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Can You Bottom Feed With Coco ?

RetroGrow

Active member
Veteran
Absolutely, probably no better option. You can get ridiculous yields with airpots and smart pots.

Airpots & smartpots both nice. I have tried both. But they don't compare to plain, cheap ole Hempy buckets for yield. Try Hempy buckets and you will double (or thereabouts) your yield over smart or air pots. And they are cheap or free. Anyone want to buy some airpots?
 

siftedunity

cant re Member
Veteran
little plants in little pots will be ok if you bottom feed. i dont see that they would get adequate watering in a bigger sized pot. i mean your plants look nice but how much you gonna get off each one?
 
C

CulturedHeathen

I'm a bottomfeeder...



Just have a big saucer under every plant and fill em up till the coco stops wicking it up. Easy cheezy! Make sure to use drip clean every watering and some sort of enzyme every-other time! These will not be flushed the whole way thru until a few days before chop.
 
D

DHF

I'm a bottomfeeder...

[URL="https://www.icmag.com/ic/picture.php?albumid=40075&pictureid=959684&thumb=1"]View Image[/URL]

Just have a big saucer under every plant and fill em up till the coco stops wicking it up. Easy cheezy! Make sure to use drip clean every watering and some sort of enzyme every-other time! These will not be flushed the whole way thru until a few days before chop.
As stated above , dripclean goes a long way as insurance from residual salt buildup in upper rootzones , but never heard of enzymes being added to help insure decent results from bottomfed coco setups....

I still disagree across the board and hope all know that it`s not the optimum setup if runnin coco that holds onto nutrients via it`s CEC/cation exchange capacity thruout the whole growth cycle..

Just tryin to help , and ya`ll do what yas will and report back on your findings truthfully......please....

Only makes for a stronger community......

Peace.....DHF......:ying:.......
 

SRGB

Member
Notes on Drain-To-No-Waste, Top-To-Bottom-Feeding, Medium, Container, Reservoir, pH

Notes on Drain-To-No-Waste, Top-To-Bottom-Feeding, Medium, Container, Reservoir, pH

Buddaluva:
Can You Bottom Feed With Coco ?

Im wanting to do a bottom feed grow so i dont have to move my plants when i water

I have some smart pots that i want to use for it

Can i fill my smart pots up with coco and bottom feed with it ? Like have my smart pot sitting in a saucer and let it leach up when i water ?

Also can i use just coco instead of mixing it with perlight since its gonna be leaching up instead of draining out ?

Thanks in advance fellas


Hi, Buddaluva.

These might be helpful:

Square Root® Brand Garden Bag - Low-Tech Gardening [Methods]

Square Root Brand® Garden Bag - Drain-To-No-Waste [Methods]

Square Root® Brand Garden Bag - Roots Gallery
See post #2, last image. Roots growing from inside 1 liter SRBGB into basin of shallow (approximately 1.25cm / 1/2 inch) run-off from top-feed. No aerating device in shallow run-off. Basin not covered; roots fully exposed to light.

Note, also, images above last image; progression of roots growing out of Square Root® Brand Garden Bag (SRBGB). The gardener has the option of continuing to develop roots inside of the external reservoir, or place the entire smaller SRBGB into a larger SRBGB. See below.
SRBGB-Roots

See also
Hydro bucket (hempy with extra reservoir)
See the work of thread starter dudin, and posts #71 Notes on Shallow Water Culture (SWC); #74 Soilless Gardening and SWC; #97 External Basins, Reservoirs and Troughs with SRBGB`s and SWC.

Square Root® Brand Garden Bags were developed for gardeners to implement various methods and techniques that gardeners might employ or experiment with; including soilless gardening, DWC, SWC, NFT, active recirculation, hand watering, or other novel methods and techniques.

We are posting here only to share our experiments and with SRBGB`s, in the hope that the data will be helpful.

We are not certain exactly what you mean by

Buddaluva:
so i dont have to move my plants when i water


--

To specifically reply to your question presented in post #1, we found during experiments that it is possible to garden employing a modified Shallow Water Culture (SWC) approach. The basic concept being

a) to select an external reservoir (basin) which is low-walled and slightly wider than the SRBGB;

b) to slightly raise the given container to permit environmental air flow through the walls and underneath the bottom of the SRBGB;

c) to top-feed only until drainage (run-off) accumulates to approximately 1.25cm-2.5cm (1/2 inch - 1 inch), depending on 1) size of SRBGB; 2) the rate of growth of the plant or tree; and 3) temperature and dehumidification of the garden (contributing to rate of evaporation in the external basin);

d) to top-feed approximately every 24h - 72h; in practice providing fresh, pH stable nutrient solution (or water) to the media inside of the SRBGB and to replenish the nutrient solution in the reservoir.

One important point that we want to share is that when employing a modified SWC method, the watering regime might work well when directly correlated to the level in the external reservoir - especially if the nutrient solution is not actively recirculated. Even within that correlation there are several factors that should be considered by the gardener.

e) the type of medium used inside of the container (coco coir might possess a wide degree of saturation points between brands or type of coco coir - while perlite or pumice generally possess a consistent level of saturation, porosity and capillary action); by type we mean how 1) how well the media drains; 2) porosity of the media (air holding capacity); capillary properties of the media (measurement of how high the water will rise from beneath along the collidial surfaces of the substrate); and 3) saturation point and length of saturation under the specific gardens' environmental conditions;

f) the height of the container above the base surface of the reservoir; whether the container is in constant contact with the solution in the reservoir, or not; whether the root mass outside of the container has grown into the reservoir, or not.

g) the drainage characteristics of the container; when filled with media (e), the percentage of the top-fed solution that drains through the media and container into the external reservoir;

h) the approximate pH drift of the drainage (run-off) nutrient solution held within the external reservoir; ideally, the nutrient solution is essentially replaced every 24h - 72h (d), by top-feeding when the external reservoir depletes through uptake 1) by the root system that has grown into the external reservoir; and 2) the moderate evaporation of the nutrient solution inside of the external reservoir during 24h - 72h period. pH, as discussed here, being the range at which certain elements are physically capable of sustaining dissolution - or not - within the solution. When the pH of the nutrient solution shifts, the ability of certain elements to remain dissolved in that solution fluctuates between being available to the roots - or not being available to the roots; independent of the concentration level (ppm/ec/millimoles) of the solution.

Ideally, the gardener might observe their specific gardening environment (air movement, dehumidification or moisture evapration rate, temperatures), the growth rate of the specific cultivar(s), and the depletion rate of the external reservoir within the gardening environment - then tailor the rate of nutrient solution applied over a given period (24h - 72h) to essentially replace the nutrient solution within the conatiner and external reservoir every one to three days (for consistently stable pH - balance of elements available to the roots). This might require some attention to the garden to measure, but possible.

The above points are some of the variables that might be considered by the gardener employing a bottom-feeding, top-to-bottom-feeding, drain-to-no-waste, SWC or similar methods.

During our experiments with SRBGB`s, some our gardening pursuits were:

I. Efficiency. Waste no water or nutrient solution.
II. Maintain fresh (pH stable) nutrient solution.
III. Apply input solution to the plant or tree based on the relative needs of the plant or tree, observed by the level of the nutrient solution in the external reservoir.

Each gardener might have varying and different gardening pusuits.

In summary, there might be several factors that contribute to successfully gardening employing a bottom-feed, or similar method. The best course of determining what will or will not work well in the garden might be to experiment within the environement of that garden - to find what traditional, novel or combination of techniques might work for your own garden.

Again, we only posted here to share what relevant data might be useful based on your original post. Please PM or post here if you would like us to remove this post from your thread.

Best,
/SRGB/
 
I bottom feed with coco enf, but 2 gal was too small, actually had a plant wilt up on me last week. filled roots up in the 2 gal. 3 gal perfect. had 8 week veg.
gonna try halo rings with a adjustable top feed. multifeed...
 

MedicinalLifer

New member
read thru this thread and what everyone that says ya you can bottom feed no issues...thing is, if you gonna bottom feed you will get pro mix results using coco...point of coco is you push it like pea gravel or rockwool, but DTW so you dont need to have pumps or res, I am doing coco dtw, and only use ph meter, had a sample of food checked at gro store, it was 800ppm, I back off a bit, add molasses and getting serious growth, looks like week 6 but its week 5 compared to ammended pro mix, in 1-2 gal bags and you can have trees so you dont need 5 gallon of medium, more water/food for 5 gal than 1 gal, so many advantages, but yet you want to stagnate the beauty of hydroponics with pro mix methods...1-2 waterings a day in veg in smaller container, transplant to 1 gal when its rootbound, and work up to 6 a day in flower...when you top feed with some runoff you get hydroponic results...so sure bottom feed your coco but if you top feed DTW you will have better yield and faster growth...like getting a Bugatti to use for delivering pizzas....top feed your coco
 

MedicinalLifer

New member
also when you top feed coco it brings oxygen into rootzone, forces it in, bottom feed does not, thats what makes them grow faster...in flower 4-6 feedings from top forces oxygen in so when you bottom feed it just gets no oxygen forcesd into rootzone, so its wrong to use coco this way...force fed it will only retain so much water, will still have 30% airation...I use 80/20 coco/perlite...great drainage, real fast but hand feed is labor intense, I am disabled so I can hang out and feed 4 times easy....
 

bluesteel29

New member
sorry to bump n old thread but will dunking coco filled pots into nutrient solution and allowing the excess to drain off yield the same results\problems as bottom feeding?

Yes i know its labor intensive.
 

Goats

Active member
yes you can bottom feed coco, but make sure you're running water through your pots from the top at least once every week or two to 'reset' them and prevent buildup. coco holds onto salts like crazy and they will build up just above the water line when bottom feeding only.

when i was starting out people said as long as your coco stays wet salt won't build up, but it will, and it did. even when flooding 3x/day i got buildup when not giving them a good top-feed every couple of weeks.

tbh, i am probably switching to a recirculating, timed drip system in the near future here. possibly as soon as next run. i enjoy flood and drain, but if i can take care of one of the flaws in my system and improve my grow by making such an easy switch then i will give it a try.
 

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