Who Grows in Fabric Pots?

both ways-

the paint-

is better. its easy to make and turns ANY grow container into a root pruning device. the air roots i get are as big as most stalks.

I have used fabric pots for a year now and never going back to plastic. Resolves a bunch of miscellaneous problems.
One in particular, GNATS.

I'm infatuated with the fabric. The air pruning is just one aspect. The increased O2, gas exchange. Good stuff.

To get max benefit from these, they should be on a rack or screen or such to allow air under the fabric pot. This rack is in a tray to catch runoff. Ideally this tray would be on wheels or short rollers to more easily move these around when full.

I think the biggest weakness is that they are harder to move than pails. Does anyone use trays with short wheels?

I used a 7 gallon smart pot for a mother plant I had in veg for two years straight with no problems.

Just switched to 10gal smart pots, felt like I needed more room than the 5's provided. Now you guys have me paranoid about breaking root hairs. With the 10 gal pots I just leave a 1-2inch lip and grab them by that, once the soil is in for a week or 2 I don't find them to be that unstable. I just use the premium-saucers, the 16inch wide thick plastic ones.

reason I went to smart pots in the first place was side-by-side comparison against hard sides. My smart pot plants always outgrew the others by at least 1.5 to 1.

Since I increased to 10gals I now am having to re-adjust my watering amounts and I agree it is easy to leave dry spots.

i think-

watering through is important with air pots. another reason i switched. less watering.

I just use a drip system and monitor with a tensiometer. Keeps them in the perfect zone perpetually

leadcore said:

Just switched to 10gal smart pots, felt like I needed more room than the 5's provided. Now you guys have me paranoid about breaking root hairs.

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You are fine now. You are aware of the problem. You won't go grabbing them by one handle and half-assedly flinging them around. lol. Some people are slow and calm by nature, me - not so much.

Rrog said:

I just use a drip system and monitor with a tensiometer. Keeps them in the perfect zone perpetually

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Could you please send me some info? You use the Blumats, did you already post the info? lmao. So many threads. lmao.

I use the Blumats, yes. I run with a pressure reducer from well water. No res. It's the nuts, but not perfect. If that's of interest I can totally hook you up with a parts list and instructions

I am very interested. Have been. Not perfect, is there something newer, better? What's it cost to get running ballpark. Say, few dozen plants.
Mixing my soil and having a machine water my plants - correctly! The thought brings a tear to my eye Rrog.

Ha! Well anything I can do to help you cry...

Would you be running from city water / well? Water under pressure, in other words.

i use 5 or 7 gallon aurora pots...healthy roots and great yields. id never use anything different

Well water.

Started a Blumat thread https://www.rollitup.org/michigan-patients/587676-using-blumats-water-you.html

Rrog said:

I use Blumats for drippers. No wet / dry cycles (that's just what I do). I really like them, and as I said I have the pits on a wire base so air is everywhere.

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I use a pretty good style of shelving from Mendards. I went there today and bought some wire shelves to replace the particle board ones. I will work on it tomorrow, along with something underneath to catch the water run off. This is strictly for my veg room. Tomorrow evening I will post pics.

So it looks like I grabbed the wrong size wire shelf, eh.
I hope this extra air flow will help.
I will swap up shelves over the next few days. I may need to chill the fuck out tomorrow.
I moved my eye-hooks up the side of the floor joists to get me a lot of extra height.
I will bend some metal or some shit for water run off.
It may be extra work and money for nothing, that's ok too.
If anyone asks, I've been running it like that for 5 years now, it ups yield 17%. lol

I think air under the fabric is needed / wanted. I think you'll be impressed by the constant optimal moisture levels. People who do this constant moisture level quickly see the myth of the value of dry spells. Dry soil does not promote active work. Like shutting off 1/2 the power at a factory. Things really limp along until full moisture is restored.