Why do experienced growers still use plastic pots?

[Old Uncle Ben]

Hey bud, I've found there's a decent bunch of folks here with a lot experienced growers and knowledgeable folk's.

I'm not one of them, let me tell you straight up idk shit about the science and biology side of growing, it's best kept simple imo.

I don't post much in riu these days outside of the uk thread, I still visit the uk growers thread frequently I've a few buddies there.

Yeah I love growing and messing around with what appears to be pointless experiments.

Blsu grafted to bluchi.
View attachment 18973894
I originally done the graft to see if a better root stock would improve yeild on a graft that wasn't a great yeilder. View attachment 18973895

Cheers

Good morning gardeners......

I've done 100's of grafts on tropical (avocado, annona, citrus, mango) and stone fruit trees and been very successful - cleft, side veneer, chip and t-bud. But when it comes to cannabis and tomatoes, as you've found out, it's not worth it. Part of that is because it's an annual.

Here's a cool shot, a baby praying mantis on my newly grafted Kona sharwil scion, topworking an avocado tree.

Grafting opens up a whole new world of goodness, the best of the best. This is one skill you really need to learn.

Harvesting 2 faves today. Am glad too - it's getting old, the smell, the watering/maintenance hassle, etc.

Make it a great day,
UB

 

[Old Uncle Ben]

Hey good to see you too Star Dog. I know RIU has gone down hill bigtime.

That's cause the good guys, us, have left!

 

[CharlesU Farley]

I always hold the best staminate back, just in case a special pistilate appears.

Voice recognition has a hell of a time with those terms and I'm getting tired of editing it so I'll just say male and female, you all know what I mean.

Everything looking really good with the remaining female plants but nothing really special structurally, which is the primary trait I look for. So guess who's getting killed today?

Unlike most others, I don't hate/detest males. You'll notice a bit of fungi development starting at the base of the fabric container, we're having a hell of a warm spring here after having almost no winter. I'll hit the remaining containers the females are in with a little potassium bicarb spray tomorrow to nail those mycelia.

 

[PoweredByLove]

That's cause the good guys, us, have left!

Did troll it up manage to roll up a hill before rolling back down?

 

[CharlesU Farley]

Down in the basement doing some cleaning and tidying up, and the saw these old relics from the Mesozoic era... remember I'm Barney the fucking dinosaur. As you can see, I do have real world experience with plastic pots, in addition to ceramic, both glazed and unglazed. I'm a pack rat and just can't bring myself to take them to the dump:

Blue trays to catch occasional runoff in the closet came from unused heart cath equipment in the lab where Harley Farley worked before she retired.

 

[xtsho]

Regardless of what type of pot you use, how does an experienced grower end up ordering 100 pots of the wrong size? I did just that.

I consider myself an experienced grower. Some may disagree and I don't care. Anyway, I ordered some starter pots for cannabis starts and mainly vegetables and flowers for my outdoor growing this summer. I wanted the standard 2.7 inch that fit 32 to a standard nursery pot.

I wanted the ones on the right but ordered the ones on the left. I'm not going to bother sending them back as I'll still use them but it's annoying that I made that mistake and on top of that they don't fit evenly in standard sized nursery trays. There's like an inch of space left over. I just ordered 120 of the size on the right that I wanted and made sure I was ordering the right size. Must have been the IPA's and shots of Scotch when I ordered last time that caused that mistake.

I sure love Amazon though. I ordered today and will have tomorrow. Amazon Prime is a necessary evil.

 

[PadawanWarrior]

Regardless of what type of pot you use, how does an experienced grower end up ordering 100 pots of the wrong size? I did just that.

I consider myself an experienced grower. Some may disagree and I don't care. Anyway, I ordered some starter pots for cannabis starts and mainly vegetables and flowers for my outdoor growing this summer. I wanted the standard 2.7 inch that fit 32 to a standard nursery pot.

I wanted the ones on the right but ordered the ones on the left. I'm not going to bother sending them back as I'll still use them but it's annoying that I made that mistake and on top of that they don't fit evenly in standard sized nursery trays. There's like an inch of space left over. I just ordered 120 of the size on the right that I wanted and made sure I was ordering the right size. Must have been the IPA's and shots of Scotch when I ordered last time that caused that mistake.

I sure love Amazon though. I ordered today and will have tomorrow. Amazon Prime is a necessary evil.


View attachment 18974688

Shrinkflation,

 

[LndRcLvr]

All this pot chat got me over excited, these turned up today. The dopamine made me do it honest.

 

[CharlesU Farley]

Trying to do some spring cleaning and organizing down the basement. Since I was rearranging the bags 'o bags, figured I'd pull out most of the ones that I've used:

I have no earthly idea how many gallons these are. Got the one on the back, right row off of Amazon. Even though they said they were 7 gallons, looked to me like about 5 and it's just a little tall for a 5 gallon Lowe's plastic container.

The largest one on the left has handles/carrying straps that loop all the way underneath the container itself, providing tremendous support for heavy ass, recently watered soil. Can't get them anymore but those are probably the best fabric containers I've ever used. That was the first\original fabric container that I bought and still use today, if I've got a structurally sound plant that I know is going to need some root space to grow.

The one on the back right is pretty well the standard one I use when I'm packing tents tight and I need maximum production, in a minimal amount of space, in a minimal amount of time.

The ones up front are all Velcro for transplanting into bigger pots. The one on the left is supposed to be square... what a joke that was. When packed with the amount of soil I use, the corners did not hold and it ended up being round / ovoid. Not helpful for packing in the max amount of plants, which is what I wanted to square container for.

The front middle one is my standard size for vegging and early sexing of plants. The right one is for situations like I'm in now, where I've got a lot of seedlings and clones and no tents to put them in. So I packed the maximum amount of seedlings/clones in the closet, and wait till the tents open up downstairs.

These are the only measurements I monitor:

The temp and humidity at the top are in the room here upstairs. The bottom measurements are inlet temp/humidity at first tent, inlet measurements at second tent, and temp/humidity exiting all tents. They're in flowering, so the lights are off for another hour or so.

These measurements are the only ones at take.

As you can see, temp and humidity aren't always ideal indoors either, but SouthEast Lights has been developed under these types of conditions for a very, very long time.

 

[xtsho]

Sometimes you just can't catch a break. I got 120 more pots that I thought would fit evenly in a standard sized nursery tray but despite the dimensions listed on Amazon they're just slightly too large to fit 4 across. Being stuck with a a bunch of lemons I decided to make lemonade. I can fit 14 of the larger pots and 18 of the small ones in a nursery tray which gives me the 32 pots I wanted. The small ones are big enough for some things so now we sow seed.

The bottom of these are much different than the standard flat bottom pots with 4 holes and the material is much thicker. These are much sturdier pots. They call them RooTrimmers. I don't think they'll make any difference.

So now we plant. I'll probably do 6 trays total. I always start more plants than I need as I have several friends that I provide plant starts to each year.

 

[I Care]

I see here that the topic is for plastic pots. Read 4 pages and realized it will per perfectly appropriate to throw this in here.

I’m looking to efficiently use a spall space with most roots and water I can possibly use with a run off tray. Could do an 8 count of 7x7” square or two count of 16x16”, cardboard box 32x16x16”, but WTF is this!?

Plastic Garden Bed Large Elevated Planter Vegetable Herb Flowers Grow Bed​

I found this mf during like the last 10 hours of my free time looking at different pots and planters for the 20x36 grow I’m putting together.

This fuc’n thing on eBay is an outdoor hydro set up? Somebody know Jeb? Jeb Gardner? If there’s anybody who needs one of these it’s Jeb!

The last image may display that there’s a a lot of drainage, the holes, the bottom and the sides?

Free shipping and it’s close to my dimensions, lot of cubic footage for roots. Unless somebody else has any ideas, I want cheapest option, going through the internet I’ve gone from sevn’y five on a 5 year supply of boxes, to fawty five with two of these. 5x10 gal squares come in at forty eight. Boxes leave me with the greatest cubic footage. I still haven’t done any ground work yet to see what’s available if I go running around.

Last random thought,
Coco in cardboard?

 

[CharlesU Farley]

Here's the biggest and probably only drawback that have experienced using fabric containers:

While there are some fungi I really like, that white powdery shit is not anything I'm interested in. So every week or two, I hit the bags with this, potassium bicarb easily available at Amazon, and it's not associated with cannabis marketing!!!!

Mix 2 tablespoons of hco3, a little squirt of Dawn dish soap, couple of dribbles of canola oil, add 2 gallons of spring water and spray:

Fungi be gone!

I use the same spray during late summer harvests, because PM becomes a major issue in the basement when it's 80° and 80% RH, not to mention botrytis on big, dense buds. This spray takes care of both of them, although it'll turn the stigmas from white to red because it increases pH.

 

[Old Uncle Ben]

Here's the biggest and probably only drawback that have experienced using fabric containers:
View attachment 18976252
While there are some fungi I really like, that white powdery shit is not anything I'm interested in. So every week or two, I hit the bags with this, potassium bicarb easily available at Amazon, and it's not associated with cannabis marketing!!!!
View attachment 18976255

Mix 2 tablespoons of hco3, a little squirt of Dawn dish soap, couple of dribbles of canola oil, add 2 gallons of spring water and spray:

View attachment 18976254
Fungi be gone!

I use the same spray during late summer harvests, because PM becomes a major issue in the basement when it's 80° and 80% RH, not to mention botrytis on big, dense buds. This spray takes care of both of them, although it'll turn the stigmas from white to red because it increases pH.

What rate?

 

[CharlesU Farley]

What rate?

Depending on the ambient temp and the humidity in the basement, once every 1 to 3 weeks on the bags.

For the plants, if I don't time my harvests right and have big buds in August/September, I have to spray the buds probably every 2 to 3 days just for PM, and that's preventive maintenance not powdery mildew.

Red pistils are not a big deal for me and since I don't sell anything, bag appeal doesn't mean much to me.

 

[Old Uncle Ben]

Depending on the ambient temp and the humidity in the basement, once every 1 to 3 weeks on the bags.

For the plants, if I don't time my harvests right and have big buds in August/September, I have to spray the buds probably every 2 to 3 days just for PM, and that's preventive maintenance not powdery mildew.

Red pistils are not a big deal for me and since I don't sell anything, bag appeal doesn't mean much to me.

OK, thanks.

My go-to for tropical fruit trees is copper sulfate pentahydrate. Magnabon CS 2005 and Phyton 35 have the same systemic chemistry. Used Magnabon once, labeled OMRI if that matters. https://www.seedworldusa.com/produc...=gs-2018-11-14&stkn=26e0c506f652&gad_source=1

Just harvested a small C99 plant, see my link if interested.

 

[CharlesU Farley]

OK, thanks.

My go-to for tropical fruit trees is copper sulfate pentahydrate. Magnabon CS 2005 and Phyton 35 have the same systemic chemistry. Used Magnabon once, labeled OMRI if that matters. https://www.seedworldusa.com/produc...=gs-2018-11-14&stkn=26e0c506f652&gad_source=1

Just harvested a small C99 plant, see my link if interested.

Here's how some buds looked after I had to really hit them hard with potassium bicarb. Even though they kind of look like hell, bag appeal doesn't mean shit to me. The parts attached to the red pistils get me just as high as the parts attached to the white pistils. The temp in there was probably around 85 and the rh fairly close to that as well. That's why I always provide Dorothy Gale like winds from The Wizard of Oz:



Since I know you're intellectually inquisitive (otherwise you wouldn't have been on Usenet in the '90s and I doubt you were part of the Endless September of 93, what I always termed the AOL _Infestation_), check out the other videos on my YouTube site. Sorry ya got to go to the YouTube site, everything I do cannabis related, I put a 18 year old restriction on.

I'm pretty sure you're one of the very few who will understand my delicate watering techniques.

 

[SubGirl]

Fabric pots have been around for quite a while now. I know this is not a popular opinion but I believe, for indoor soil growers, fabric containers are the best innovation (with the possible exception of LED lights) in the past 25 years.

Here's some videos to illustrate why I feel this way:







A large, fully encircled/encased root mass, around the insides of plastic pots, with almost no root mass in the interior _soil_ of the plastic soil container, just doesn't make any sense to me. But I see so many experienced and knowledgeable growers still using containers that were originally developed almost 50 years ago.

Why?

Almost want to make a meme with my ass sitting in front of a table, with a large sign that says "This is my opinion, change my mind!

I start my plants out in plastic pots. I usually do three transplants before landing them in their final cloth pots. I hate to transplant from cloth. Plastic is so much easier. I have grown in 10 gallon plastic nursery pots too with beautiful root balls at the end and actually like them better. I just have the 7 gallon tall grow bags that fit my tent easy and has plants of room to grow So I’ve been using them.

 

[Old Uncle Ben]

Here's how some buds looked after I had to really hit them hard with potassium bicarb. Even though they kind of look like hell, bag appeal doesn't mean shit to me. The parts attached to the red pistols get me just as high as the parts attached to the white pistols. The temp in there was probably around 85 and the rh fairly close to that as well. That's why I always provide Dorothy Gale like winds from The Wizard of Oz:



Since I know you're intellectually inquisitive (otherwise you wouldn't have been on Usenet in the '90s and I doubt you were part of the Endless September of 93, what I always termed the AOL _Infestation_), check out the other videos on my YouTube site. Sorry ya got to go to the YouTube site, everything I do cannabis related, I put a 18 year old restriction on.

I'm pretty sure you're one of the very few who will understand my delicate watering techniques.

Look OK to me.

 

[CharlesU Farley]

I start my plants out in plastic pots. I usually do three transplants before landing them in their final cloth pots. I hate to transplant from cloth. Plastic is so much easier. I have grown in 10 gallon plastic nursery pots too with beautiful root balls at the end and actually like them better. I just have the 7 gallon tall grow bags that fit my tent easy and has plants of room to grow So I’ve been using them.

I understand that transplanting, even with the velcro ones I use, can be difficult when using fabric. Especially when the roots have penetrated through the fiber because it can be difficult to separate the soil ball from the smaller, fabric container.

When I was using plastic containers, I found the roots were concentrated around the sides and the bottom of the container, but the actual _interior_ soil, where the majority mass of the soil actually is, contained very little root mass. It wasn't really a root ball, it was more of a perimeter of roots encircling empty soil.

I'm pretty sure that's why UB started using that copper based solution, coated inside of his containers.

It has been my experience that as soon as I kicked what was really a perimeter root ball instead of a true root/soil ball from the plastic container, it essentially disintegrated with one kick. As you can see from the original video, that's not been my experience with fabric containers.

Roots plus leaves equal flowers, basic botany, and the more roots and leaves you have, the better your flowers will be... as long as you can keep botrytis at bay, which is easier said than done.

I totally and completely understand why experience growers do what they do... it's what works for them!

But for me and my situation, they truly have been revolutionary. Bigger plants in smaller containers, and believe it or not, ultimately less watering, so less work as well.

 

[Old Uncle Ben]

When I was using plastic containers, I found the roots were concentrated around the sides and the bottom of the container, but the actual _interior_ soil, where the majority mass of the soil actually is, contained very little root mass. It wasn't really a root ball, it was more of a perimeter of roots encircling empty soil.

I'm pretty sure that's why UB started using that copper based solution, coated inside of his containers.

Let's put it this way, all my cannabis receives root pruning treatments and most of my large producing fruit trees, maters, etc. also. Cannabis gets MicroKoted plastic pots, trees are in bottomless RootBuilder. They root into native soil.

MicroKote. No spin out.

Male

Super fibrous, efficient roots beat against the ground to knock off soil.

Spin out, regular pot. NO good!

It's all about the roots.

Grow hard,
Ben