Pheno hunting in raised bed 4x4 tent

[Greencedar]

I’m wondering if anyone is doing this and could offer up some advice.

I’ve been keeping my moms in a living soil 3x3 raised bed for a few years now with mostly blumat drip irrigation and love how easy it is to keep the plants happy. All the plants are tested for HLV that go into the bed to keep things safe. I can go on vacation etc and plants don’t need attention.

I’m thinking of converting a tent to a 4x4 raised bed for pheno hunting mostly indica/hybrids. I could do around 9 plants depending on veg times/genetics. I would grow seedlings around 60 days in smaller pots on top of the bed, flip to flower, sex, and transplant the fems into the bed to flower out.

This is basically how I grow NLDs in another tent except they each get their own 20gal pot.

The only downsides I can think of are:
1) the cost of the bed and soil
2) the transplant shock/lack of roots stretching out into the beds since WLDs don’t root as much as NLDs in flower
3) the ability to shift separate pots around for spacing out different sized plants later in flower

The advantages are
1) massive root space, consistent soil moisture (less watering labour)
2) happily fed organic plants (trickier in small pots with unknown genetics).

Any advice is appreciated. It’s a bit costly and a pain getting all the soil together for these big beds if it doesn’t work out. Tents are in a basement so no issues as far as weight or tent mobility.
GC

 

[Creeperpark]

I’m wondering if anyone is doing this and could offer up some advice.

I’ve been keeping my moms in a living soil 3x3 raised bed for a few years now with mostly blumat drip irrigation and love how easy it is to keep the plants happy. All the plants are tested for HLV that go into the bed to keep things safe. I can go on vacation etc and plants don’t need attention.

I’m thinking of converting a tent to a 4x4 raised bed for pheno hunting mostly indica/hybrids. I could do around 9 plants depending on veg times/genetics. I would grow seedlings around 60 days in smaller pots on top of the bed, flip to flower, sex, and transplant the fems into the bed to flower out.

This is basically how I grow NLDs in another tent except they each get their own 20gal pot.

The only downsides I can think of are:
1) the cost of the bed and soil
2) the transplant shock/lack of roots stretching out into the beds since WLDs don’t root as much as NLDs in flower
3) the ability to shift separate pots around for spacing out different sized plants later in flower

The advantages are
1) massive root space, consistent soil moisture (less watering labour)
2) happily fed organic plants (trickier in small pots with unknown genetics).

Any advice is appreciated. It’s a bit costly and a pain getting all the soil together for these big beds if it doesn’t work out. Tents are in a basement so no issues as far as weight or tent mobility.
GC

Hello friend, I think that would be a good experiment to try. Keep us posted and post photos if it's safe. You have my interest.

 

[tjmccoy]

I’m wondering if anyone is doing this and could offer up some advice.

I’ve been keeping my moms in a living soil 3x3 raised bed for a few years now with mostly blumat drip irrigation and love how easy it is to keep the plants happy. All the plants are tested for HLV that go into the bed to keep things safe. I can go on vacation etc and plants don’t need attention.

I’m thinking of converting a tent to a 4x4 raised bed for pheno hunting mostly indica/hybrids. I could do around 9 plants depending on veg times/genetics. I would grow seedlings around 60 days in smaller pots on top of the bed, flip to flower, sex, and transplant the fems into the bed to flower out.

This is basically how I grow NLDs in another tent except they each get their own 20gal pot.

The only downsides I can think of are:
1) the cost of the bed and soil
2) the transplant shock/lack of roots stretching out into the beds since WLDs don’t root as much as NLDs in flower
3) the ability to shift separate pots around for spacing out different sized plants later in flower

The advantages are
1) massive root space, consistent soil moisture (less watering labour)
2) happily fed organic plants (trickier in small pots with unknown genetics).

Any advice is appreciated. It’s a bit costly and a pain getting all the soil together for these big beds if it doesn’t work out. Tents are in a basement so no issues as far as weight or tent mobility.
GC

I’m attempting a similar senerio, I just finished up a selection, how I did it was I grew all the plants in the bed with males and females until I could determine sex on each by looking at pre flowers, I then took 3 clones of each plant, killed off the original seed plants, then replanted the female only clones into the bed for flower, the males flowered in a pot in separate room. I kept the others clones under floor light in 1 gal pots just kept alive until some selections could be made. These were mostly vigorous sativa dominant plants that this process helped keep them manageable enough to grow out quite a few, I fit 15 females packed tight in my 5ft x 5ft living soil sip bed

Moving plants is easy once you get past it, it’s just as simple as digging one up and transplanting it just like you would outside, and prune the top so the roots and top are more in balance

The problems… That was a lot of work and didn’t find a keeper that I wanted, but it was good practice, after chopping the seed plants the system kinda goes into shock for a while, I feel like it needs at least 30days after doing a chop, the carbon to N ratio spikes now with all the decaying roots.

One thing I maybe could have done was just pure the seed plants all the way back to just one shoot and not completely started over not sure

I recently had moms sitting on top of the bed in 1 gal pots and the roots went out into the bed, something about this I liked and may try this approach for these, I liked how the base of the plant got more air that way and would be easy to just cut the pot out and move if that makes any sense?

It’s a work in progress

Have a good one!

 

[Greencedar]

Thanks for your responses.

Interesting stuff TJ. I’ve noticed that plants grow way faster if you can get them in the raised beds straight from the seedling cups and could see how getting the seedlings in the beds faster could definitely speed things up.

Grassroots sells bottomless pots that you can start on a saucer and then when you’ve determined where you want it you just remove the saucer and place them directly on the beds dug in a few inches deep. They’re super cheap and would be a good to try out.

Bottomless Fabric Pot - Grassroots

Using a plastic saucer or tray to contain soil media, plant a new clone or seedling in the sleeve. When the rooted plant has filled the sleeve with roots, then place the rooted clone or seedling on top of a living soil bed system for the life of the plant. After harvest is complete, leave the...

www.grassrootsfabricpots.com

I haven’t seen much shock with the carbon from the roots. I’m constantly cutting out moms and placing new plants in my raised beds and I’ve never really seen any issues show up. Even yellow hungry plants green up and grow within a week. The only issue I’ve ever had is dialling in moisture levels (I use a blumat moisture meter now) or going a bit crazy topdressing and changing ph (which always buffers out in a couple weeks). Some leaf tips burn but nothing too crazy and they recover fast.

 

[tjmccoy]

Here’s the pot, just a one gal, had no problem rooting out the holes into the bed, the worms had no problem getting in either. I felt like the plant liked it maybe because it could breathe better with the base up out of the bed?

 

[Greencedar]

Oh wow. That’s big time no till right there. Lookin good.

I’ve seen that style of growing outdoor with 150 gal bottomless beds and plants get huge. I’m sure the oxygen helps and the deeper roots allow more consistent water uptake, rather than too much wet dry cycling.

I was doing no till with lots of cover crop for awhile but had a hard time with humidity levels under the canopy and went back to barley straw mixed with worm castings for my top cover. I noticed less vigour in veg but no real difference in flower (I was fighting powdery mildew from time to time and haven’t had it in a couple years now). I blend up all the weed leaves and mix amendments into it and top-dress/water it in, to keep the worms happy.