Hello,
I have just setup four MARSfarm boxes for my institution and have successfully been able to have my boxes connect through Ethernet and begin logging data. I would like to create a custom “recipe” for my different boxes.
I watched the video, on how to create new trials,
as well as have looked at the JSON example. I’m just unsure on how I would be able to change these parameters in order to be able to have conditions appropriate for my projects as being able to modify and change them. If anyone has any information or advice that would be much appreciated.
tl:dr -how to change from default settings (ie: Light_Intensity:300umol, Light_Duration:14hours, Temperature:90F, Irrigation:200ML)
**to ** Light_Intensity:>300umol, Light_Duration:16hours, Temperature:not increased, Irrigation:200ML
This is awesome! I will be more than happy to make a new recipe for you, I just need you to clarify a few questions first:
What is your goal DLI? I see that you seem to want as much light as possible - is that correct? If so, we will use max light intensity settings for this recipe at 16 hours photoperiod (5 am - 9 pm) which would be a DLI 20.9 per day.
It sounds like you don’t want me to increase the temperature, does that mean you don’t want the heater to run at all? If you set the temperature below whatever your room temperature is likely to be, it will cause the exhaust fan to run continuously - is that ok? That being said, the units can increase the temperature by about 15˚F over whatever your room temperature is.
It looks like you don’t like any changes to the irrigation, so it will run at 9:05 am - is that ok?
Also, while it does appear all your units are now connected, I am concerned that only one of them has been whitelisted thus far. Can you please clarify if there is any difference between unit MV1-0003 and any of the others? It may be worth restarting (unplugging and plugging them back in) would be helpful, especially if that has not been done since connecting them to ethernet.
Hello Steven,
Sorry for sending you an email when you already replied! I am still learning the format of these forums.
My idea for utilizing these growth chambers would be having two different recipes for each box (since I have four boxes) to allow for both a healthy vegetative growth, as well as an applied treatment later on when my plants are at a specific, testable growth stage (which will be different heat-treatments).
In regards to your questions:
I do not necessarily have a goal DLI, I am basing my measurements on other published research data studying lettuce under LED. I think I would actually like my plants to receive 230 umol in the initial seed and starting stages. I would like to have an 18 hour photoperiod (18/6 on/off). When I apply my treatments, a 300umol would be great. (What is the upper limit that the boxes can provide).
That is correct, I do not want to increase the temperature, and the heater during the seedling stages should not be turned on. The room that the chambers are in should be quite warm at ambient, as there are a lot of other growth chambers of different kinds nearby emitting heat. Different treatments for heat would be necessary for the treatment stage as I mentioned formerly.
I would like to disable irrigation for the time being, as I can manually water the plants as they need during the initial stages.
No worries about the double response, we’re still getting used to the format too! The idea though is that other schools and students will benefit from seeing the experiences of “early-adopters” - like yourself! I would love to hear what your formal hypothesis is for this experiment - or at least a little bit more about the lab you work in and the research you’re focused on. In response to your questions…
So if I’m understanding correctly, as part of this “Experiment” you want to run four separate “Trials”, each of them consisting of two growth phases. You would like for all of the trials to use the same settings for the first phase, but for the second phase you’d like to apply a “heat treatment” (I’m assuming increased day AND night temperature) which will be different in each trial.
Since your serial numbers are between 0 and 25, you have a unit from “batch one”. I shared the max umol settings in each spectrum for batch one units on this forum post - all combined the max umol is 363. It sounds like you want a phase one setting of 230 umol and phase two setting of 300 umol, both using a 18 hour photoperiod. The only difference is that you’d rather change these phases manually (by using two separate recipes) rather than having it automatically advance to the next phase based on day number - is that correct?
Understood. What do you want the
Ok, I would recommend that you just disconnect the tubes hanging from the top of your chamber, that will ensure no water is added - regardless of the trial settings. That way we can leave the irrigation in the recipe so that if you decide you want to add it later you can just plug the tubes in and fill up the bottom reservoir.
We can get you the recipe for phase 1 created later today - I’ll follow-up with the name and a copy of the JSON file - for you to see - when it’s in the system.
I went ahead and created the LED settings by running some testing on a batch one MV1 that we have. My methodology was to use the maximum red and blue settings and then add white until the PAR values of 230 and 300 were achieved. Also as an important note, the PAR values were recorded at germination height and at the position of the front center pot. I’ll actually be making a follow-up post on my PAR/LED characterization process fairly soon.
With that being said, here are the settings I found in FR,R,G,W form: 0,120,50,176 for 230.7 umol and 0,120,50,241 for 300.9 umol.
Here are some pictures of the setup I used to run the LED testing. I’m using the SQ-616 PAR sensor mounted into a 3D printed stack that is attached into a specially made bottom panel of the frame with a hole pattern drilled into it.
As a quick note, this picture was of the PAR sensor in a Batch Two MV1, whereas the earlier testing was done in a Batch One MV1.
@nathaniel, you should now see the recipe available for you to assign to your devices, using the web application - I named it “MV1_Propogation_Phase_Lettuce_Summer_2023”. As I mentioned before, I left the irrigation settings in there still - so just disconnect the tubes from your pump if you don’t want to utilize that feature right now.
I’ll be more than happy to add the second phase(s) as soon as you decide what you want the max day / night temps to be for those heat stress phases.
Please go ahead and try sending that recipe to MV1-0003 - it should begin to show sensor data in the charts for you under that new trial name, within an hour. Unfortunately, I am still only MV1-0003 connected to our MQTT server, which is necessary to receive new recipes. The good news is though that I am seeing sensor data and images from ALL of your units - so we’re making progress!
Try unplugging and replugging in the other units - it could be that they just need to restart now that your school’s IT department has whitelisted their MAC addresses.
Thank you so much! Just a couple more things,
Can you add generic ‘lettuce’ and ‘duquesne’ as crop types to list, I see dragoon lettuce and others only as of now. I will take out the tubing and tubs today as well. I was able to create 4 trials, one for each box already using the MV1_Propagation_Phase_Lettuce_Summer_2023. Does this mean that all four have received the recipes, or am I still missing something (since there are photos of every box)? I will re-plug in all the boxes to ensure that they all have a reset.
As soon as I get the elevated temperatures that we desire to trial, I will let you know.
Moreover, I see that the boxes have exhausts - is there a way to allow for these to run periodically or constantly at a low speed?
All units were replugged in repeatedly a couple days ago and there are still no change in the temperature and lighting provided. (The heater is still at 90F) is there any way to just manually push these recipes to the devices? I already created a new ‘trial’ for each device using the recipe. If they are transmitting logs and pictures through all units does that mean they are connected? They have been whitelisted by the school already and we have had IT look at them in person as well as multiple techs check to see if they were transmitting.
I would really appreciate the support, I was anticipating to have this project online last week. I am already behind schedule and project timeline on my projects and really need to get started ASAP.
I am very sorry that you are behind schedule with the start of your experiment. I tried to send the trials myself on Friday but saw that all of your devices (even MV1-0003) were no longer connected to MQTT - the communication method we use to send a new recipe. Up until then, MV1-0003 had been the only one that was on MQTT - so whatever happened after you reset them seems to be the problem.
Please do the following:
Verify that your IT department has not only assigned a static IP to each of our units MAC addreses’s, but that they then opened it up so that static IP has access to use all ports. Specifically, the devices need to utilize 27017 and 8883 to receive recipes.
Unplug MV1-0003 from ethernet and reboot it. Then try creating a new trial again. I’m worried that perhaps all of the units were successfully connected via Wi-Fi previously and are still utilizing those connections - despite ethernet now being available. What’s weird though is that this unit was previously logging (when you said it was only on wifi) and now it’s not logging after you connected to ethernet and rebooted it - I would have expected the opposite. Did you connect the others to wi-fi as well? To the same network?
We’ll respond to the rest of your questions/suggestions in time - I just wanted to tell you this ASAP though.
We’re working on the image right now, but we don’t have enough time today to finish making all the files and getting everything processed. Tomorrow we’ll send over the files for each of your MV1s.
Yesterday morning I re-plugged in all of the units as well as the respective ethernet ports both at once and then seperately multiple times to try and remediate this potential issue. I see that there are now two recipes on the website that I can choose from, and I have now created a trial for each one assigned to the devices. I still do not see the data, and it looks like the old trials of the bok choy still have the data on temps, light, humidity, etc. I also sent the requested information that was provided in Peter’s email to IT.
