Mister D's Vertical Redemption

[catman]

There is this tool called a tensio meter that will tell you how moist the medium is... Blumats work based off of how they work. Control your environment...and dial it in. Beds are a great idea as well...Thinking I might do that next, but for the future it just makes more sense to me that they each should have their own bud. I'm not running clones...variety is the spice of life for me.

 

[bobblehead]

There is this tool called a tensio meter that will tell you how moist the medium is... Blumats work based off of how they work. Control your environment...and dial it in. Beds are a great idea as well...Thinking I might do that next, but for the future it just makes more sense to me that they each should have their own bud. I'm not running clones...variety is the spice of life for me.

The thing about a tensiometer, is you have to be there to use it and make the decision to irrigate or not. In my situation, I'm not there, so I just throw nute solution at the plants in a well draining medium and hope for the best.

blumats... Never again in an absentee grow. I am using them currently, but I am around that grow in case something goes wrong.

You're right about each plant needing its own bag. I monocrop rooms, so my situation is different from yours.

My statement about irrigating to runoff has more to do with my experience irrigating on multiple levels. The plants lowest to the ground will achieve runoff sooner than the plants at the top, and get more solution overall. That's cool if you have some bigger plants at the bottom that can handle the extra nute solution, but the concept of SOG is to monocrop equally sized plants.

Since the bags/beds can only absorb so much.. I suggested irrigating them all to runoff because then they have achieved an equal level of saturation. The runoff just need to be plumbed away from the plants. Maybe even recollected like those crazy ppk-ers...

 

[catman]

...If you close the run-off lines with stacked buckets the crazy tailpiece and the blumats start to give too much "run away", ya gotta hempy bucket for a few days. I don't know about others, but my blumats always shutoff when the perched water table is essentially fully saturating the cone...when the cone/sensor is at the bottom of the bucket. Add a run-off line from a few inches below the bottom bucket if it's too much saturation for the variety of plant-medium in the upper bucket/bed/bag/bud(whoops)/whatever. If the blumats aren't working, your plants are probably transpiring faster than they can keep up..you can always add more..maybe let the blumats just run water and setup a feed res and line. An over-fed and over-watered crop is a huge waste compared to the expense of a blumat. To each their own and many ways of course...If your only there every now and then and monocroppin, a tensio meter is still like a flashlight compared to being in the dark...otherwise your still making calls based upon the plants appearances when you do visit I assume...and they surely can be deceiving. Digital tensio meters and PLCs in the dreams...not in the budget, haha.

 

[packerfan79]

I thought you were only supposed to use cal mag during veg. when i used it during flower my stuff was almost a complete loss, it didnt even pay for my power. I ran botanicare Cns 17 grow and ripe with calmag during veg, hydro plex, aquashield, liquid karma, silica blast, with Mollasas, and rasta bobs one love. Botanicare strapped is the best bargain much better than buying a tiny jar for 4-5 dollars, i got 1/2 gallon for 9 bucks,and it last 3 grows so far, botanicare can out preform the high dollar advanced connisoure, with all the high dollar advanced additives.i use their neutrient calculator, which i tweak slightly with Rasta bobs one love. seems to work very well.

 

[bobblehead]

...If you close the run-off lines with stacked buckets the crazy tailpiece and the blumats start to give too much "run away", ya gotta hempy bucket for a few days. I don't know about others, but my blumats always shutoff when the perched water table is essentially fully saturating the cone...when the cone/sensor is at the bottom of the bucket. Add a run-off line from a few inches below the bottom bucket if it's too much saturation for the variety of plant-medium in the upper bucket/bed/bag/bud(whoops)/whatever. If the blumats aren't working, your plants are probably transpiring faster than they can keep up..you can always add more..maybe let the blumats just run water and setup a feed res and line. An over-fed and over-watered crop is a huge waste compared to the expense of a blumat. To each their own and many ways of course...If your only there every now and then and monocroppin, a tensio meter is still like a flashlight compared to being in the dark...otherwise your still making calls based upon the plants appearances when you do visit I assume...and they surely can be deceiving. Digital tensio meters and PLCs in the dreams...not in the budget, haha.

Do you have a tensiometer? They make cheap ones for $25, so I'm assuming you do if you feel its such a valuable tool... Which brings me to my next question, what level of tension do you find works best for cannabis?

I read a research paper last night written by a horticulture science grad student. Very interesting.

They make these electronic tensiometers, similar to blumats, except they are sensors that send a signal back to a computer. That signal is logged, and when water tension dropped below a certain point, the computer would trigger irrigation on a timed pulse, and cease irrigation upon achieving the desired level of saturation.

The results of the study were that water tension was easiest to control at low tension of 3-8, medium 9-12 was more challenging to control around 11-12 but manageable at 9-10, and high tension at 13-16 or 17? (kinda fuzzy on the top number) was very hard to control.

They also found that at higher levels of tension, the moisture inside the probe was depleted faster than with low tension. They even had a probe run out of water, which resulted in a reading of no moisture and the feed system was triggered and not turned off.



Absolutely amazing that a grad student was discovering the same issues as I've had with blumats. I'm looking for the paper but I can't seem to find it or I would share a link.

The paper said that more water was available at lower tension as I recall... but there was no yield numbers given for the roses and tomatoes grown.


It appears as if tensiometers need maintenance to continue operating correctly over an extended period of time.

 

[Mister_D]

Do you have a tensiometer? They make cheap ones for $25, so I'm assuming you do if you feel its such a valuable tool... Which brings me to my next question, what level of tension do you find works best for cannabis?

I read a research paper last night written by a horticulture science grad student. Very interesting.

They make these electronic tensiometers, similar to blumats, except they are sensors that send a signal back to a computer. That signal is logged, and when water tension dropped below a certain point, the computer would trigger irrigation on a timed pulse, and cease irrigation upon achieving the desired level of saturation.

The results of the study were that water tension was easiest to control at low tension of 3-8, medium 9-12 was more challenging to control around 11-12 but manageable at 9-10, and high tension at 13-16 or 17? (kinda fuzzy on the top number) was very hard to control.

They also found that at higher levels of tension, the moisture inside the probe was depleted faster than with low tension. They even had a probe run out of water, which resulted in a reading of no moisture and the feed system was triggered and not turned off.



Absolutely amazing that a grad student was discovering the same issues as I've had with blumats. I'm looking for the paper but I can't seem to find it or I would share a link.

The paper said that more water was available at lower tension as I recall... but there was no yield numbers given for the roses and tomatoes grown.


It appears as if tensiometers need maintenance to continue operating correctly over an extended period of time.

Interesting stuff bobble. If you find that paper again be sure to send me a link, would love to read it .

 

[bobblehead]

Interesting stuff bobble. If you find that paper again be sure to send me a link, would love to read it .

I'm looking... but have a look at this... I like it. A computer controlled solenoid that reads off a tensiometer! WE CAN DOOOO IT! lol...

http://lieth.ucdavis.edu/Research/tens/96/potirg.htm


edit:
Here is a paper that the paper I read cited. Isn't academia great?

http://ccfc.org/files/verificati-1216259534.pdf


It makes me want to revisit blumats... because apparently, a lower water tension of 5-6 was optimal for roses. So when you think your blumat pots are kinda dry, they might be just right... no way to know unless you have a tensiometer to find out exactly where they are.

 

[Mister_D]

I'm looking... but have a look at this... I like it. A computer controlled solenoid that reads off a tensiometer! WE CAN DOOOO IT! lol...

http://lieth.ucdavis.edu/Research/tens/96/potirg.htm


edit:
Here is a paper that the paper I read cited. Isn't academia great?

http://ccfc.org/files/verificati-1216259534.pdf


It makes me want to revisit blumats... because apparently, a lower water tension of 5-6 was optimal for roses. So when you think your blumat pots are kinda dry, they might be just right... no way to know unless you have a tensiometer to find out exactly where they are.

Cool thanks man. I did keep my pots on the drier end of things while using blumats, and they seemed to have worked better for me than most on here. This might have been key a factor in that regard. Hard to say for sure at this point, but like I mentioned earlier on, mastering blumats will involve understanding the mechanics of how they work. My friend is still running several hundred of them without hardly any issue. If I have time in future i'll pick his brain about the setup some more.

 

[catman]

Do you have a tensiometer? Which brings me to my next question, what level of tension do you find works best for cannabis?

I do not. Because I'm rarely far from my plants. I've had a lot of hands on experience over and underwatering them so I judge by what I can see, touch, and I like to use a scale to measure the weight. When a plant is looking one way; I just turn the dial a little the other way.

Awesome linkage bobble. I believe all one needs is a piece of wood with a hole in it, a resistor, and a multimeter to infer a moisture reading. This isn't practical because of how wood would react to the mediums we growers often use, but ya probably could dial it in. I know about tensio meters because I grew up surrounded by agriculture. Meters are placed in strategic locations (different depths at spots) miles a part and a farmer can make trips to record the data. Because farmers usually can't change the land much, they change what they are growing.

"Run-off can be reduced to almost nothing with this system (depending on drip system uniformity, size of circuit, length of crop time, etc.)"

Good read here http://lieth.ucdavis.edu/Research/tens/98/SmtPub.htm

Absolutely amazing that a grad student was discovering the same issues as I've had with blumats. I'm looking for the paper but I can't seem to find it or I would share a link.

It appears as if tensiometers need maintenance to continue operating correctly over an extended period of time.

You ain't no dummy bobble, but obviously us young cats need to learn some lessons the hard and long way, haha...we're in the VERT forum after all...

They may need to be calibrated after seasonal changes in temperature...but we shouldn't be havin so much of that inside...and surrounding rootmass will probably change the readings...should have the plant dialed in before that occurs...

Cool thanks man. I did keep my pots on the drier end of things while using blumats, and they seemed to have worked better for me than most on here.

They really aren't that complicated and Sunnydog has done a great job in the auto watering thread bringing in more information than you could ask for. What others and myself seem to have found is that both the plants and blumats preform better toward the wetter range. If ya read the link above, it mentions a great point about how human perception can throw us off from our goals. The medium may feel wet to us, but there may actually be not much moisture at all available to the plant. I think this might have something to do with the pragmatic "lift a pot" method.

In the near future I think I'm gunna try Blumat Maxis in a 2.5x2.5x7 INCH containers treated with chemicals to prune the roots. I'll be needing to pull about 1.5oz per container to be efficient. Why waste time and energy growing roots? That's exactly what I've done in the past, but I've learned from it

 

[DaveTheNewbie]

very interesting
i always tried to keep my coco "wet" with blumats
i always had problems
maybe i should take the drier medium as a good thing and not fuck with them so much?
now im going to ebay a cheapie and just see whats going on in the medium. That alone amuses the shit outta me

 

[bobblehead]

Yeah ime the heavier the pot the more vigorous the growth... but it's more difficult for me to get the blumats to keep a pot heavy. The study suggests that more nutrient solution is delivered with a drier pot, from what I took away. This is because a dry pot triggers the release of water, and a wet pot keeps feed closed. A dry pot should have a regular drip... and we've seen the roots growing up toward where the drops are hitting the medium.

Like catman quoted, human perception of what works isn't always right...

So anyway, after this lovely conversation we've all had... I'm going to invest in some various tensiometers and start getting some readings like I did with my lamps. They make digital tensiometer/EC meter combos... So I could get a digital readout of what is really going on in my medium vs. what I'm putting in. Neat, huh?

Of course then I'll switch to an organic mix and never use another meter again... ha ha....

 

[DaveTheNewbie]

Yeah ime the heavier the pot the more vigorous the growth... but it's more difficult for me to get the blumats to keep a pot heavy. The study suggests that more nutrient solution is delivered with a drier pot, from what I took away. This is because a dry pot triggers the release of water, and a wet pot keeps feed closed. A dry pot should have a regular drip... and we've seen the roots growing up toward where the drops are hitting the medium.

Like catman quoted, human perception of what works isn't always right...

So anyway, after this lovely conversation we've all had... I'm going to invest in some various tensiometers and start getting some readings like I did with my lamps. They make digital tensiometer/EC meter combos... So I could get a digital readout of what is really going on in my medium vs. what I'm putting in. Neat, huh?

Of course then I'll switch to an organic mix and never use another meter again... ha ha....

is it possible this new toy would enable you actually measure where a blumat is at, and use it effectively? Imagine that!

 

[megayields]

Do you have a tensiometer? They make cheap ones for $25, so I'm assuming you do if you feel its such a valuable tool... Which brings me to my next question, what level of tension do you find works best for cannabis?

I read a research paper last night written by a horticulture science grad student. Very interesting.

They make these electronic tensiometers, similar to blumats, except they are sensors that send a signal back to a computer. That signal is logged, and when water tension dropped below a certain point, the computer would trigger irrigation on a timed pulse, and cease irrigation upon achieving the desired level of saturation.

The results of the study were that water tension was easiest to control at low tension of 3-8, medium 9-12 was more challenging to control around 11-12 but manageable at 9-10, and high tension at 13-16 or 17? (kinda fuzzy on the top number) was very hard to control.

They also found that at higher levels of tension, the moisture inside the probe was depleted faster than with low tension. They even had a probe run out of water, which resulted in a reading of no moisture and the feed system was triggered and not turned off.



Absolutely amazing that a grad student was discovering the same issues as I've had with blumats. I'm looking for the paper but I can't seem to find it or I would share a link.

The paper said that more water was available at lower tension as I recall... but there was no yield numbers given for the roses and tomatoes grown.


It appears as if tensiometers need maintenance to continue operating correctly over an extended period of time.

So the "holy grail" doesn't exist?

 

[high life 45]

Of course then I'll switch to an organic mix and never use another meter again... ha ha....

Playing with this with great results. Might try some not till.

I do like this tensio meter convo though. Great Links

 

[Junior Capsula]

Bobble, who manufactures the EC/tensiometer combo? That would be a great tool to have, for those that do soil, coco, soilless medium.

 

[DaveTheNewbie]

It appears as if tensiometers need maintenance to continue operating correctly over an extended period of time.

This is something that caught my eye.
If they work the same way as blumats work, and if they need regular maintenence, then i would assume that so do blumats?
If its as simple as giving it a once over every 4 weeks or so, tell me how and ill do it!

 

[Lazyman]

Hey gang! I'm still alive, just been busy working . ..basement is still kickin, 30kw flower, 7kw veg, 2kw preveg under t5's. Airflow is 6k cfm out, 3600 CFm in. Gettin noisy! Miss you all, stay safe!

 

[megayields]

Hows it going Dave? Keep killing it mang but we need more pics!

 

[DaveTheNewbie]

Hows it going Dave? Keep killing it mang but we need more pics!

heh im only posting pics of new and intersting things now, like my new PPK.
But this is D's thread so im not posting much here

 

[megayields]

woops LOL..MAN was I tired last night..I forgot who's thread I was in HAHAHA..

OK Mr D get us some kewl pics!