DIY Air Pruning Pot Experiment - Pictures

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Don Gin and Ton said:

looks almost there but you can see if it had gone much longer it would have grown roots round the base. i truly think its the fluted peaks that do the air pruning not round holes.

Click to expand...

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Don the base is covered in roots because there was nothing on the base to stop spiraling. No screen, no fabric, no dry spots. These were my first two buckets, I hadn't thought about the base. As you can see on the sides of the first bucket (below) there is no spiraling even though there is on the bottom of the root ball (above).




I have landscaping fabric down on all the bases now (18 buckets), if that doesn't work I'll drill more holes in the bottom of the buckets and drown the roots in the tray below the bucket.

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The small holed single screen bucket shows some root growth on the outside of the ball (below) until the root hits a dry spot, but I watched hundreds of root tips grow out of the holes, dry up, and die. Normally a root ball of this age would be covered in spiraled roots.

There's no question that this bucket is doing amazing air pruning.






I've torn the bottom spiraling roots off both plants before putting down fabric.

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break that mother open hobbes i want to see the root growth inside!

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I'm hoping it looks like this:



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I'd like to get something to direct the roots to the holes, like with the cones in commercial air pruning buckets. The 1 1/2" holes might stop the need for that, I'll know in a week when I take the cover bucket off and see if I've got any root growth through the landscaping fabric I used to replaced the 5 layers of fiberglass window screen.

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yeah thats the ticket hahaha looking at the few that have poked out id wager thats pretty much how it will look.

complete with starship enterprise

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I ordered a few Smart Pots and Root Pots, the Root Pots look surprisingly like they were made from thick landscaping fabric. I'm going to compare them to our DIY pots.



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I took the cover bucket off of the Super Silver Haze (1/2" holes and 1 layer of window screen) - incredibly thick roots are starting to grow out of the holes again. Only about a quarter of the holes had roots growing out so I put the cover bucket back on and will let the roots continue to grow. I'll check again this weekend and post a picture.

If the other buckets are working like this one it's going to be impressive. I'm harvesting a Northern Lights and a Flo in the next week, I'll shake out the root balls to see how the root system grew. They've only had landscaping fabric for root trapping since we started using landscaping fabric (Feb 18 ) so the root system isn't going to be as developed as the younger plants that were transplanted from 6" pots into 5 gallon pruning and trapping buckets.

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Looking really good man. Be interesting to see the upcoming showdown. Will they be both be growing clones?

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Yes both clones AquafinaOrbit. I'll pick something short flowering like Flo or a new Dr Greenthumb strain I'm test growing called "The Dope". Doc won't tell me anything about The Dope's effects, want's an unbiased review.

Dr Greenthumb: "I think it is our best indoor plant yet. Very,very potent, excellent yield, readily cloned, even growth, 55-65 days. The rest I'll leave up to you."

It's not released yet.

http://www.drgreenthumb.com/cannabis_seeds_GreenthumbSeedsEntrance.htm

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I'm almost done the design phase for an LED adapter to make LEDs into actual flowering lights, all my energy is going into that for the next month or so. But I will keep using root developing pots and posting pics.

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Hi Hobbes!

Nice experiment, I love doing experiment grows

I saw how your pot works and how the roots didn't get pruned at the bottom. I never tried to air prune but it seems interesting and I have a suggestion for the "problem" w roots at the bottom. In all my pots I put a 1 inch layer of "clay marbles" (iono what u call it in English, over here its called "leca") in the bottom for drainage, this you've probably heard of before, but what I've noticed is that the roots get air pruned when they reach the "leca" and the roots going around the bottom comes form the sides...so I thought together w your air prune pot it might work since you got it pruned from the "side". Hmm..i'm a bit baked, was that understandable?
Have I allready replied to thsi thread?

//CaL

scribed to see results. good luck with this.

I had not seen this and I totally just added something similar on my DIY thread. I am sorry I am going to go through and delete it right now.

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Don't delete anything, the more often a similar idea gets posted the more chance someone who needs it will find it. Besides, you came about it on your own and you'll no doubt have ideas we haven't thought about. Could you post a link to your DIY thread please and thank you.

The pots are working well, the 1 1/2" hole pot is now lined with landscaping fabric and I've seen some tiny roots poking through - root constriction. So the fabric is going to work for trapping/constriction in pots with no holes in the sides.

The 1/2" hole bucket with window screen is working great, some holes have a half dozen roots poking out and some of the roots are very thick. I've been finding that it's best to leave the cover bucket on until a few days before the pot needs re-watering, then the root tips dry up and I rub them off with my hand before putting the cover bucket on and re-watering. All of my buckets seem to have a better developed root system than I've had before.

I harvested a Northern Lights that had landscaping fabric in the bucket for about 4 weeks, I've been letting it dry out a bit then I'll pop the root ball and see how the landscaping fabric did for trapping. I'll post pics.

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agreed keep the stuff in the thread and post a link.

keep on truckin hobbes.

Don Gin and Ton said:

agreed keep the stuff in the thread and post a link.

keep on truckin hobbes.

Click to expand...

https://www.rollitup.org/grow-room-design-setup/308311-homemade-diy-show-off-your.html

Thanks guys here is that link. I actually did it quite different on the second one I deleted already haha. I ran pvc pipes through my soil with holes drilled through them.

I just read through your thread and see you are doing a much more advanced air pruning method. Glad I checked this out we can learn from each other on this one.

I am looking to promote a few things it looks like you are trying to avoid should be good

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"I ran pvc pipes through my soil with holes drilled through them."

That's an interesting idea .... we could cap the pipes until they're full of roots then use something to cut the root tips off (shove a smaller pipe inside or a stick).

What else could we do with a pipe in the bucket? Water the bottom of the bucket only? Deliver nutes/water to different levels ... Some type of hydro-drip system down the perforated pipe wall?

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interesting take on it putting the pipe through.

hobbes im imagining some kind of half soil half dwc thing with pipes of root coming out the sides. not quite air pruning eh hahah not sure where my brain was going with that one.

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One other thing - the cover bucket system (over a bucket with holes) seems much easier to water than the porcupine pots and the side soil doesn't dry out until we want it to.

If the Landscaping Fabric buckets work (I believe they will) they will be the simplest, easiest and cleanest.

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"im imagining some kind of half soil half dwc thing with pipes of root coming out the side."

Maybe a reservoir of water at the bottom of a sealed pipe, so roots can grow in the holes and down into the water. And an air stone if a person wants to go all out.

I like it!

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hobbes! everything is going amazing! i cant wait to see the pics! im havin some trouble following what your saying is working the best, is that the cover bucket with the large and small holes and the fiberglass liner?

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Yes. The cover bucket set is just one bucket with side holes (holds the plant) and a second bucket with no side holes to set the first in when we water or want new root tips to grow out of the holes. When we want the root tips to dry and die we take the hole bucket (holds plant) out of the cover bucket.

I'm not sure which style works best, all seem to produce a spongy root ball, the hole buckets are just more visibly noticeable until I pop the root balls out of the landscaping fabric buckets.

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awesome! thanks bro! when you say spongy, does that have any inference of mold or do we want spongy rootballs? also if i was going to start a diy pot tmrw, which im not, what type of screen would you recomend that you think is working the best? thanks man, really this is an awesome thread!

ps do u have any grow journals i could peep or is that not an option for you?