Well, this next phase is all about the refinement of the aquaponic process. We learned that we could grow things real fast and big. All six of our outdoor systems produced massive mint, okra, basil, cucumber, pepper, passion flowers, turks cap, lemon balm, lemon verbena, and more. With everything we learned we can take this winter to hunker down and level up our more nuanced understanding of horticulture. Connor has moved to Colorado to serve as a kodaponics liaison to the wonderful world of aquaponic cannabis. Our winter reading list is mainly comprised of amazing new sciences like biostimulants, beneficial mycorrhizae, plant growth promoting bacteria, and so on. We hope to apply this in our fledgling Kodaponics 420 research project that will result in a comprehensive aquaponic cannabis production system.

I also want to give a shout out to https://blog.feedspot.com/aquaponics_blogs/ for mentioning us as top aquaponic blog. We're excited to continue sharing what we've learned!

Cheers,
Javier