Soil with hydroponic

G

Guest

• Jul 23, 2007

• #1

I once saw a method on google where they had soil on top and water on the bottom, and it did not take many nutrients plus the growth was fast. Does anyone know the name for that particular method, and do you think it is good or not.

 

H

hobosapien

Member

• Jul 25, 2007

• #2

uuuhm, i believe those were the beginnings of what came to be known as hydroponics....

early research was based on how 'wet' a substrate could be with all other plant needs av available, eventually they realized 'soil' wasnt needed....

upgrade baby, take advantage of all the work that has been done for you!

EXPLORE THIS GREAT REALM of HYDROPONIC KNOW HOW!!

keep it green.

 

G

Guest

• Aug 6, 2007

• #3

Maybe "Earth Box" ?

http://www.earthbox.com/

How to: http://www.josho.com/Earthbox.htm

 

bobblehead

Active member

Veteran

• Aug 6, 2007

• #4

I've taken my dirt plants, and without washing off the dirt, I just set them right on top of some lava rock in a DWC. 60% of the time, it works every time! lol.... It works just fine, but coco would be a better choice if you were going to do this.

 

Last edited: Aug 6, 2007

G

gromer

Member

• Aug 6, 2007

• #5

Dirt?Or soiless mix?Pots filled with soiless mix on a flood table is about as hydro as it gets.Its not aeroponic or anything but the same principles still apply you are growing in an inert medium and feeding the plants solely with hydoponic liquid nutrients.How is that not hydro?Just saw an interesting article by hydro man Hans in CC I think may have been Skunk ya Skunk I think.He was splitting pots in half with a plastic divider filling half with perlite the other with organic soil.Hed place the rooted clone in top so half the roots were on one side and half on the other.A drip stake was placed in the perlite side and fed with organic hydro nutes the other was watered as normal all the nutes already being in the soil.Idea being that the plant would benefit from the constant accesible nutes from the hydro side and the smoker would still get the benefits of full on organic flavors from the soil side.Pretty interesting idea really.Maybe Ill give a couple a go and see how they do.

 

inflorescence

Active member

Veteran

• Aug 7, 2007

• #6

Krusty buckets = lava (sometimes hydroton substitute) + coco in top 5 gal bucket with SWC in bottom 5 gal bucket.

Biggest bushes you've ever seen.

 

Last edited: Aug 8, 2007

G

Guest

• Aug 7, 2007

• #7

It looks like the Earth Box guys have the current commercial deal goin. I've heard of it and read about the Earth Boxes some time back, and apparently they work, but there aren't many pot growers who do it; or at least write of it.

Good call CantGetRight i couldn't have remembered what they're called in a month.

 

reaperz

Member

• Aug 8, 2007

• #8

looks like passive wick system to me, sure you can make one for a fraction of the money, love diy

 

G

Guest

• Aug 8, 2007

• #9

I'm pretty sure he's talking about a simple dirt/lower water reservoir system.

I guess it's not the correct method to discuss, seeing as wauii234 is asking about a specifically soil/water only system, but I've been reading on and thinking about Hempy buckets. I believe i'm gonna have a shed grow possible next year; so i got interested in passive - full passive - hydroponics.

Hempy buckets are nothing but a bucket, full of perlite, with a hole in the side 2 inches from the bottom so you can't over water. That's the ultra simple(est) system: water by hand, that sort of minimum investment/technology thing.

It does seem you could do a soil/water reservoir system pretty easily, particularly if you simply made the water reservoir a bubbler. Although it's more investment in bullshit to manage, i'll bet you could combine the Hempy bucket theme with an initial container full of soil.

Wouldn't you want to entice the roots to leave the soil and race to the water as much as possible, using either a wick, a bubble/splash, fogger, or perlite wick?

 

inflorescence

Active member

Veteran

• Aug 8, 2007

• #10

inflorescence said:

Krusty buckets = lava (sometimes hydroton substitute) + coco in top 5 gal bucket with SWC in bottom 5 gal bucket.

Biggest bushes you've ever seen.

Click to expand...

 

Last edited: Aug 8, 2007

Endo

IcMag Resident Comic Relief

Veteran

• Sep 25, 2007

• #11

not sure i understand the krusty bucket.. seems like a lot of media in the top especially if its lava rocks or clay pellets. just a big drip system?

 

Last edited: Sep 25, 2007

agent 420

Member

• Oct 27, 2007

• #12

I've got a similar setup to the krusty buckets.
I took a 3 gallon bucket, drilled small holes in the bottom for the roots to pass thru, Filled the bottom few inches with hydroton, then filled the rest with soil.
Next I filled a 5 gallon bucket with enough water to reach the bottom of the 3 gal, ran two air lines with airstones to the bottom of the 5 gal, and placed the smaller bucket on top.
This is my first attmpt with this setup so wish me well. It makes sense in theory so I decided to give it a whirl. I got the idea from Texas Kid in one of the stickies.
The idea is you put just water in the bottom rez for the roots to drink up, and feed the plant through the soil on top either with dry ferts in the soil or liquid ferts via hand watering. This way your ppm doesn't really play a role and your pH doesn't fluctuate much in the bottom rez. The key is to not overwater, you don't want any runoff dripping to the bottom to stir up problems. Actually, a divider between the soil and hydroton was suggested(loose rockwool i think) to help prevent runoff, but I didn't have any. just gonna be careful. hope this helps

 

G

Guest

• Oct 27, 2007

• #13

I've grown dirt plants and put them straight on top of hydroton and other times lava rocks. I just cut the bottom off the pot and let them grow through into the hydro. Once the wicking action is working the soil stays wetter than you'd want but it works. Got to be wary of mold growing on soil, or spreading into plants.

Those Krusty buckets look very interesting. And the photo of the bush speaks for itself in how good they are.

 

The Most High

Member

• Jan 20, 2008

• #14

Its called Terraponics, I tried it a few years back, if you use a lot of perlite or a coco/soil mix it will work well. i used those self watering treys from wal-mart and ripped the bottom trey off, basically making a long net pot. then sank it into a rubber made with the water level about an inch lower than the soil so they didnt touch. There were bubble wands in the rubber made. I had to hand watter for the first 2 weeks then they were off to the races, and All I had to do was keep the water level right. I used nutes made for soil and watered them in from the top. Never checked ph or anything.

 

V

view2athrill

Member

• Jan 23, 2008

• #15

you never checked pH? Is your water naturally low in ph? what ab
out chlorine? were your nutes for soil or hydro...or does it even matter with this method? ((((sorry! you DID say soil nutes)))))
TMH---got any pix of what you grew?

This is one very intriguing method....I like the idea of a hybrid technique combining the best of both soil and hydro.

 

Last edited: Jan 23, 2008

S

smk2jnts

New member

• Mar 23, 2010

• #16

hi all-

the method the you are looking for is actually called organoponics. there is a book out there by Paul Wright (the guy who devised the organoponics system) that is a good read, but fairly simple. i tried organoponics for a couple rounds and got incredible results, but the clean-up is a PITA...

runs just like an ebbflow set-up but you top feed the soil media with nutes and bottom feed from your reservoir with just ph'ed water... puts the true organic in organic hydro because all of the feeding happens in the top root zone where you hand water or drip feed the soil and you can use 100% organic methods and still get hydro growth rates.

 

C

captain.koons

Member

• Mar 24, 2010

• #17

smk2jnts said:

hi all-

the method the you are looking for is actually called organoponics. there is a book out there by Paul Wright (the guy who devised the organoponics system) that is a good read, but fairly simple. i tried organoponics for a couple rounds and got incredible results, but the clean-up is a PITA...

runs just like an ebbflow set-up but you top feed the soil media with nutes and bottom feed from your reservoir with just ph'ed water... puts the true organic in organic hydro because all of the feeding happens in the top root zone where you hand water or drip feed the soil and you can use 100% organic methods and still get hydro growth rates.

Click to expand...

I tried searching the system using google and all the results I got didn't mention ebb and flow. Ebb&Flow with soil would get very wet and the slower your medium drains the less frequently you can feed = less yields or even more frequent root rot.

 

Big Foot

Member

• Mar 24, 2010

• #18

I honestly don't see the point in using hydro nutes in a soil mix, they are more suitable for soiless mixes like pro mix or other peat based mixes. Soil contains microbes that are killed by chem ferts.

 

Wooderson

Member

• Mar 24, 2010

• #19

smk2jnts said:

hi all-

the method the you are looking for is actually called organoponics. there is a book out there by Paul Wright (the guy who devised the organoponics system) that is a good read, but fairly simple. i tried organoponics for a couple rounds and got incredible results, but the clean-up is a PITA...

runs just like an ebbflow set-up but you top feed the soil media with nutes and bottom feed from your reservoir with just ph'ed water... puts the true organic in organic hydro because all of the feeding happens in the top root zone where you hand water or drip feed the soil and you can use 100% organic methods and still get hydro growth rates.

Click to expand...

organoponics I like the sounds of that! I found this link about it;

http://rooftopgardens.ca/en/node/351

 

C

captain.koons

Member

• Mar 24, 2010

• #20

Big Foot said:

I honestly don't see the point in using hydro nutes in a soil mix, they are more suitable for soiless mixes like pro mix or other peat based mixes. Soil contains microbes that are killed by chem ferts.

Click to expand...

at what concentrations? why do people use Mycorhizae(amongst other things) in refined mineral solution (hydroponic grade fertilizers)? Does this mean I can market GH products as hand sanitizers?

Keep in mind Nitrogen, Phosphorous, and Potassium are not chemicals they are minerals or elements. Chemicals or chemical compounds are created by chemical reactions such as water, pharmaceuticals, table salt, bleach, etc.