Experimental mediumless seed starting for dwc

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DWCgrower406

Well-Known Member
Not sure if this has been tried. Probably, but not that i could find. The goal here is to grow from seed in dwc without starting the seed in a medium that gets buried in the hydroton. I grew from clone for many years using bubble cloner. Once clone has plenty of roots, bury in hydroton with a few roots poking out bottom, worked great. Recently started some seeds in root riots, then into dwc. Ran into some issues that i think were related to the constantly soggy root riot. Mostly my fault for probably filling nutes too high. Anyway, wanted to try avoiding the medium completely so they can be started as i did with clones. Seeds are popped in water until getting maybe 1/2 inch root. 2 inch neoprene puck is held open while gently laying seed in with some of tap root sticking out bottom. The cloner has water level about an inch below, popping bubbles keep the root wet while still having access to oxygen. I used ro water with rapid start to promote roots as well as maybe 100ppm calmag. Not that it needs either, but it wont hurt. Just took the pics today, we'll see what happens. Im pretty confident the root will be happy, but hard to gauge how tight the puck is gripping the head of the seed. It might have trouble "sprouting" from the neoprene puck sandwiched around it. I have 3 germinated seeds total. I think ill put one more in cloner and one in root riot so if it does work, i can also compare time.
 

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Darkoh69

Darkoh69

Well-Known Member
You’ll have a hard time getting it out of the puk without damaging/stressing it once it hatches.
 
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DreHaze

Well-Known Member
I grow a mother in dirt, then I clone her in a bubbler with those 2inch foam things. Then I transfer rooted clones to buckets. It works, just gotta build a frame to hold plants down or it will just keep slipping down when it gets bigger.
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DWCgrower406

Well-Known Member
Darkoh69 said:
You’ll have a hard time getting it out of the puk without damaging/stressing it once it hatches.
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They arent removed as freshly sprouted seedlings. They will live at least first 2 weeks in the bubble cloner until they have a decent ball of roots and a nice stem. Just like transplanting a rooted clone into hydroton, which ive never had an issue with
 
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DWCgrower406

Well-Known Member
DreHaze said:
I grow a mother in dirt, then I clone her in a bubbler with those 2inch foam things. Then I transfer rooted clones to buckets. It works, just gotta build a frame to hold plants down or it will just keep slipping down when it gets bigger.
View attachment 4870281
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The way you are doing it is what i always used to do before except i would pull them earlier and go into net pots with hydroton. What im trying to do now is be able to grow directly from seed without doing a mother first and cloning. Works ok just starting in root riot plug, this is just an attempt to avoid that.
 
Darkoh69

Darkoh69

Well-Known Member
I plant my seeds straight into jiffies, a couple days after they pop if my main room is empty I’ll put each of them into 27 litre bucket of hydroton where they will live out there days. Only difference is Im top feeding 24/7 but I dont see why jiffy’s wouldn’t work just as efficiently in a dwc system
 
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DreHaze

Well-Known Member
You can try starting your seed inside a shoe string maybe? Seen it done for other types of crops somewhere on the net.
 
BecauseIgotHigh

BecauseIgotHigh

Well-Known Member
i use RDWC top feed directly onto the netpot with just rockwool cube. once roots get heavier, it holds the plant down, just have stick tied too it to keep it straight.
 
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DWCgrower406

Well-Known Member
thanks for the suggestions guys, trying to avoid the mediums though. I know it can be done with root plugs, rockwool cubes, jiffy mix, etc. but If this works, i think it will be the easiest method for me because it works exactly like a rooted clone in the bubble cloner. It also removes one more consumable product needed for dwc. Literally down to only buying nutrients. Everything else is reused. So far it seems to be working, root is growing very fast.
 
Failmore

Failmore

Well-Known Member
Just straight into the rocks with a 1 inch tap root.
20210111_165232 - Copy.jpg

Or start them in smaller net pots. Then put that directly into the larger pot.

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Hashishh

Hashishh

Well-Known Member
I've done this before, the only issue I had was the roots grew sort of into the pucks and I had to transfer the puck and all into my net pot or I'd have ripped the root system off the plant.
I've also started seeds in paper towel, letting the tap root get about 3-4" long and then carefully planting that into my net pots. Very tricky, I ended up with a few seeds in my res lol.

Nowadays I just clone off a mother and go straight to 6" net pots. Way easier.
 
Blue brother

Blue brother

Well-Known Member
I have successfully germinated 3 out of 6 seeds in just net pots with hydroton in a home made tote bubbler. I used very fine net pots and sandwiched the seed between pot and hydroton. It was just an experiment and discontinued after seeing only 50% success, i now just use a rockwool cube
 
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DWCgrower406

Well-Known Member
Failmore said:
Just straight into the rocks with a 1 inch tap root.
View attachment 4872215

Or start them in smaller net pots. Then put that directly into the larger pot.

View attachment 4872218
Click to expand...
Yeah, i saw you mentioned that in my other thread abput the plants i almost killed. It just seems difficult to me to get a seed to sit properly in hydroton. Maybe my hydroton is bigger than yours, but the spaces between rocks is enough for a seed to fall right through. With a 1 inch root on it, im sure it would mostly stay put, but what about light getting to the root? Obviously it works since youre doing it, but i wonder if your hydroton is smaller. I suppose you could even have some type of smaller pebbles, like 1/4 inch. Make a small crater in hydroton and fill with small pebbles to start seed in.
This was mostly an experiment though. Ultimately i will be growing from clone only and if i want a new strain, ill start a mother in dirt from seed ahead of time. It was just this one time that i was kind of in a hurry so had to go with seed into dwc. We just became legal here a few months ago so this is my first grow since 10 years ago when i was a caregiver.
 
Failmore

Failmore

Well-Known Member
DWCgrower406 said:
Yeah, i saw you mentioned that in my other thread abput the plants i almost killed. It just seems difficult to me to get a seed to sit properly in hydroton. Maybe my hydroton is bigger than yours, but the spaces between rocks is enough for a seed to fall right through. With a 1 inch root on it, im sure it would mostly stay put, but what about light getting to the root? Obviously it works since youre doing it, but i wonder if your hydroton is smaller. I suppose you could even have some type of smaller pebbles, like 1/4 inch. Make a small crater in hydroton and fill with small pebbles to start seed in.
This was mostly an experiment though. Ultimately i will be growing from clone only and if i want a new strain, ill start a mother in dirt from seed ahead of time. It was just this one time that i was kind of in a hurry so had to go with seed into dwc. We just became legal here a few months ago so this is my first grow since 10 years ago when i was a caregiver.
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Yeah my pebbles are 1/4", some bigger. Some a lil smaller.

It is a lil bit of a bitch to get it correct. I smashed a root once.

But I move a pebble out of the way. Place the tap root in the cavity. Then gently roll the pebble over the root so it is covered.
 
piney420

piney420

Well-Known Member
I know this is a week old thread but I wanted to add my 2 cents. I have been searching through strains from seed for a while and I grow mediumless the whole time. Seeds are popped in paper towels, when the tap root is an inch and a half or so it is moved to my LP aero cloner. Held in place with 2inch neoprene collar thingy, no net cup. They stay there until they have an established root system and then are transfered into 3inch net pots held in place with 3inch neoprene collar for my LP aero veg setup. I clone from the seedling before flowering. For flowering the plants just move from my veg system into my NFT system as is. DWC could use same setup. No medium is ever used, roots grow to support the plant. Clones follow the same progression. I started out with hydroton, moved to rockwool, but ended up just giving up on mediums altogether. Nice not having any waste and I like being able to see all the roots.
 
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DWCgrower406

Well-Known Member
piney420 said:
I know this is a week old thread but I wanted to add my 2 cents. I have been searching through strains from seed for a while and I grow mediumless the whole time. Seeds are popped in paper towels, when the tap root is an inch and a half or so it is moved to my LP aero cloner. Held in place with 2inch neoprene collar thingy, no net cup. They stay there until they have an established root system and then are transfered into 3inch net pots held in place with 3inch neoprene collar for my LP aero veg setup. I clone from the seedling before flowering. For flowering the plants just move from my veg system into my NFT system as is. DWC could use same setup. No medium is ever used, roots grow to support the plant. Clones follow the same progression. I started out with hydroton, moved to rockwool, but ended up just giving up on mediums altogether. Nice not having any waste and I like being able to see all the roots.
Click to expand...

Sounds like you are doing exactly the same as i am. Mine are going great. I have 2 in cloner and one in root riot to test speed difference. The root riot sprouted first, i think because the germinated seed in puck doesnt have much to push against with root to pop head up. I eventually repositioned them in puck to put the head right at surface. After that they sprouted within a day and have far surpassed the one in the root riot since then. I plan to start feeding nutrients in the cloner and let them go at least a couple weeks in there, maybe longer.
I think ill use this method from now on for seeds. Other than being able to avoid the medium, it also seems faster, as you would expect since dwc plants grow faster than ones in a medium. Not any different with a seedling. Roots have constant access to oxygenated solution. Also a great way to consolidate the grow for first few weeks. My root riot seedling needs transplanted pretty much right now into dwc bucket, but the ones in cloner can stay there a couple more weeks. So multiple plants can live the first few weeks in a very small footprint rather than having multiple buckets early on.
 
ZenWolf

ZenWolf

Well-Known Member
DWCgrower406 said:
Not sure if this has been tried. Probably, but not that i could find. The goal here is to grow from seed in dwc without starting the seed in a medium that gets buried in the hydroton. I grew from clone for many years using bubble cloner. Once clone has plenty of roots, bury in hydroton with a few roots poking out bottom, worked great. Recently started some seeds in root riots, then into dwc. Ran into some issues that i think were related to the constantly soggy root riot. Mostly my fault for probably filling nutes too high. Anyway, wanted to try avoiding the medium completely so they can be started as i did with clones. Seeds are popped in water until getting maybe 1/2 inch root. 2 inch neoprene puck is held open while gently laying seed in with some of tap root sticking out bottom. The cloner has water level about an inch below, popping bubbles keep the root wet while still having access to oxygen. I used ro water with rapid start to promote roots as well as maybe 100ppm calmag. Not that it needs either, but it wont hurt. Just took the pics today, we'll see what happens. Im pretty confident the root will be happy, but hard to gauge how tight the puck is gripping the head of the seed. It might have trouble "sprouting" from the neoprene puck sandwiched around it. I have 3 germinated seeds total. I think ill put one more in cloner and one in root riot so if it does work, i can also compare time.
Click to expand...
After a 12 hour soak in water, I place them in the hydroton in the net pot they'll spend their entire life in. Can't get any more straightforward and simple than that.
 
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