kratos015
Well-Known Member
I strongly prefer living organic soil myself because the flavor is absolutely incredible.I'm offended. Lol I make my own super soil and compost and I have a worm farm ha ha it's fun for me and I feel like a mad scientist mixing all the amendments into the soil. I make compost teas too. But to each there own man. Your right, it is a lot of work but I enjoy it so it's all good. I got started reading True Living Organics. Great book
But I'd be a fucking liar if I said hydro doesn't always tempt me, and Renfro really knows his shit. Hydro is actually significantly easier than soil is once you get things set up, truth be told. The biggest reason is because it's deceptively easy to fuck up watering, and getting watering practices at an optimal 100% is tricky without a BluMat setup. I'd even argue it's impossible for anyone to water with 100% efficiency without hydro. Even if you DO manage to water 100% efficiently, there's still the matter of soil texture/compaction/etc. It's easy to get massive roots going in a hydro set up. No problems with roots/watering = guaranteed success.
It's a trade off my friend. Hydro is medium work all around; get the hydro set up and simply keep on top of your reservoirs PPMs, keep the water at the right temps and check your pumps religiously. You're almost always working weekly though.It's a lot more work than I planned for sure. I was thinking soil was the easy way, but I'm trying no-till now and water only. But it is still a bitch having to water them everyday now that they are getting bigger, and they're in 15 gal pots already. I thought I would be able to water less with bigger pots, but it just seems to make the plants bigger. Are you in DWC like I'm guessing?
Soil on the other hand is different. Takes a shit ton of work when you first start mixing soil for a no-till grow, but after you've done the initial work the soil should last in a no-till set up for 2-3 years easy. The only work involved in no-till is top dress and watering.
The bigger the plant, the larger the watering needs. They're directly proportional to one another and this is because of the roots.
Your train of thought about watering less in bigger pots is true at first, then the plants roots actually fill up the entire pot. When that happens, you'll be watering daily and multiple times a day in 95+ degree temps. The larger the root mass, the more water the plant is capable of uptaking. When you start off in a 15g+ pot with a clone/seedling, you'll be watering 1-2 times a week at best. Then they grow into trees that need to be watered daily.
I mistakenly believed I could do my outdoor without irrigation, even with the 5 trees I had outdoors I wish I had irrigation. It's as Renfro said, once your scale of operation gets to a certain size it's impossible to do without help and/or automation. I will be looking into irrigation for sure and not be so damn lazy about setting it up this time. Irrigation systems are quite affordable, they're just a pain in the ass to set up but once you do it's so worth it. I too underestimated how the roots would grow and the size of the plants. I've done 20g pots before, but never in the ground. I was foolish and didn't account for the fact the roots would grow out of my soil and into the dirt so long as there's water available for them there.
On top of that, the time you used to spend watering can now be used to inspect your plants/room. If time = money then saved time = saved money.
It's taken me 5 years to finally achieve a degree of consistency. Not only am I similar to you in the sense that I'm always changing things up, sometimes circumstances force the change whether you want to make it or not. Strain consistency has always been an issue for me due to low plant counts. Incredibly difficult to truly get dialed in when you're always working with a new strain every crop.I am always changing things up so it wouldn't pay for me to put a auto watering setup together. I may be doing RDWC next run for all I know. lol