Grow Mediums Welcome to the Autopot Forum!

[Screwauger]

For autoflowers I plant directly in the pot also and I only feed about every five days the first three weeks and since I precharge my medium I only feed about 500ml the first time and might be at 1.5 liters by the time I put them on the reservoir. So it’s not a lot of drain off from that small amount in a 15 liter autopot. I use the trays when they are available for catching whatever runoff there might be. Then a small shop-vac will suck it right up for you. When the trays are not available I just water them on my front porch or in a dish washer tray like the restaurants use.

I do the same (Han's method) and for axample, my current grow in straight coco, my seedlings just took right off in the 15L pots with sparse watering every five days in a small circle around the stem. I have never even wondered about the "runoff" in the autpot tray when I do this as the plants seem to use it up and I never considered sucking it out or watering outside the tray!!

 

[Bodacious Budmonster]

Thanks for the replies guys
Maybe I am over thinking it or educated myself incorrectly or we do things differently, I.e I do it wrong

What I have noticed that is different from you guys is that I will flush about 5L feed through my pot each feeding time
I let the coco go dry, not totally but I can tell by the weight of it and I will then decide it is due a feed.

I then push some feed through and then I create a fair amount at the top of the pot so it acts like a piston pushing through.
The idea of this was to make sure that it pushes any of the excess salts out and recharges it all with fresh.
This is why there is so much run off, which in theory if your goal was to push out all the build up then you wouldn’t want the plant sucking the run off back up

It would seem I need to water less and more frequent and then not care about the run off?

 

[HemiSync]

It would seem I need to water less and more frequent and then not care about the run off?

It’s just a method that works for some of us. Your method, now that I understand what you are doing, makes sense as a form of flood to waste. While all we are trying to do it get the tap root to the bottom of the pot as quickly as possible by giving limited water but enough centered on the plant to make that tap go staight down. We are using so little nutrients in the first 3 weeks from seed, that salt buildup really isn’t an issue.

If what you are doing works for you then I would continue and perhaps get a tray to catch your runoff and then dump it or vacuum it out. I’m lucky that I have a cellar drain right by my grow tent and if say I want to run a couple liters of Recharge or MammothP thru, I just turn off the reservoir and pull them out one by one to sit on that drain while I water them.

By the way, I’m still trying to find exactly what works for me.

 

[Bodacious Budmonster]

Same here, I have not perfected it yet.

I think I will try what you guys do.
So, would I just be feeding a couple of litres a time in a 15L pot?
How often do you feed, every 3 to 5 days?

It’s just a method that works for some of us. Your method, now that I understand what you are doing, makes sense as a form of flood to waste. While all we are trying to do it get the tap root to the bottom of the pot as quickly as possible by giving limited water but enough centered on the plant to make that tap go staight down. We are using so little nutrients in the first 3 weeks from seed, that salt buildup really isn’t an issue.

If what you are doing works for you then I would continue and perhaps get a tray to catch your runoff and then dump it or vacuum it out. I’m lucky that I have a cellar drain right by my grow tent and if say I want to run a couple liters of Recharge or MammothP thru, I just turn off the reservoir and pull them out one by one to sit on that drain while I water them.

By the way, I’m still trying to find exactly what works for me.

 

[HemiSync]

Same here, I have not perfected it yet.

I think I will try what you guys do.
So, would I just be feeding a couple of litres a time in a 15L pot?
How often do you feed, every 3 to 5 days?

I precharge my medium before putting the seeds or seedlings in the pot. Then I water every 5 days until I turn the reservoir on when the plants leaves reach the outside of the pot. The amount of water has varied from grow to grow but basically from looking over my grows I see:
Day 5 / 500-750ml
Day 10 750ml-1 liter
Day 15 1liter - 1.5 liter
Day 20 1.5 liter
After that they go on the reservoir. Of course you have to read the plants some and determine a little more or less, and if they look thirsty a day early then go ahead and water them.

 

[IzzyTheGrower]

Same here, I have not perfected it yet.

I think I will try what you guys do.
So, would I just be feeding a couple of litres a time in a 15L pot?
How often do you feed, every 3 to 5 days?

Same here, many different ways to skin a cat look at it that way

Sent from my SM-G965U using Tapatalk

 

[Screwauger]

I precharge my medium before putting the seeds or seedlings in the pot. Then I water every 5 days until I turn the reservoir on when the plants leaves reach the outside of the pot. The amount of water has varied from grow to grow but basically from looking over my grows I see:
Day 5 / 500-750ml
Day 10 750ml-1 liter
Day 15 1liter - 1.5 liter
Day 20 1.5 liter
After that they go on the reservoir. Of course you have to read the plants some and determine a little more or less, and if they look thirsty a day early then go ahead and water them.

@legalizeme I do mine the exact same way as @HemiSync

 

[Bodacious Budmonster]

@legalizeme I do mine the exact same way as @HemiSync

That’s good to know, cheers

 

[Failsafe hydro]

I just have to say I am so impressed with the autopot system.
It is by far the easiest method I have tried. The plants grew so fast i kinda wished i would have went with the XL pots. Some of the tops are over 6ft. These plants were vegged for 4 weeks and it's now into week 2 of flower.

 

[Ivean]

I just have to say I am so impressed with the autopot system.
It is by far the easiest method I have tried. The plants grew so fast i kinda wished i would have went with the XL pots. Some of the tops are over 6ft. These plants were vegged for 4 weeks and it's now into week 2 of flower.

Pretty awesome aren't they