A way to start autos

[dargo]

What lenth are your pipes ?

I got taproots a couple of inchs out the bottom already

 

[thaiboxer]

i checked out Mdanzigs method (Extreme Raised Transplanting) & it looks awesome. I picked the hempy method for my first try because of its forgiveness for errors in feeding & easy setup. The progress so far is slow, i think its growing a nice tap root & should catch up next week or so, which is perfect because i'm still working on the cab. Next round or so will be some hempy's, a bubble bucket & Mdanzigs soil

 

[vicious bee]

1" PVC x 8" long. The next ones are going to be 3/4" x 12 " long. I transplanted some the other day that had gone a long time. Maybe 5 or 6 weeks. Several died. Maybe 20%. I'm not sure if it's the length of time before transplant or a defect in the whole idea of transplanting naked roots.I'm going to try something different. Make a slurry of "water keep" water crystals. Put the slurry on paper towels then wrap the naked roots with the paper towel before planting. I've heard others successfully transporting small plants in ziplock baggies with the naked roots wrapped in newspaper. Hope it works. I need a compact way to carry the plants.

 

[vicious bee]

I tried a bunch of experiments to keep my seaweed poisoned autos from flowering. Hoping they would gain a little more height. On the trimming experiment. It worked a small amount. Very small. I would deem it a failure. Too bad, it would have been very helpful to delay flowering til you were ready to set plants out. The root tonic I'm not completely sure about but I would say failure if I had to make a decision right now. I'll check again in a week or so and update. To bad none of this works. Oh well. I do the stupid stuff and look ignorant so you don't have to. On the tubes. About 15% or 20% died on transplanting into soil. Not good. These were fairly far along though. Here's what I'm going to try. I have several Blue Streaks that are younger. I removed the sweeping compound that I grow in by tapping the tube. The compound falls out. Then I push the plant out with a plunger made out of a quarter glued on a stick. I'm going to directly transplant some. Some others I tried something different to reduce shock. I used "water keep" brand water absorbing crystals to make a slurry. The crystals are graded fine. I mixed 4 teaspoons to 3/4 gallons of 6.5 ph water to make the slurry. I then cut one sheet of standard paper towel in half. I laid the plant on the paper towel and spooned one teaspoon of the slurry onto the roots of the plant. I then rolled the paper towel up and put it in a large zip lock bag. After putting several plants in the zip lock I sprayed the prepared plants with 6.5ph water. I then put the bag outside under some trees. I'm going to plant them tomorrow evening. This will simulate me carrying them some distance to plant. I'm hoping the extra water crystals will lower the shock of the plant. I wonder is there any additives that I could put in the slurry to help? Ascorbic acid? Amino Acids? Fulvic acid? I'm afraid to put seaweed but it would in very small amounts probably be useful. I may make up some different mixtures next week and try 3 or 4. Hey one I forgot which may be good charcoal. Here's a pic. You can't see the slurry very well. It's thicker than jello when you first mix it. Not as thick as apple sauce. Can't think of anything off hand that has the same viscosity. Maybe a little less than ketchup.

I think the tube idea is ok but could be a lot better. One thing is the roots circle. I've been reading about root circling problems in small trees. They use air pots to stop this. Also corrugation in the pots to channel the roots. What's needed is a air pot like a tube. I've got some ideas. It would be made of silt fence(low cost). There has to be a way to reduce labor though. Maybe something like corrugated cardboard but made of silt fence. I'm thinking about it. Maybe a template could be made to fill the silt pots then reused to do another set.

 

[Muddy]

I've been following this thread with some interest and root circling was one of my first thoughts as to a problem with it. Last year I switched to square pots for my seedlings as they encourage root redirection. I also found some bigger ones made by Botanicare that have indentions on the sides to further redirect the roots. I used those for the first time on 4 Diesel Ryders that I just harvested. My yields were on average 12 grams higher per plant than ones I grew last year in round pots. I can't say for certain that the increased yield was all from the different pots but I'm sure it contributed. I'm planning on growing some full sized plants in 5 gallon buckets this year and am thinking of placing several strips of wood down the inside of the buckets to help redirect the roots and keep them from swirling around the sides of the buckets.

I think the tube idea is ok but could be a lot better. One thing is the roots circle. I've been reading about root circling problems in small trees. They use air pots to stop this. Also corrugation in the pots to channel the roots. What's needed is a air pot like a tube. I've got some ideas. It would be made of silt fence(low cost). There has to be a way to reduce labor though. Maybe something like corrugated cardboard but made of silt fence. I'm thinking about it. Maybe a template could be made to fill the silt pots then reused to do another set.

 

[vicious bee]

12 grams higher per plant is a BIG difference on an auto. I notice the roots in the medium I use completely fill the cups. What I'm trying to come up with is something cheap and easy to put a bunch of autos in to start then put outdoors. I just had an idea. This may be hard to explain but the idea is simple. First you don't want the plants roots to be intertwined. So each plant needs its own root channel. You know what a cardboard box looks like with a bunch of dividers in it that make individual square channels as your looking in the box from the top. As an example we'll say the squares are two inches square. Usually these dividers are made by, using the example above, by cutting slots half way through the cardboard for one direction every two inches. Then another piece of cardboard has vertical slots cut in it but they are half way cut through in the opposite direction every two inches. They are then put together perpendicular to each other. Making square cells. What if you did than with thin boards like paneling and coated with lacquer for waterproofing. You would have individual cells. They would be tall to give good stretch for the roots and the square profile would slow the circling of the roots. Hmmm. May have to do some carpentry tomorrow. The whole thing would disassemble easily so you could shake out mix. Thanks for the feedback. I know some of these ideas are stupid but sometimes the only way to learn something is to try the stupid stuff. It would be much better to just put them in 16 oz. cups then transplant but I can't carry all that. So I'm trying to find a way around it.
I planted the plants with water keep in paper towels today. In the same holes I put plants with no towels or water keep. Just the roots straight into the ground. Going to compare.

 

[Muddy]

Nice thing about forums like this is that you can discuss your ideas and get feedback, or even someone that's tried it before. I know exactly what you're talking about. Those type boxes are often used for consumer products packaged in glass where they want to keep the bottles separated to prevent breakage. Don't see them much anymore since everything now comes in plastic.

I tried several things, like 16 ounce plastic cups, before settling on my current method. Last year I started using 4" square by 5" deep plastic pots that I got cheap off eBay. I got some plastic trays at Walmart that will hold 12 of them. I can fit 2 trays under my veg light for a total of 24. Last year I put the seeds directly in the pots but this year am using Rapid Rooters and have improved my germination. These pots are big enough to grow them until they can be sexed. Then I transplant the females into 2 or 3 gallon pots. The trays are easy to move and I only have to transplant once. The pots and trays can then be cleaned and reused.

 

[vicious bee]

Today I was making some more tubes and came to the conclusion that this isn't working. It would be a good idea if the plants would get some height due to the long tube. It's not worth the effort though. Better off planting more seeds directly in the ground and sexing later. It was worth a try. Never know until you try but chalk this up to a failure. Of course now I'm off to the next big thing. I still have some more ideas to try. If I had a bunch of fem seeds I probably would not have chosen this path.