Indoor Quest for 1 Pound + with Autoflower and Soilponics!

[pop22]

12" tall today! Upward growth has just exploded since yesterday. Good branching already happening. I moved some clay pebbles aside to check the soil surface and it seems to be at a perfect level if moisture! I'm going to call the self-watering pot a success! I haven't top watered it in over 10 days. Wish I'd installed some better water level gauge though. Oh well, that will be an upgrade fore next time! I love the fact that I could go away for a week, and not have to trust someone to take care of it. I'm thinking of building small versions of this pot for all my soil growing indoors! Using 2- two gallon buckets might be an ideal size for the breeding tentI could still fit 9 pots in the tent that way.

I feel this method may be the ideal way to water soil plants, and by my results, it seems fairly easy to get just the right amount of water. I think a test bucket is in order!

 

[Rhyce Saroni]

12" tall today! Upward growth has just exploded since yesterday. Good branching already happening. I moved some clay pebbles aside to check the soil surface and it seems to be at a perfect level if moisture! I'm going to call the self-watering pot a success! I haven't top watered it in over 10 days. Wish I'd installed some better water level gauge though. Oh well, that will be an upgrade fore next time! I love the fact that I could go away for a week, and not have to trust someone to take care of it. I'm thinking of building small versions of this pot for all my soil growing indoors! Using 2- two gallon buckets might be an ideal size for the breeding tentI could still fit 9 pots in the tent that way.

I feel this method may be the ideal way to water soil plants, and by my results, it seems fairly easy to get just the right amount of water. I think a test bucket is in order!

Ahhh... the sweet smell of success! Great job man! Max REP

 

[Jax]

I love it when pop does a update there's always shared knowledge with the experimentation. A pound plant is deserved.
Peace

 

[pop22]

Thanks guys! And sharing is what its all about! I'd love to see others adopt this method in the future. Its got so much over hydro! No synthetic nutes, no chillers or ice bottles very rare to have a PH issue, unless you mess up the mix, You can run your grow room hotter without hurting your plants, my room runs 78-88F daily and my plants are loving it! Hydro take up a lit of room, so using big pots is not any more space hogging. And no res to change weekly! Now don't get me wrong, I actually like hydro, but I'm of the mind that on an overall basis, this is a superior way to grow.

 

[Werner Heisenburg]

I believe your onto something here Pop. Just one question on the wick idea...

Did you just wind it around the air pot?. Or how did it work?. Just trying to understand the wick idea.

Oh, and how full do you fill the res bucket?.. Sorry for the questions but this is interesting to me, part hydro and part soil... I run 1 Walter in a hydro setup and is going quite nice but is a pain to monitor daily and res changes are even more fun, not. I would love to see you succeed at this self watering, hydro/soil setup.

And lastly, do you add the nutes to the res bucket water?... I understand the AIT thing well and looks nice. Now you don't have to worry about the oxygen drying it out from the inside.


Many thanks for this grow pops!!.

 

[pop22]

Hey WH! Glad your asking questions! I'd love to see someone else try this.

The wicks. Well I consider the rockwool that I filled the net pot with part of the wick system. I've no doubt that’s the major source of water transfer to the soil. The wicks themselves are nylon rope cut into 28" lengths. The rope was a small diameter, 1/4" I believe so I tied four bundles of 4 together. I pulled about 6" of each wick thru openings in the bottom of the net pot,then O stuffed the pot with the rock wool.The wicks are placed every 90degrees around the pot. I taped the to the sides on the container so that they would remain vertical as I filled the container with soil. The AIT is on the bottom middle and not near the wicks.

I saw this system somewhere else, although it didn't use the wicks, just the rockwool. I figured with a container as large and deep, the extra wicking would help.

Next time, I'll use larger diameter rope but other than that, it seems to be working fine.

The res is fill to just touch the bottom of the plant container, about 4 gallons of water. I drilled a sight hole/over flow hole at 4" up from the bottom.

I use no nutes in the water, this is an all, organic grow. I'm sure just about any soil mix would work. I do believe that using 20-30% coco coir aids in water absorption and retention. Adding the clay pebbles to the surface as much has worked great. the surface stays moist but not wet, it never dries out. I watered it today for the first time in over a over a week, it took 3/4" of a gallon to top up the res.

I believe your onto something here Pop. Just one question on the wick idea...

Did you just wind it around the air pot?. Or how did it work?. Just trying to understand the wick idea.

Oh, and how full do you fill the res bucket?.. Sorry for the questions but this is interesting to me, part hydro and part soil... I run 1 Walter in a hydro setup and is going quite nice but is a pain to monitor daily and res changes are even more fun, not. I would love to see you succeed at this self watering, hydro/soil setup.

And lastly, do you add the nutes to the res bucket water?... I understand the AIT thing well and looks nice. Now you don't have to worry about the oxygen drying it out from the inside.


Many thanks for this grow pops!!.

 

[stepside]

How's she doing Pops, any more pics? I'm chomping at the bit. I want this to work for you.

 

[F.N.]

Wick method works great with the soil constantly moist. I have a question POP how is your relative humidity and your temps doing?

 

[pop22]

Okm here's my girl at Day 18!! 20" tall and about the same in width. I FDIMMED her a couple days ago. Decided I'm not going to super crop her, But I will soon bend her over to the side to make her bush. O'll shift the pot to the right so that most of her will be under the SCROG net when its time.

 

[Corgy]

Looking lanky and dangly........!

What is your initial thoughts on air injection, and how much air are you sypplying?

I got a TD growing in a 20 l Thorny Trappypot with an airdome next to a TD in a 22 l smartpot, but can't really tell much difference so far at day 33 from them seeing daylight, a little more here https://www.autoflower.org/index.ph...s-dutch-large-scale-grower.43093/#post-858232