Not dealing with the practicality of the support these will need, but, does anyone have any info on growing trees in this manner.
Mike
Beyond starting cuttings I donāt think its possible, unless you have unlimited funds. Hydroponics and aeroponics is just not meant for perennials. Youāll get some really nice and vigorous growth, but you will also get a massive root ball that will consume your emitters or misters or whatever and then the rest of the roots will dry out.
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I am thinking of growing citrus (kimquats & mandarines) up here in NY. That means that they have to be brought in every winter.
Because of this the tree needs to be kept small and manageable. Even if it is kept, small dragging a 15-25 gallon pot indoors is not something that I look forward to.
So I was thinking with a small tree it might not be a big deal to put together a supporting framework that would still be alot lighter than all that soil to drag in and out every year.
Mike
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Wheels already exist. Buy plant dollies. Just make sure your saucers are deep and large enough ! My dining room during the winter was an orangerie !
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I have given some thought to trying ebb & flow hydroponics on figs, using hydroton as substrate. I donāt think aeroponics is a good idea on anything that creates a massive root system. It would probably take years to get it right, and if you succeed, the results would probably be underwhelming. I played with aeroponics years ago. It was a waste of money and time for me. The nebulizers generate heat that spoils your hydro solution, which means you need a chiller for your reservoir. The same is true if you use a submersible pump and misters. The constant running heats up the solution, causing oxygen levels to drop to almost nothing. The solution spoils, and it spreads to your roots. Aero is a PITA. Ebb & flow hydro is fast, cheap, and highly effective.
These have some decent info.
It is far more realistic than aeroponics.
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Hi, I have a few trees currently growing aeroponically. I use full strength Masterblend Tomato nutrients, with added Phosphoric acid to keep the PH stable, but also because Masterblend itself doesnāt have enough Phosphorous for most plants Iāve come to notice.
Aeroponics is far cheaper in the long run than any other method of hydroponics, at least of the variety that uses water soluble fertilizer concentrates as opposed to aquaponics, where in theory could be basically free once itās set up. Also heat is definitely not a concern in any way for aeroponics, I donāt even know how someone would figure that. The pump only runs for about 10-30 seconds depending on your setup every 5-15 minutes(trees can go for about an hour without water, especially if you have a retention resevoir on the bottom so you donāt risk any dry-out, even after a day or two for local power concerns) Also de-oxygenation of water in aeroponics should be impossible unless the system is entirely sealed or you for some reason have an oxygen free environment where the system is set up. The whole point of aeroponics is to have the highest possible oxygenation environment, and never in my life have I come across any issue with deoxygenated or warm water when it comes to aeroponics. Even using a little water pump and those cheap red mister heads, you only need to run it for a few seconds, run the misters above the roots, and youāre good to go. Bottom resevoir for safety(which in the design I use, the bottom resevoir is simply me not being able to fully drain the system, but itās more of a benefit than an issue as lower roots donāt care if they have atomized water or not)
Ebb and Flow is great, but the issues stated above arenāt entirely an issue. If roots become too large, root trimming is easy enough to do, and prevents any issues. But a large root mass is almost never an issue, as aeroponics misters are, in most setups Iāve seen, and use myself, are above the root systems. Iād say the benefits of aeroponisc in this case would be the extremely rapid growth, the quickest possible way to go from a seed or a cutting to a fruiting plant. In the case of an annona family you could get from seed to a fruiting plant within 8 months if you use continuous lighting and stock up the nutrients and then force red light. This requires full vegetative growth in the beginning so Iād recommend entirely blue spectrum lighting methods, with no red if possible. I personally use Mains driven COB LED packages I ordered from Aliexpress and strapped onto a computer heatsink. Itās fairly ghetto-rigged but it is leaps and bounds above using a full spectrum, be it a āsunlikeā full spectrum light, or the āblurpleā ones. This also keeps the root system far smaller as roots wonāt really grow too much without red light, and once the light is introduced in a mature fruiting plant the roots donāt grow much more as it focuses on fruiting.
The introductory price of aeroponics is about $180 USD for the system that I use, and each plant resevoir in my moderately mediocre modicum of Home Depot bargain shopping costs an extra 7.97 to add onto the system. A single pump will power at least 20+ mister heads.(Iām not entirely sure where the system will start having an issue with too many misters but I think itās around 65 based on the poor math I did)
tl;dr, if you want the fastest possible fruit production from seed, aeroponis is definitely the way to go
Plants with taproots are fine as long as you let the taproot go to the furthest possible point in the growing environment before trimming the taproot.
Pruning plants in an aeroponic environment has practically no negative impact on the plant, even compared to my DWC system where some stunting occured.
Now then on to the other side of the discussion, a mobile system would be possibly a bit difficult aeroponically, but thatās probably just because I never tried it. Itās not very hard to connect more growing chambers into an aeroponic system, all youād need to do is plug it straight into the line, and you could have, say, an outdoor and an indoor system in place, where youād just have letās say 5 gallon buckets, a mister tee connect with two tubings from both sides that just plug into the system, daisy-chain style.
Okay, as I finished writing that, I just realized, you could just transfer the top portion of the system, the lid with the plant itself in it, and put it onto an indoor systemās bucket, and just leave the outdoor systems as is. I suppose I forgot how I actually transfer my plants, I use the HDX yellow/black storage bins from Home Depot for my set up, and all I do is take off the lid and move the plants around as I please. If you want the lightest possible plant for mobility sake, aeroponics would definitely be it.
Also I made this account specifically for this comment.
A link to the items needed to create an aeroponics system will be below(theyāre not affiliate links or anything, itās just what I use)
[A nice filter bag(I use coffee filters because Iām cheap)](amazon com/gp/product/B004F9BOCU/ref=ox_sc_saved_title_6?smid=AMLUJCOAVH826&psc=1)
[Tubing](amazon com/gp/product/B00KYL57NK/ref=ox_sc_saved_title_8?smid=A1U11IP6K6NHAK&psc=1)
[Fittings, not in any particular order, these are just the types that may or may not be needed](amazon com/gp/product/B07RW4H2RH/ref=ox_sc_saved_title_9?smid=A37DFQ476WZ5XM&psc=1)
(sorry about the broken links, apparently I can only have two links per post as Iām a new user. Hopefully I donāt get banned or anything for cheating the system. 
The misters shown here are ridiculously expensive, you can get like a 25 pack of them and tap into a connector yourself for way less, the misters would only be like a dollar or two each instead of like 5 dollars. Also youād want to loop the entire system so you get even pressure distribution, so you run one side of line with the misters, and just Tee it at the end and return to a T at the start of the pump, that way the entire line has a mostly normalized pressure across it, that way you donāt need a pressure resevoir(those little tanks that reverse osmosis systems have to keep the filtered water under pressure)
Hopefully this doesnāt seem too complicated, once an aeroponic system is set up itās no more difficult to expand than any other hydro system.
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Hello Ehco. I just join the site today. I am real interest on your design for your fruit trees with using Aeroponic. I have been searching for a few months now on an Aeroponics for fruit tress, I have not found nothing until I finally came upon this site.
Do you have any photos of your system? Can you plant a tree from a seed directly into a 5 gallon bucket or do you have to grow the seed first before you can place into a 5 gallon bucket?
I am new to this Aeroponics and everything I read seams the way to go for a mid size farm that I hope I can open up next year. I would like to grow 5 apple trees, some banana trees, avocado trees, lemon trees, orange trees maybe some walnut trees and not sure what else I would like to grow. There is not info out on the internet about Aeroponics only thing i can find so much about is Hydroponic
Hear is a site you might be interest in https://aeroponicsdiy.com/ . At the end of the year he will teach everyone free of charge on how too build a True High Pressure Aeroponics hope that will help you also.
I have seen many bold claims about the efficacy of aeroponics. There never seems to be any good data to accompany the claims. I would love to see fruit trees grown outdoors in aeroponics. Maybe the citrus would taste sweeter, knowing they cost 10 man hours & $10 per fruit.
āHow can I make my orchard more complicated?ā asked no farmer, ever.
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I would think that especially Citrus trees can fruit well, even if theyāre small and in pots, provided theyāre grafted onto dwarfing Trifoliate rootstock. Small potted Citrus trees with fruit on them are very common in plant nurseries. I have a tiny potted Calamondin myself that I barely have to take care of and it produces a crop each year. But that one is probably the easiest because the fruit are tiny.
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Hi, as a general rule of thumb for most hydroponic or aeroponic systems, youāll grow the seedling out to at least the first or second set of true leaves, until its used up most of its internal energy, in generally pure water, reverse osmosis is what I use, but it could very well be tap water, generally you want to stay away from nutrients in the first stage of growing as seeds/seedlings are susceptible to nutrient toxicity.
Before continuing, I canāt post more than one image, or a few links, so if youād like to see the photos in accordance with the āPhotoā spots in this, theyāre available at this drive link. 19.jpg - Google Drive
I havenāt grown a banana in an aeroponic system, but I did grow it in coconut coir with the same masterblend fertilizer and it grew very well, they have very shallow root systems so theyād grow fine aeroponically but theyād be a little tricky to get situated in a container, probably using a foam disc to hold it could work well, but bananas are a little bit weird as far as plants are concerned. A dwarf banana would be perfect though, as opposed to a 38 foot banana with an output of 300 lbs of bananas. If youāre planning on growing any full sized tree aeroponically, youād probably want some in ground chambers created to support how massive a tree can get, but if youāre doing only 5 gallon buckets, as long as you either purchase dwarf plants, or trim them to be dwarfish it shouldnāt be a problem. As far as fruit sizes you wouldnāt really need to worry about a small versus a large fruited plant, just know that small fruits always look way more awesome since you get a large yield in terms of quantity, and flower to fruit times are far quicker with smaller fruits. I have absolutely no information about growing any form of nuts, walnut or anything else, so I have no idea how those would work, but apples, and citrus, grow well in aeroponics(Iād assume walnut is fine but I have no actual experience with those plants at all)
While I donāt use a bucket approach myself, I do have a few photos of them when I had them up and running, but the gist of it is the same for any container, you have the plant suspended over some enclosed container, a bucket with a lid, a sterilite tub, even a large plastic bottle could work. You then introduce the misting heads, generally around the upper portion of the system, and if applicable, either a method of return so the excess water returns to a main resevoir which is where the pump pulls from, or you connect the bottoms of all of the containers to create a large connected resevoir system, where the pumpās resevoir and all of the buckets are connected, say with PVC pipe from the bottom, so the fluid never truly empties from each bucket entirely, ensuring youāre able to have in essence, DWC/Kratky for bottom roots, and aeroponics for upper roots, kind of a failsafe to ensure you donāt lose anything if for some reason your pump fails(Iāve never had this experience)
My current arrangement, I plant out my plants once they get to fruiting stages as I donāt have much room indoors to grow trees, and I dislike topping them to dwarfism, Iām a stickler for unneutered foliage. With my current growing session I have a few trees amongst my plants, however Iām cutting back and changing my focus around from growing to a few others things, including gunsmithing in these, call them conflicting, periods in time.
Photo #1
I apologize for the lack of proper photographs or documentation, I never really thought to publicize what I had but I understand the significant lack of anything relating to aeroponics is a major hurdle for people trying to get into it.
This is an Inga Edulis seedling, and this is the stage I removed it from sterile coconut coir to add to the aeroponic system.
Photo #2
This is a seedling of some variety of Annoncea/sugar apple. I believe this one may have been an African Pride but I honestly donāt remember.
Photo #3, #4, #5
I also have an oudoor aeroponic tube, which I later changed to normal ebb and flow, but it was a foray into experimenting with very minimal root allowance. This is an earlier photo testing a few things out, so there are failed plants and what Iād like to call development issues.
Photo #6, #7
One of my excuses for current neglect on other growing endeavors is Iāve attempted to grow out 54 pawpaw seedlings to disperse amongst the neighborhood in an effort to reincorporate pawpaws into the surrounding area. I suppose Iāll attempt some aeroponic pawpaws, but theyāre pretty strange little trees so Iāll have to thing about that a little before I start jamming them in there.
Photo #8
This is my Inga Edulis as of right now, after 30 days in aeroponics.
Photo #9, #10
It has fairly browned root tips, but I believe thatās a trait of either this specific species of plant, or the fact that itās a legume and has some strange root coloration.
The system the plants are grown in is this sterilite tub for now, as Iām limited in indoor lighting and I prefer growing plants entirely indoors so I donāt have to worry about my local population of bugs decimating them, but as my tube grow experiment has shown, for whatever reason the plants grown in a hydroponic/aeroponic environment have, at least in my area and in my experience, very little issue with pests.
This is an older photo, but it encapsulates the system fairy decently from a top view(Currently you can barely see the top portion of the system as the plants have completely consumed it with foliage)
Photo #11
This was the bucket system, connected to the same pump, but with unlinked resevoirs. I never ended up connecting them because I didnāt like the overabundance of spacing between plants, which could have been solved a few ways, such as using a bucket for more than one plant, but I decided to do away with it for the time being because I didnāt want to go out and actually connect the resevoirs between all the systems.
Photo #12
For the buckets, on the left is a rollinia that I purchased as a rooted cutting, then a strawberry, and finally a watermelon.
The inside of the sterilite, or I suppose home depot generic equivalent.
Photo #13, #14
As you can see, I have misters on the top portions, I added more later, if I can Iāll get a shot but I donāt think I can really do it right now without grabbing a machete to cut back the plants. The intake is the black tube in the rear, I donāt use any filtration for it because I was too lazy to put a coffee filter on it, but it so far has had no issue with clogging and Iām really lazy.
Photo #15
The outward appearance of that last shot, which is just a snippet from the first posted image, shows the pump, the intake location into the side of the resevoirs, and the output, please ignore the dirty carpet, my cat was playing in some coconut coir and spilled it everywhere.
Photo #16
Hereās an updated photo of the outdoor growing tube arrangement, ignore the flex-seal, the original cap I bought didnāt fit so I had it rigged up with duct tape as an improvised wall to prevent the water leaking out for a while, I finally fixed it last night but I canāt find the willpower to stand up and walk over to it to take a picture. Iāll get around to it eventually, but I just ate about 7 lbs of barbecue and I feel as though I canāt stand up without passing out.
Photo #17
Please excuse the dirty carpet once again, Iāve been neglecting. The two containers are connected via two PVC pipes on the bottom, sealed up with some putty and then flex sealed over, seems to work well enough. The upper PVC pipe was for the original fountain pump low pressure aeroponics, which also worked very well but Iāve moved on from that.
The original Annoncea/Sugar apple thing now looks like this.
Photo #18
And this is the rollinia that was in the original bucket system
Photo #19
I very much prefer growing from seed over growing from a cutting, or at least a cutting purchased off ebay that was in shipping for 13 days and delivered to my neighborās house.
The dark spots on the Rollinia are from the initial sunburn fro the grow lights I used, as it was pretty well adapted to growing in a lowly lit greenhouse, and in the absolute absence of light during shipping.
The Annoncea/Sugar Apple thing has dead spots on it from when my cats decided the plants were their next swatting victim.
Upon reaching this stage, Iāve now realized that Iām unable to post more than a single image as Iām still a new user. Very nice. Alright, Iāve numbered the photos and I have them in a drive. The extra photos are just some tomatoes if you care about them.