[zalman]

Hey everyone,

I'm going to be ordering one of these autopot systems from futuregarden.com and basically the way that it works is it floods from the bottom,m about 2 inches or so, and it waits until it completely dries out then floods it again.

What kind of coir would be best for this? I plan on using Floranova nutes with this system.

I know different brands work better for different applications, so any info is helpful.

[EddieShoestring]

Hi
in short i think you can use more or less any type of coco. They produce a coco specifically for autopots but i know growers who use everything from cheap garden centre bricks to Canna and, as long as you get the salts and bugs out of the cheap stuff, it all seems to work ok-

autopots are excellent by the way
cheers
eddie

[gaiusmarius]

sorry but i don't think an autopot is what you want for coco growing. coco likes to be top fed. your best bet is to get a nft table and stand pots of coco on the table. then use automated drip irrigation and you have a real winning system. but even just pots of coco watered by hand can bring great results. just the watering has to be from the tp to make the most of coco. it as a tendency to let salts accumulate, which is why you need to water from the top and water till run off on a regular basis.

[EddieShoestring]

sorry but i don't think an autopot is what you want for coco growing.

Gaius-i think autopots are designed for coco-they certainly work really well with coir-i'll check on that one tho

cheers
eddie

[gaiusmarius]

i have never like the look of my plants when i experimented with bottom feeding in coco, so that's what i base my answer on. also the fact that top feeding is clearly the way to go for flushing purposes alone. but hey, maybe some one wants to experiment. i never like those autopots, so i guess i'm not the right person to ask.

peace

[EddieShoestring]

cool Gauis cool

a couple of clicks showed that they were not designed specifically for coco-apparently they also work with pearlite, hydroton even soil (not sure if soil's such a good idea). I was remembering this Australian guy showing me a folder full of massive autopot coir greenhouse grows (corgettes and shit) -

i can see where you're comming from on the flushing/run off issue tho

eddie

[gaiusmarius]

as far as i know they are made for earth, as they work on the wick principle.

are you sure they were autopots in the green houses? seems too unprofessional, green house that use coco for courgetts, peppers, eggplant etc, normally use so called rolls of coco. this stuff comes in 2 meter wide rolls which are 30cm to 50cm thick, they unroll them in the green house and add industrial automated watering. the watering systems are hooked on to the water outlet directly, powder nutes are added to the water before it reaches the plants by a dosing machine. very simple and very efficient. they don't waste time using pots in most greenhouses i've seen, let alone such a cheap easy to brake thing like an autopot, which is clearly geared to a small to middle sized home grower using hydroton/earth.

[Johnny Chimpo]

I get the preflushed coco...

My mix is 60/40 coco/perlite.

Here are some pics of the Autopots in greenhouses...






and one with a Strawberry Diesel I did...coco and the Autopot work great for me personally...



I'll be experimenting flushing every two weeks for a few days this go around.

JC

[EddieShoestring]

are you sure they were autopots in the green houses?

yeah-he was the autopot rep. Nice guy with a little van and a folder full of commercial greenhouse autopot grows, who, i got to say seemed maybe a bit too professional in that he repeatedly turned down hits on some real tasty SSH


they are counter intuative Gaius-like Dr Who's tardis-i've seen big yields of excellent weed grown with a few rows of autopots and hardly any maintainence-so just can't write them off. Are they a wick system or SWC?I don't know.

also seen some of the big greenhouse coir bag and dripper set ups that you talking about-with the bags on low benches or on the floor-and you're right that Tescos are unlikely to use 40,000 autopots for the lettuces (i think they use long gulley nft for those)

i guess some autopot grows are needed in the coco forum so that we can get into the nitty gritty of the system

cheers
eddie

[Johnny Chimpo]

I'm always growing using the Autopot...I'll take pics and post em up...will be a bit...nothing is ready to flower.

Here is the link to how they work...Post #10

https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=57154

JC

Edit:to add link