a ppk for a 6 plant limit

[fliptopbox]

Hi everyone!
I've been following along for a long time now, since the original thread, and I've decided to take a swing at a PPK system. I'm building a single site system currently; we'll see how it goes.
Anyway, I wanted to say that I bought some of the Profile substrate and just did the Air Filled Porosity test on it as outlined by delta on post #730 and #731 and I got 40% afp.
And now I go back to lurking.

 

[fliptopbox]

Forgot to add that I'll be starting the capillary rise test tomorrow. I'll post my results once I have them!

 

[McKush]

Hi everyone!
I've been following along for a long time now, since the original thread, and I've decided to take a swing at a PPK system. I'm building a single site system currently; we'll see how it goes.
Anyway, I wanted to say that I bought some of the Profile substrate and just did the Air Filled Porosity test on it as outlined by delta on post #730 and #731 and I got 40% afp.
And now I go back to lurking.

[URL=https://www.icmag.com/ic/picture.php?albumid=65119&pictureid=1545918&thumb=1]View Image[/url]

How did you acquire it? I never found a reliable re-seller so never had a chance to get it.

the light chunks look like zeolite to me.

 

[seventhchild]

did the Profile have any dust? did you screen it?Thanks for posting....

 

[fliptopbox]

How did you acquire it? I never found a reliable re-seller so never had a chance to get it.

the light chunks look like zeolite to me.

I ordered it from that link. The shipping is a little ridiculous, but it ended up just a little more expensive than going and getting turface locally.
Yeah, pretty sure the white chunks are zeolite. We know turface works so I figured I'd try something new.

did the Profile have any dust? did you screen it?Thanks for posting....

Definitely dusty. I didn't screen it at all, just put it in a container and kept running water over it and agitating it until the runoff was clear-ish.

 

[Snook]

clogged tail pieces, not his time

clogged tail pieces, not his time

High Av9er.. howve you been?

I went back to the PPK thread (again) and came across the section where d9 was experimenting with drilling holes in the top pot. basically, air pruning, roots would grow away from the air. I did it at the time ( and drilled all those 7/16" holes!LOL!) and for the most part no roots grew out those holes. got me to thinking about clogged tail pieces and 'air pruning'. Still using the 1.5" drain piece for the wick (old school), drilled 4 small holes about an inch and a half down the wick, I did tape some screen across those holes but thinking the screen isn't necessary. Just harvested those plants and GD! the few roots that started down, stopped down the tail piece maybe an inch below the holes, from there down, turface and maybe 3-5 hair sized roots that never did make it to the bottom. granted it has only been done once, so far, but I'm excited about it (guess it doesn't take much).

 

[MrAwder]

So I have tried searching, but the result links never take me to the correct post (to read in context). Very annoying. Anyway, I am looking for up-to-date info on using Coco in a PPK. I know it has been done. The only reference I can find states 85% perlite to 15% coco.

I am getting sick of screening and washing 8822. It is also harder to dispose of whereas coco and perlite are no problem in the compost pile. I cannot get Turface. Basically I want a less labor intensive medium so I can more quickly and *easily* flip my room. I also look incredibly silly standing outside rinsing gravel when it is 20 fucking degrees (F).

I know there are possible cons to using coco. What should I look out for if I got this route?

 

[McKush]

MrA - i found it at a john deere landscape store which sells it as "All Sports" its turface in a 50# bag, just relabeled for John Deere landscape store distributors. The john deere website lists the locations of all their landscape stores.

You may be way out in BF Egypt so not sure that helps you any.

i screen turface in my lung room using a 5 gal bucket and 2 storage containers, you do have to get rid of the rejected turface tho which may present you with problems.

 

[MrAwder]

Yea I am looking at about a 45 minute one-way trip to get turface. Still doesn't solve the hassle of screening and washing. I did some more searching using Google with the "site:icmag.com" directive in the search and found Mister_D saying he used 1 bag coco + 1 bag coco chips + 1 bag unwashed floor dry. I might give that a go. I'm just trying to minimize the amount of labor to prep the medium and this is also something I need to outside for the most part and it is cold as fuck, so trying to avoid that.

 

[Snook]

Yea I am looking at about a 45 minute one-way trip to get turface. Still doesn't solve the hassle of screening and washing. I did some more searching using Google with the "site:icmag.com" directive in the search and found Mister_D saying he used 1 bag coco + 1 bag coco chips + 1 bag unwashed floor dry. I might give that a go. I'm just trying to minimize the amount of labor to prep the medium and this is also something I need to outside for the most part and it is cold as fuck, so trying to avoid that.

Pay me now, or pay me later. Once you source the turface, don't walk, take a car, it only an hour and a half, smoke a bone and play 'I spy a color'. Screening is a PITA but once done, its done. I tried the coco and rice hulls, 8822 and the others, then took the 1.5 hour trip 2 years ago, still haven't opened all of the 7 bags I bought.
yes, you still have to wash it after each grow to get out the little roots but I live in Florida, Fdat 20 degreezzzzze shit. Why is it worth it to me... no gnats.

 

[Oysters]

So I have tried searching, but the result links never take me to the correct post (to read in context).

Somehow the indexing in this thread got screwed up. You'll find your actual search result usually 2 pages - sometime 1 - before the page that displays when you click on the searched page you want. So if you land on say page 79, go to page 77 and the post you want will be there.

 

[fliptopbox]

The capillary rise results are in for the Profile substrate. I'm only seeing 3" of rise. Is that even usable?

 

[JamesFarmer]

Pay me now, or pay me later. Once you source the turface, don't walk, take a car, it only an hour and a half, smoke a bone and play 'I spy a color'. Screening is a PITA but once done, its done. I tried the coco and rice hulls, 8822 and the others, then took the 1.5 hour trip 2 years ago, still haven't opened all of the 7 bags I bought.
yes, you still have to wash it after each grow to get out the little roots but I live in Florida, Fdat 20 degreezzzzze shit. Why is it worth it to me... no gnats.

I found a place with Turface and figured that 4 bags would be enough. I came home with 4 bags and found, after screening, washing and filling pots, that I needed one more. And then one more, and then one more.... OK I have enough....

Well almost... I will be headed down to pick up another next week.

I am paying about $12 a bag. When I "run down and pick up another bag" I spend more on fuel than I do on the Turface.

If you have a long drive to get Turface then I would recommend that you buy 2x as much as you think that you will need.

I do have to ask: how are you "washing" out the small root pieces? I have been having a tough time cleaning the Turface and find that I am throwing a fair bit away with the roots.

 

[seventhchild]

use google instead of IC'S search engine.......
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More results from www.icmag.com

 

[Boutique Manettino]

High Av9er.. howve you been?

I went back to the PPK thread (again) and came across the section where d9 was experimenting with drilling holes in the top pot. basically, air pruning, roots would grow away from the air. I did it at the time ( and drilled all those 7/16" holes!LOL!) and for the most part no roots grew out those holes. got me to thinking about clogged tail pieces and 'air pruning'. Still using the 1.5" drain piece for the wick (old school), drilled 4 small holes about an inch and a half down the wick, I did tape some screen across those holes but thinking the screen isn't necessary. Just harvested those plants and GD! the few roots that started down, stopped down the tail piece maybe an inch below the holes, from there down, turface and maybe 3-5 hair sized roots that never did make it to the bottom. granted it has only been done once, so far, but I'm excited about it (guess it doesn't take much).

No matter what I always get at least a tap root down and out the end of the pipe. Never tried sidewall holes in the tail pipe to limit root growth yet tho - Cool idea!

I have the sidewall holes in my 3.5 gall buckets and I think they act as a backup for tail pipe clogs. The holes make loading more difficult because of having to cut / fit window screen but the holes allow me to easily check run-off samples plus smell the root zone.

I just pulled the buckets off a 1/2 dozen root balls to changeout the tail pipe media and the bottom 2" (my version of root pruning right before flip) and there was ZERO roots circling.... probably thanks to the holes. The whole root ball is just solid.. fully rooted

I haven't tried putting sidewall holes in a 3 gal feed pan yet tho......

So I have tried searching, but the result links never take me to the correct post (to read in context). Very annoying. Anyway, I am looking for up-to-date info on using Coco in a PPK. I know it has been done. The only reference I can find states 85% perlite to 15% coco.

I am getting sick of screening and washing 8822. It is also harder to dispose of whereas coco and perlite are no problem in the compost pile. I cannot get Turface. Basically I want a less labor intensive medium so I can more quickly and *easily* flip my room. I also look incredibly silly standing outside rinsing gravel when it is 20 fucking degrees (F).

I know there are possible cons to using coco. What should I look out for if I got this route?

some of the cons are a 3 gal feed pan (or 3.5 gallon bucket) full of turface mvp is more forgiving than coco. You've gotta have a pretty large plant (with health roots) to drive that much coco whereas you can "get away with" not being as root bound in the turface.

The solution "pours thru" Turface a bit more whereas the coco will hold onto it more. I've never run straight coco come to think of it. I have some trees in 3.5 gal right now with 3 parts coco to 1 part perlite, heaviest coco mix i've ever run.

The trees are about 4' tall and 3.5' wide w/good root mass. You want the containers root bound w/full or heavy coco so you can put enough solution in during each irrigation that fresh oxygen gets in there. The frequent irrigations to optimally run coco will result in a "too wet" condition for your roots if the plant isn't large enough and being driven by proper light in a dialled environment.

The only reason I ever run coco/perlite over turface is simply transportation.... the bags of turface MVP were too heavy to move in one shot. Canna coco (gold/green bags) have worked for me.

Usually I run 3 parts Perlite to 1 part coco and I've found that mix behaves closer to Turface.

Some other things I'm finding.... at the moment I have the largest trees I've ever run in a PPK and they're still in veg. Even with heavy vertical bare-bulb side lighting, I've found this coco-heavy mix stays a bit wet. I had the air gap as large as possible and it still wasn't optimum so I switched it up for a few weeks so the tail pipe wasn't even in solution. All good. I have a few more lights to add (heh, heh) and then everything should be good to go for the sub-irrigation to be back in action.

For coco you probably want to bank on cutting the PPM back to 1/2 or more when you first xplant. Let the media dry out a little bit w/fewer irrigations to encourage the roots to establish. If your PPM are too high there will be spikes and pH issues caused by the dried out media/salts between irrigations... so counter this by cutting back on EC at first.

Then when the roots have fully established, switch to frequent irrigations. There is some truth to the idea of coco holding on to solution and to specific components. If you irrigate as often as you can (based on the way the plant looks / responds) then you will not have issues. If things dry out too much (or stay too wet for too long) you will have issues that will be more pronounced than with Turface.

If you're the type of gardener who likes to check runoff, you'll likely find some wonky pH readings if you have a lot of coco in your containers. The more things dry out the more dramatic. Save yourself the headaches and just plan on frequent irrigations and put yourself in a position to win by having large enough plants that can handle frequent irrigation.

Most obvious thing to me is people have plants that are too small and not fully lit... but have full-on sub-irrigation and then pound the media will frequent top-fed irrigations.

You're recirculating coco here and over in the coco threads there's a lot of success being had running drain-to-waste - and not without good reason. Pretty good chance you're more than a little experienced and already know how to manage a run so you should be good to go.

It's possible that D9 found Turface MVP to be high performance while still forgiving and so the best choice for newer growers that are either starting out or are looking to get into a "system" type setup w/automated irrigation. If people follow his guidelines fairly closely, they can achieve very satisfying results with a much shorter learning curve... even if they don't fully understand what is happening in great detail.

And that's probably the central issue with respect to "cons" running coco in a PPK setup. In terms of novice growers (the original target audience) or at least growers new to recirculating hydro, Turface MVP is going to be more forgiving at the start... and likely capable of higher performance once dialled in.... than coco.

One other note is that I've found newly xplanted rooted clones seem to establish faster in Turface than in the same containers full of coco... and certainly with a lot less "management". The roots go full on with close to full irrigations from the start in the Turface (way more set-and-forget) than in the coco where I find it helps to have that early wet-dry cycle (fairly standard coco practice).

In Delta9nxs' own words, a PPK is basically a big self-watering pot... not too different than any other plastic pot with some media in it, a plant and some lights hanging about.

Ordinary plastic containers do not have a wick that hangs in solution and may or may not be automatically irrigated. But other than that, a PPK is just like any other pot but has a few enhancements that result in higher performance / better growth / better results and then also some redundancy (sub-irrigation if a pump fails and goes unnoticed). Also, when recirculating nute solution, I think D9 nailed it bang on with the float valve, the pump res and the sub-irrigation lines going back in terms of keeping the solution as stable as possible (w/the blending action). I take it for granted now but this is a very, very cool aspect of the PPK.

Plus it's hard to hand-water Turface the whole way thru a run hahaha.

The capillary rise results are in for the Profile substrate. I'm only seeing 3" of rise. Is that even usable?

If you've lit your garden close to what D9 shows in his pics and have decent size plants that you're irrigating every hour or so, the wicking capability (the point of capillary rise) doesn't really matter.

The media in the tail pipe "should" move the solution that would normally be in the bottom few inches of your container down into the tail pipe. Another way to say this is the perched water table is moved down into the tail pipe and frees up the bottom few inches of the media which would normally stay (too) saturated much longer. That's the main benefit of the tail-pipe when you have vigorous growth and frequent irrigations - as there's not really much time between top irrigations if you've dialled them properly for the plant to wick up a bunch of nutes.

Something else that is worth noting is that testing the media in fluid is cool but it will behave a bit differently when full of roots. There will likely be a bit more "wicking" action going on once the root mass is fully established.

That said, there is never a day when I've felt like Turface MVP just wasn't doing it and its worth searching for something better. No point. Turface seems to have all the benefits of hydroton without the drawbacks... in my experience its actually better. And I put hydroton (properly dialled - by no means easy to do) ahead of most other media in terms of performance.

 

[mufinman]

After your last post BM, I'm wondering about screened holes in the bottom of the PPK top pot, this might help push roots back up into the center of the pot. I find a lack of roots in the middle of the root ball in the 3.5 gallon or 2 gallon buckets.

This coming run I'm trying 3.5 gal bucket in a 7 gallon bucket running only 2 gallons of turface. My logic goes to what you were talking about the positive effect of a root bound plant vs non-root bound. This configuration will give me a few more inches of headroom (the distance from the top of the media to the ceiling) than 2 gallon on top of a 3.5. In the past there was the 3.5 in the 5 gallon bucket but it only allowed for a couple inches of nutes and a gap of only 2 inches or so. Many roots in the rez and less yield. I'll drill em and will see first hand.

 

[MrAwder]

Well for the sake of experimentation and my own laziness I came up with the following: 3 parts coco, 2 parts chunky perlite, 2 parts unwashed/unscreened 8822. I experimented a bit and this is just what "felt" right. For the next week or so I am manually watering to get an idea of how they drain and like BM said, I want to let the medium dry out a bit to establish roots. The plants were ~30" going into the 3 gal pots. They were rooted solid in 5x5 containers.

I will just need to keep a very close eye on this run. Should be hitting spring by the time it is done and then I will make the trip to stock up on Turface. Next fall I will plan on a screening a full batch prior to winter. and preventing this situation again. There was just no way I could wash 8822 outside even running the hose from in the house. I would have turned my driveway into an ice rink.

 

[Snook]

I found a place with Turface and figured that 4 bags would be enough. I came home with 4 bags and found, after screening, washing and filling pots, that I needed one more. And then one more, and then one more.... OK I have enough....

Well almost... I will be headed down to pick up another next week.

I am paying about $12 a bag. When I "run down and pick up another bag" I spend more on fuel than I do on the Turface.

If you have a long drive to get Turface then I would recommend that you buy 2x as much as you think that you will need.

I do have to ask: how are you "washing" out the small root pieces? I have been having a tough time cleaning the Turface and find that I am throwing a fair bit away with the roots.

I bought 2 plastic garden wheel barrows (AMES brand) one amazon the other at HDepot, one bigger than the other. Drilled holes (I'm down to 2, 3/4" holes) in the bottom, gooped some screen over the holes. Then: turface about 1/2 barrow full and fill with garden host full bore until the cart is filled almost to the top, shit floats for the most part, and dump water out with debris, refill some number of times till youre comfortable with the cleanliness (I usually do this 4-5 times). For the smaller one I built a 1x3" frame on edge with 1/4" screen. It sits on top of the smaller one and receives old mothers and other discarded vegetating plants in turface as well as the root balls after harvest. let them sit for some time till dry(er) and strain thru screen into barrow most roots get caught on the screen and it needs to be cleaned once a year or so. I'd buy 2 bigger ones if I had to do it all over again but it works for me, the little guy.

EDIT: In another thread its been discussed about getting high before you go 'into town'! HAHAH! stoners.

 

[Snook]

Back in the day, off gassing was a topic of discussion often, haven't been seeing much about it reciently. Was mostly form one brand tent (cant remember, but someone will) and hose with the N-P-K marking on them. There may have been more.

I just used some FLEX SHOT, as seen on TV floating the boat. It has a very distinct acrid smell.
It will be used on the humidifier in the tunnel that produces the water vapor. Thinking off gassing.

anyone have experience or opinions on this stuff? (<HAHA!!! no opinions around here)

 

[McKush]

Great if you want a door screen bottomed boat......