Old Reviews smart pots...

SmashedByHashish

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Smart pots are better than plastic containers -Hard-sided plastic containers are relatively inexpensive but they are not a very good home for a plant’s root structure. Plastic allows no aeration, conducts and holds heat, and provides inadequate or poor drainage. Even on mildly sunny days, container soil temperatures can easily top 120 degrees, damaging or killing the roots and stressing the plant. The #1 killer of potted or container grown plants is over watering and plastic containers with a few bottom drainage holes actually help the soil stay too wet. A Smart Pot is constructed of a porous fabric that allows heat to dissipate and excess water to evaporate. In fact, over-watering is never a problem because excess water drains and evaporates from all of the Smart Pot’s surfaces; its walls as well as its bottom.

Because the Smart Pot is a fabric container, giving the root ball total aeration and excellent drainage, you can even use a heavier, less expensive planting mix. The type of mix used in a Smart Pot is less critical then in hard-sided pots.

Also, another Smart Pot benefit is root pruning, a technique used by many commercial nurseries to produce masses of highly branched roots to improve plant quality. When a root grows to the side of the Smart Pot, it stops growing in length and develops many, many fine branches. By contrast, the roots in a plastic pot continue to grow in length when they reach the side and circle around the side of the pot. This is undesirable as there are fewer roots and these can grow around each other causing girdling or strangulation. A branched, fibrous root structure (“root pruned”) has a far greater root mass than a comparable plant where the roots are circling on the inside of a plastic pot. And a greater root mass will grow a better plant.

Ceramic and clay pots are better for plant growing than plastic pots. They provide somewhat better insulation keeping soil temperatures lower then plastic pots. But ceramic and clay still provide inadequate drainage and do not encourage the best root systems. Both ceramic and clay pots are heavy and can easily break. The Smart Pot is lightweight, inexpensive, doesn’t break if dropped or frozen and can be folded so it stores easily. The Smart Pot also “root prunes”. Ceramic and clay do not.

http://www.smartpots.com/
 
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Air Pruning in Smart Pots


As roots grow in containers they eventually reach the container walls. In hard-sided containers, these roots, upon reaching the walls, start circling and continue to circle seeking a friendlier environment. Upon examination, these root systems exhibit a few strong roots growing in circles with very little branching, often are bound or girdled upon themselves and, depending on the type of plant, can produce a strong tap root growing through the containers bottom. These characteristics can hinder the plant's rate of growth and in some cases its chances of survival when transplanted.


Smart Pots are manufactured out of a custom, non-woven, polypropylene material. Roots grown in a Smart Pot come in contact with the fuzzy, fabric inner wall of the bag and penetrate or grow into the fabric. The bag's tough fabric prevents the root's continued longitudinal growth, in effect pruning it, causing the root to develop masses of lateral fibrous roots. Upon comparison, root systems that developed in a Smart Pot have a much greater mass or volume then those found in hard-sided containers. Plants grown in Smart Pots have root balls that contain many more roots then found in a hard-sided container of similar size.
 
i love my smart pots! im gonna try some airpots though on my next auto grow but im never going to stop using my SMART POTS. these are a must for an advanced growing situation!!!! Plastic pots can go to fuck for all i care... :2cents: fuck plastic containers fuck 'em! Roots dont get encircled in smart pots they grow very fibrous... tons of oxygen. they air prune wich causes more root hairs to develop. MORE ROOTS=MORE FRUITS :thumbs:. :bow:to the SMART POT
 
Amen...smart pots are the business...:thumbs:

It's worthy to note that you can turn any plastic container into a "smart pot" (square ones more easy) by lining your container with landscape fabric. Also works like a charm outdoor, just line your hole with landscape fabric...:thumbs:
 
161684d1357094256-scarhole-auto-project-photo0123.jpg


For small air pruning I just stab alot of holes into the planter.

For medium I use a 1 inch spade bit an a drill to put big holes all over my buckets.
Then I line it with nylon screen material.

For large I use a laundry basket an line it with screen an fill with dirt....
 
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161684d1357094256-scarhole-auto-project-photo0123.jpg


For small air pruning I just stab alot of holes into the planter.

For medium I use a 1 inch spade bit an a drill to put big holes all over my buckets.
Then I line it with nylon screen material.

For large I use a laundry basket an line it with screen an fill with dirt....

excellent idea! i would love to see a root ball from one of them:smokebuds:
 
161684d1357094256-scarhole-auto-project-photo0123.jpg


For small air pruning I just stab alot of holes into the planter.

For medium I use a 1 inch spade bit an a drill to put big holes all over my buckets.
Then I line it with nylon screen material.

For large I use a laundry basket an line it with screen an fill with dirt....

Works for me man...I dig the ingenuity, that's what it's all about...:thumbs:
 
How would the harvest compare between a 1 gal smart pot and a 3 gal plastic pot ?
 
Root Pruners

Hi Floks,

Good thread,

I am using 4.5 litre plastic Air Pruning pots. I don't know if this will do better than the pots that my finishing girls are in right now, but I will keep you posted. The roots extend out into the light through the slots in the pots, stopping the "root ball" effect, and they keep reaching out, as the ends of the roots die off, essentially keeping the plant growing in size. So I was told, lol.

Here they are...
View attachment 170440
View attachment 170441View attachment 170442
View attachment 170443View attachment 170444

It is hard to see the slots, I couldn't find a straight on front shot of them. but lots of air slots in them, supposed to help dry them out well.

my two cents.

Eek
 
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