Thats crazy high humidity, assuming dehu is a must. I think there is a huge difference between fabric with coco and fabric with mix. I can imagine how they fit perfectly for bounded coco on automatic watering, but hand watering once or twice a day is already not so pink. If you want to grow and flower same sized plants in mix as in coco, you do not want to have bounded roots so it means you need much bigger pot. And than? You have huge pot staying wet in the midlle while on the sides your roots are already pruned as hell. When you let it dry completely your plants get burnt, when systematicaly overwater risking pH crash (in shitty mix also rot), when use smaller pot and get bounded your plant will suffer. Than its easier to use promix and treat it like coco. I can not say I have climbed the curve to the top, thats for sure not. But when it comes to fabric filled with peat based soilless mix, I was not able to keep big plants green till the end. Only with limed peat in plastic or coco. But this is most likely because I am still low skilled grower, there are other big guys who can definitely do better with fabric. There are also more kind of fabric pots, some are thicker and have more layers, I was actually using two types, one the simpliest one made from carpet or I do not know how to call it and second with two layers. They were claiming there will be water draining only from the bottom but it was fraud
Only difference was, that there were no roots comming through them. I do not know, I think they sucks but it mainly depends on growing methods and environment you have on hand.
You bring up all the facets good and bad, excellent points as are the couple of posts after yours.
For now, the pots thread the needle for me in all regards.
I am in home made supersoil, water only where I only topdress the same soil as needed. I used to pot to 7gal, but now do 10gal.
1. Frequency - I water every 3 days this cycle, I have done every 2 days in the past. Environment i.e. humidity has a huge effect on 2 vs 3, but your point remains. I went to 10gal to insure watering no more often than every 2 days and to provide ample rootspace, knowing the air pruning would occur.
2. Drying out - As a maybe intermediate level grower now, I find that I never have overwatering problems now.
3. Slow watering. THIS is fine for me, running single digit #s of plants...but anybody with a big op would be annoyed by the watering technique required -- water edges, wait, water edges, wait, water pot, wait, water pot, wait. It is probably a huge bottleneck and PITA for many. As someone maybe at intermediate level, I love the discipline it causes me to employ. I also estimate how much water they need before starting and compare my results. I measure runoff quantity, and adjust for future waterings. I can almost always fully control my input ans output (usually minimal or no output).
4. Ph stability and EC changes as it dries. Man you, and many others here, sure are sharp. That IS the issue, isnt it? And in supersoil, we are especially concerned because with ppms in the 2000-3000+ range...letting them dry too much is a potential issue. So watering while it is still moist is critical. I find it to work perfectly with a water only soil grow...but would expect most other grow styles to be less than optimal
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