why not just hang roots in air?

[pipeman]

I got this idea that I'm thinking of trying. put a rooted plant in a small 50cm net pot with clay balls in a bucket about 15L, or maybe smaller, or put a few of them sog style in the lid of a rubbermaid type container. Instead of having a bubbling solution you just periodic drip feed through the top of the netpot. The plant bucket is higher than the res, so the water drips through the roots that are just hanging in the bucket, the water then drains back to the res.

 

the reason I thought of this is that I want a system that makes it quick and clean to root prune mums. With those little 50cm netpots from the hydro shops that are cone shaped it would be easy as anything to pull them out one by one to maintain.

 

You could also grow sog style with this, get some lengths of 100mm or 150mm PVC pipe, cut it fairly long lengths, like 400mm of longer depending on headroom with a netpot in the top, then feed with a dripper system from the top. The bottom of the pipes would sit in a tray that would drain to the res. The idea would be that unlike normal sog where you got small pots, here you actually got a decent length of pipe for the roots to grow down so you'd hopefully get bigger yields.

 

I also like this idea because you need very little clay balls. cuts down on a lot of the hassle.

[ScuzZ]

It's a good idea, it's another form of aeroponics. Although the timers to switch a pump on and off that quick are very difficult and expensive.

 

Just continual pumping will not do the job as it will suffocate the root ball even with an air pump.

 

It's a usualy guide to turn the water pump on for 15 minutes for every hour.

[Kash]

It's a usualy guide to turn the water pump on for 15 minutes for every hour. 

 

nice way to get root rot. pumps shouldnt be set to more than 2 hour intervals. Personally I use 3 hour interval in the early stages then 4 hour intervals later on in the cycle.

 

 

Regards

 

kash

Edited August 31, 2003 by Kash

[pipeman]

yeah but kash thats with a medium that holds moisture. here we're talking about roots hanging in air, so you'd think they'd dry out quicker. also, if the roots are getting oxygen they don't need to dry out at all, I mean look at bubblers where you got roots sitting in the solution constantly.

 

not saying you're wrong, I don't know, just something to think about thats all.

 

I'm really warming up to the PVC pipes idea. Just have a shitload of vertical PVC pipes in my flower cupboard where I can add and remove plants easily anytime. Can have a rotating sog for my main harvests, and can also have spare pipes in there where I can whack in plants to sex em. Can either do it with clones, or pull out the plants from the pipes in my veg cupboard, whack em in the flowering cupboard to sex, then put em back again.

 

all dreams at this stage....

[Kash]

yeah your right Pipeman. In that type of system youd want to have it more frequent I guess.

I have grown in hybrid systems before.One of my faves was to get a kitchen tidy bin, and a pot that sits in the top of it.

Run a drip system,using the bin as a resevoir, and the roots grow out into the area between the water and the pot and just hang there, with water dripping down them when the drip is on.

I have grown 1LB+ plants in this type of system and a multi tip/supercrop structuring with 2 X 400w... all in a closet.. and a small computer fan.

 

 

 

Regards

 

 

Kash

Edited August 31, 2003 by Kash

[Brainstorm]

Sounds like an interesting idea pipeman, I'd like to hear where you go with it.

 

I've seen pictures of a setup that is made up of vertical piping with plants growing out every two or three feet, the pipes were arranged in a semi-circle with the light hanging down the middle, I believe they were using a drip system for watering.

 

Not quite the same as what you are thinking but shows that it is definitely possible

[ScuzZ]

There have been numerous methods for vertical growth of Marijuana.

 

There was one from www.overgrow.com where a vertical piece of PVC with holes down the sides was used to grow Marijuana.

 

The lights would rotate the entire 360 degrees around the plant, and there were not only HID, but also flourescents and incandescent lights. The water would trickle down the inside diameter of the tube, collect and the base and was run through a carbon filter and pumped back upto the top.

 

The PVC pipe was approx 5 metres in length and held 30 - 45 plants from memory.

[Guest Wilderbud]

Make it constant flow.

 

Do you have a design drawn up?

[white_cluster]

yeah these things run constant flow, no root rot, its not like a dripper system its like NFT. There is millions of systems like this, I've seen a friends dad who used a NFT system with standard 200mm pots and clay balls with constant flow through the pots. Shame he grew tomatoes not pot though.

 

I can see alot of problems with the system running mothers, mothers are very important plants and root pruning is kinda damagind and time consuming, you are best off focussing on keeping them mums growing slow instead of ease of rootpruning. If you have any pump failures those plants could easy die within a couple of hours.

 

The lights would rotate the entire 360 degrees around the plant, and there were not only HID, but also flourescents and incandescent lights. The water would trickle down the inside diameter of the tube, collect and the base and was run through a carbon filter and pumped back upto the top.

 

this is a colleseum right, the place to check out for this is not shitty overgrow but the vertical limits forum at cannabis world. As for the lights rotating that dont need to, the plants are constantly surrounded by the light from 360degrees. A very high yielding method but crazy plaznt numbers needed.

There is another system where the plants are all on a ferris wheel that turns around the light, the plants get wet when they are at the bottom of the wheel and dry out when they are upside sown at the top of the wheel. Crazy shit...

Edited August 31, 2003 by white_cluster

[pipeman]

yeah good point about pump failure. If there was just a power outage there wouldn't be a problem. I've left plants out with hanging roots in air for ages, almost a whole day, and it didn't kill em. but, they had minimal light. I imagine plants getting no water with a HID on them would be a different story.

 

I know you don't like this idea either but maybe I stick with bubblers for my mums, At least they won't die quickly if the air pump explodes. Or, just get the system working with two pumps. I mean two pumps couldn't both fail at the same time. right?