Loose Rockwool Trees

hey guys Wondering if anyone has grow log of rockwool trees grown in loose rockwool like [FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]DonJuanMatus had but its all deleted now or if krunch is still around hit me up so i can shoot some idea off ya. thanks again....


That one guy u all used to know

PTB
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PoopyTeaBags said:

hey guys Wondering if anyone has grow log of rockwool trees grown in loose rockwool like [FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]DonJuanMatus had but its all deleted now or if krunch is still around hit me up so i can shoot some idea off ya. thanks again....


That one guy u all used to know

PTB
[/FONT]

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Hey PTB: I don't know about the thread you mention, but I grow exclusively in loose rockwool and have for years. I wouldn't call most of my plants "trees", but I have stretched them well over 7 ft on occasion (I bend and tie stretchy sativas ... had one critical haze that wrapped around 3 sides of the grow table once.)

I'll help if I can.

Two of my children had bedrooms one above the other. After they were grown and gone I removed the floor and ceiling between the rooms, creating a new room with a 16 foot ceiling height.
I grew tall indoor plants, the record was 7'11" from the top of the five gallon bucket to the top of the plant.
Loose rockwool croutons were the media.

This was many years ago and the pictures are gone. I do remember having to brace the plant from overhead as well as all sides. Without wind the trunk and branches do not develop strength. Fans caused turbulence but did not help stiffen the plant.

This also refined my side lighting techniques, no way could an overhead light reach even halfway down the plant.
All in all I am back to four foot plants, much easier to deal with in my old age.
But I do have fond memories of buds approaching the two ounce mark.

Must have looked pretty funny when you opened the door to the upstairs room and there is a big empty pit!

I just completed a grow with 4 trees in 10 gallon pots of rockwool. Vegged for two months they finished at 6ft. It was a vertical setup with 600w hps barebulb yield around 5 it was fun, but long veg made it not worth it.

Loose rockwool dries out to quicky for big plants in my opinion, youd definitely need automated watering several times a day and if they got to dry with rockwool your plants would probably fall over once they get top heavy because rockwool has almost no weight when its not full of water. Id stick with coco or soil for big trees.

I was looking at using loose rockwool in flood and drain set up, wondering if it's better to run a sterile Rez or use bennies - anyone have any recommendations?

I've been checking up capn set up, I think that would be an awesome way to grow some huge trees.

I'm growing in granulate absorbent atm..
If I can help....ask away.
I grow in 1 gallon pots....plants are usually 5'-6' feet tall...
The page you are looking for...is page 11... This section...

Phases said:

I was looking at using loose rockwool in flood and drain set up, wondering if it's better to run a sterile Rez or use bennies - anyone have any recommendations?

I've been checking up capn set up, I think that would be an awesome way to grow some huge trees.

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It's all I use .... rw has big advantages across the board, recommend it for all f&d/ebb/flow systems. No idea what you mean by "sterile rez" or "bennies" ...

Like rubbing h2o2 or something to kill all bacteria or running a live Rez with be bifocal bacteria.
I had some trouble running the 4" cubes, think it was salt build up, but yields were terrible. But I think running the capn style will take care of any salt build up.
What ec do you run in your system and what nutes?
Thanks for help

stick to sterile especially if u are knew

BubbaBear said:

Loose rockwool dries out to quicky for big plants in my opinion, youd definitely need automated watering several times a day and if they got to dry with rockwool your plants would probably fall over once they get top heavy because rockwool has almost no weight when its not full of water. Id stick with coco or soil for big trees.

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my setup this is not a problem

BadRabbit said:

It's all I use .... rw has big advantages across the board, recommend it for all f&d/ebb/flow systems. No idea what you mean by "sterile rez" or "bennies" ...

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Bennie's means beneficial bacteria, fungus, etc, living organisms in your res and sterile res means none of the living organisms just nutrients

PoopyTeaBags said:

hey guys Wondering if anyone has grow log of rockwool trees grown in loose rockwool like [FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]DonJuanMatus had but its all deleted now or if krunch is still around hit me up so i can shoot some idea off ya. thanks again....


That one guy u all used to know

PTB
[/FONT]

Click to expand...

DJM's thread "Coco Trees" is pretty much the same setup 'cept that there are more plants per light. horizontal reflectors pinned to the ceiling, sealed room with a passive filtered exhaust and active intake of cold, dry mountain air.

The coco pots are smaller and getting irrigated a bit more and with near zero run-off.

The rock wool crouton-filled containers were larger, there were fewer of them (one per light) and the veg was longer. There was a lot more pinching of the stem right at the tops (super-cropping) from early veg and the rounded-top bushes filled the entire footprint of each light. The lights were close enough together that side-lighting of the round-top bushes was achieved and provided by the adjacent fixtures.

You want to irrigate less, but fine tune the frequency and concentration by checking run-off (as is best practice in any rock wool grow). Aerating the shit out of your res before each watering will also boost growth.

If you post specific questions or whatever, maybe we can find some answers. Big units full of rock wool might need super long veg times to gain enough root mass for things to work properly. You probably want to be comfortable with Rockwool grows to do this... and in that case you know how to run rock wool so just keep doing the same.

It holds a lot of moisture... if you dry it out with the hope of getting more oxygen to roots, you'll have EC problems and then pH issues... if you keep a big mass of rock wool wet (as it should be) but your tree is too small, you'll have stunted growth (at best) as stuff is too wet. so you have to veg enough so you have dense root mass that will suck the moisture up quickly so you can irrigate again etc.

Exactly ! Coco is going to give your roots a much more stable environment, I had big trees dry out several times a day a day in 5gallon rockwool croutons. If the plants drank a lot or missed a watering they would want to tip over from being top heavy and it probably wasnt the best for the EC and root zone. I grew in rockwool for 15 years im glad l finally moved on, you get a lot of water loss due to evaporation in rw which also causes a rise in humidity, I use about half the water a third of the nutrients as l did when using in rockwool plus I yield more and my plants are happier. Theres way better grow media out there these days that give your roots just as much oxegen but a more stable environment, support beneficials and is more PH stable.

BubbaBear said:

Exactly ! Coco is going to give your roots a much more stable environment, I had big trees dry out several times a day a day in 5gallon rockwool croutons. If the plants drank a lot or missed a watering they would want to tip over from being top heavy and it probably wasnt the best for the EC and root zone. I grew in rockwool for 15 years im glad l finally moved on, you get a lot of water loss due to evaporation in rw which also causes a rise in humidity, I use about half the water a third of the nutrients as l did when using in rockwool plus I yield more and my plants are happier. Theres way better grow media out there these days that give your roots just as much oxegen but a more stable environment, support beneficials and is more PH stable.

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Thanks BubbaBear I have been considering trying the coco, now I think I will...

Boutique Manettino said:

DJM's thread "Coco Trees" is pretty much the same setup 'cept that there are more plants per light. horizontal reflectors pinned to the ceiling, sealed room with a passive filtered exhaust and active intake of cold, dry mountain air.

The coco pots are smaller and getting irrigated a bit more and with near zero run-off.

The rock wool crouton-filled containers were larger, there were fewer of them (one per light) and the veg was longer. There was a lot more pinching of the stem right at the tops (super-cropping) from early veg and the rounded-top bushes filled the entire footprint of each light. The lights were close enough together that side-lighting of the round-top bushes was achieved and provided by the adjacent fixtures.

You want to irrigate less, but fine tune the frequency and concentration by checking run-off (as is best practice in any rock wool grow). Aerating the shit out of your res before each watering will also boost growth.

If you post specific questions or whatever, maybe we can find some answers. Big units full of rock wool might need super long veg times to gain enough root mass for things to work properly. You probably want to be comfortable with Rockwool grows to do this... and in that case you know how to run rock wool so just keep doing the same.

It holds a lot of moisture... if you dry it out with the hope of getting more oxygen to roots, you'll have EC problems and then pH issues... if you keep a big mass of rock wool wet (as it should be) but your tree is too small, you'll have stunted growth (at best) as stuff is too wet. so you have to veg enough so you have dense root mass that will suck the moisture up quickly so you can irrigate again etc.

Click to expand...

ive been growing in coco for the last 5 years... im looking for something different. main thing im looking for is. is it ok to water multiple time a day from the start from a e z clones to a 2 1/2 gall pot of loose wool.

Yes it is, rockwool croutons are pretty hard to over water. The whole reason l started growing in them is because I was growing a perpetual and vegging out little plants in the same trey as big plants and it made it easier because your pots wil generally all dry out around the same time and can be watered at least a couple times a day without worrying about over watering some plants. And in the end was one of the reasons I stopped using it, it drys out to quickly for big flowering plants, in my opinion at least.

PoopyTeaBags said:

ive been growing in coco for the last 5 years... im looking for something different. main thing im looking for is. is it ok to water multiple time a day from the start from a e z clones to a 2 1/2 gall pot of loose wool.

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Cool, only reason I mentioned DJM's latest threads in coco is because its the same grower that did the big Rockwool containers you were asking about. It's pretty clear he knows what he's doing to me..... I like his results. It's also telling that he switched away from the big 10 or 20 gallon rock wool containers.... anyways...

You will likely "get away with" watering a rooted cut planted in a 2 gallon multiple times a day right from the start. You might lose a plant or 2 occasionally depending on your cloning skills and how well developed the cuts are when you xplant.... you'll probably see less than ideal turgor and growth rates and then as flower kicks in hard they'll look and grow normally.

What I found with Rockwool when I was essentially overwatering from the beginning like that is exactly as described... some noticeable droop, slower growth... affected yields etc.... but I didn't know it at the time. Things looked "normal" - like plants look - and I was getting a tangible yield.

Then I irrigated way less at the start... let things dry out a bit between each irrigation and the roots were more fully established. The plants not only looked way better (they were rigid and growth was explosive) but my yield way down the line @ harvest increased to the tune of about 35%. Same light, same plant count, same nutes, same ec, same strain, same cutting regimen.

This is pretty standard across most growing mediums (aero, NFT and whatever other exceptions aside); water less when the cutting is small and first xplanted. Once roots mass is established ramp up to as much as they can take w/out burn/loss of turgor until u begin leach/flush @ end of flower.

So yeah it can be argued that it's ok to water multiple times a day right from the start, but not necessarily optimum. I do not do that personally based on what I've experienced.

An alternative to coco that is exceptional is Turface MVP.

I would choose Turface MVP over Rockwool every time. Only reason I have coco cut heavily with perlite sometimes is that i have no way of hauling enough bags of turface MVP at 50 lbs per bag.

Phaeton said:

Two of my children had bedrooms one above the other. After they were grown and gone I removed the floor and ceiling between the rooms, creating a new room with a 16 foot ceiling height.
I grew tall indoor plants, the record was 7'11" from the top of the five gallon bucket to the top of the plant.
Loose rockwool croutons were the media.

This was many years ago and the pictures are gone. I do remember having to brace the plant from overhead as well as all sides. Without wind the trunk and branches do not develop strength. Fans caused turbulence but did not help stiffen the plant.

This also refined my side lighting techniques, no way could an overhead light reach even halfway down the plant.
All in all I am back to four foot plants, much easier to deal with in my old age.
But I do have fond memories of buds approaching the two ounce mark.

Click to expand...

Removing a floor for a growroom, now that's what i call commitment! Right there with ya