DWC: Drip or no drip?

Hello,

I hate to bore you with yet another self-absorbed dilemma which could be solved through forum crawling, but wtf

DWC; with the water level high enough to nourish the immature roots is good, right? But, what if it's not good enough?

I've noticed there're setups with a drip system added. I'm wondering, does having a drip directly at the root site, or above it, really add to growth/vigor? Does the plant really benefit much more from having water directly at the root site, instead of the splatter effect that popping bubbles provide? Is the benefit only significant during the time before the plant has an adequate root system throughout the hydroton?

I haven't manufactured anything yet, but I'd really like to know if adding in a drip system to be used ontop of the basic DWC principle, will be effective enough to merit puchasing the pump/equipment.

kiss-ass-Thank you!

The drip is only for immature plants that don't have roots that reach the popping bubbles. You could water the plants by hand until the roots reach the reservoir. You could also start the plants in solo cups with soil or coco coir so that they could develop a root mass and then transfer them into the net cups, using hydroton to line the bottom of the net cups. Here is a diagram.

solo cup
|***|
|***|
|***|
------

net cup
{@***@}
{@***@}
{@***@}
{@@@@}
-----------

* = soil or coco
@= hydroton

So once transferred to the net cup the roots will quickly expand into the reservoir.

That's exactly what I wanted to know... Thank you!