? About smart pots

[sneaky101]

So I'm wanting to have 1 of my tents with soil in smart pots but I am unsure of size to get. It will be under 500watts and will be strains in the 10-12 week range. I figured that they would be flipped to 12/12 around 10-12" if not immediately when they were finished cloning. Also, there may be others (indica) in the future in my 3x3 tent and would probably be flipped closer to 2' tall. What size of smart pots should I get for each tent to maximize yield so as to not have the ladies root bound?

I was thinking 3G for the sativas and 5g for the Indicas due to their size, but not sure if it should be reversed or 5g for everyone.

Thanks to all who can help, can't wait to figure this one out.

 

[LeeROI]

The number of plants would be good to know.
Here is a related, current thread:
https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=225090

 

[Wav3F0rm]

yeah, number of plants planned, floor space, but, 500 watts unless your are doing a vertical scrog(and that would be entirely different) i think 2gallons a pot would be good, especially for sativa dom plants, as root restriction is a good thing for them. I like 100watts a square foot, so five square feet would be good size, and, 1.5 gallon smart pots take up about a square foot, i don't remember if the 2g pots are increase in height or width.. but, that info is available.

 

[sneaky101]

Plant count would vary. I would expect there to be About 6-8 in the sativa tent, 2x4. Flowering around 1 foot so as to not outgrow the tent. And probably 4 in the indica tent, 3x3, flowering around 2 feet, depending on the bushyness (is that a word?) of the strain. I'm planning on growing 2 different sativas and 3-4 different Indicas. Each sativa each round and probably 2 different Indicas each round.

As far as the thread link...much appreciated, but I have read it along with 1 or 2 more, but they really don't ask the same thing, at least I didn't think so

 

[Canniwhatsis]

Your choice of medium and how familiar you are with the strains in question would have to be the deciding factor with what your asking.


In all honesty your plant WONT become root bound in a SmartPot,.... I've had the same 2' tall Habanero plant in the same 1 gallon smart pot for just over a year now with no issues



So it's pretty much up to you, and your choices with your grow.

Personally I use FFOF, and will vege a rooted clone in a 1 gallon plastic nursery pot for a month or so (I'm lazy, and it's easier to up pot from plastic pots, and I'm cheap! got the 1's for FREE! ) Once the plant is ready I up to a 5 gallon Smart pot, then I'll vege another month or so before flipping the lights.

Some strains get such a tight root mass by the end of flower that I have to stomp on the bag to break it up, others will fall out with just a gentle massage.

Don't ask which went either way, I dump pots AFTER I trim buds,.... but I typically forget to dump the pot until I need another empty pot And by that time I can't remember which plant was in the damned thing!

 

[OGShush]

I'm just starting to bloom some of Chaco's Neville's crosses from the bay and they are in 3 gallon smart pots in dirt. Went into bloom at about 1 foot. I figure worst case scenario I'll be watering pretty often.

A buddy of mine gave a large clone (2 feet tall) in a 2 quart container to another friend and told him it was ready to bloom, but needed to be transplanted. You should have seen my face when 2 and a half months later he tells me he bloomed it in that container and got 3 ounces dry off the plant. He said towards the end it needed water 2x daily lol

 

[dank.frank]

Wait. Wav3,

Why is root restriction a good thing? I'd like to know the reasoning..

My suggestion for the OP...

2 x 250w for 500 I am assuming.

Limited canopy penetration...

4 plant in 7g each, SCROG, 6 wk veg for proper fill in of the screen aka 3/4 full, max canopy height above screen when flowering about 14" ... Would also be very proper.


dank.Frank

 

[OrganicOzarks]

I would never put a sativa in anything over 3 galllons. I thought I would try a 5 gallon, and I had to cut the plant in half. Now I know for sure to never use anything over a 3. I flipped this test plant at 10", and I cut it when it reached 4'. It still kept trying to stretch, and I had to cut it some more. I am going to be doing some sativa's in a couple of weeks, and I am putting the bitches in 2's. That test sealed the deal for me.

 

[sneaky101]

Hi frank, it's a 1 k ballast, but I'm gonna run it at 50%.

Makes since to me to have the sativas root bound if it does limit the stretch. Thanks for the thought. I was considering running a 3 and 5 g just to evaluate. Maybe I should do a 2 and 3 g.

 

[OPT]

Why run it at 50%? It's not that much power if you have just one of them.....your buds will reward you in the end if you crank that fucker up to 1000, much more penetration equals less popcorn.

OPT

 

[sneaky101]

Why run it at 50%? It's not that much power if you have just one of them.....your buds will reward you in the end if you crank that fucker up to 1000, much more penetration equals less popcorn.

OPT

Because the tent is only 2x4x5. Right now with a 400 in there temps are getting around the mid to hi 80s. I want to grow in there, not ok in there....but if I thought I could without investing in a cooling method for the tent I would.

Just got back from the hydro stor and they made it an easy decision between the 2 and 3G smart pots. They only had 1-3G and a bunch of 2g pots so I got the 1-3G and 7-2g smart pots. I'm still a ways off from growing out the sativas, probably about 2 months (that's when the sour lifesaver I'll finish) from wanting to start flowering. I just sprouted my nevilles haze x that wii be my mother.

 

[Yes4Prop215]

smartpots are hard to transplant, as well as clean after the shows over...i got a bin stuffed full of ones i never plan to use again. i switched over to growbags and love them...

 

[sneaky101]

smartpots are hard to transplant, as well as clean after the shows over...i got a bin stuffed full of ones i never plan to use again. i switched over to growbags and love them...

Well hopefully I won't be transplanting once they are in the smart pots. And these are really just the cheap-o smart pots. $2 each.

 

[Canniwhatsis]

The cheapo ones look like they'd fall apart if you tried to clean them. My :twocents:

As for cleaning the real ones,.... I toss em in a 5 gallon bucket with some doctor brunners soap and a little neem oil to kill bugs and just scrub em by hand. If they don't get washed in 4-5 uses the salts from the nutes can be a bit of a PITA to get out but they're worth the $$$$ IMO.

 

[budman678]

i have (4) five gallon smartie going right now and i absolutely love them. i am from seed currently so you can only imagine how serious the root mass is. I am not sure if i will be ABLE to break up the root ball when the show is over.

so how many uses/cycles can you get out of the smarties? they seem pretty stoutly made

 

[jjh1957]

Try the reusable cloth shopping bags. No root curling, one solid root mass, easy to empty out and easy to clean. Only cost 99 cents and hold about five gallons. I use them, and for the money, wouldn't use anything else.

 

[sneaky101]

The cheapo ones look like they'd fall apart if you tried to clean them. My :twocents:

As for cleaning the real ones,.... I toss em in a 5 gallon bucket with some doctor brunners soap and a little neem oil to kill bugs and just scrub em by hand. If they don't get washed in 4-5 uses the salts from the nutes can be a bit of a PITA to get out but they're worth the $$$$ IMO.

Yeah, they probably will fall apart when cleaned. I figured I would be lucky to get 2 runs from them, but at about 1/3 the $ of real smart pots, I figured these would work for my test run.

As for the shopping bags' thought about using them, but Im sure if I need that much dirt. Seems like the consensus is 2 or 3 gallons for what I need. Not that I'm skimping, but I don't want to spend more for more dirt if it's not needed. Thanks for the input though, I may use them next time if these pots aren't big enuf.

Also, got my new hood in yesterday, and couldn't help myself. Put the 1k ballast in the 3x3 and turned it to 750watts and put the 600 in the 2x4 tent turned down to 400 watts. Figure I will leave it at these settings till I feel comfortable about the temps before I try and turn them any higher.

 

[OrganicOzarks]

I hose my smartpots down to get all of the big stuff off of them. Then I toss them in the clothes washer, and they come out looking brand new.

 

[Yes4Prop215]

Try the reusable cloth shopping bags. No root curling, one solid root mass, easy to empty out and easy to clean. Only cost 99 cents and hold about five gallons. I use them, and for the money, wouldn't use anything else.

thats what i would do too if i had to go back to bags like these...i did a "leech" test and left a bunch of them inside a 5 gal bucket filled with water...ppm and ph before and after were the same.

I hose my smartpots down to get all of the big stuff off of them. Then I toss them in the clothes washer, and they come out looking brand new.

i would still have perlite and root mass stuck to the sides, peices of leaves...i was concerned about washing my clothes in the same place i did smartpots. if you had an old dedicated washing machine it would work, as well as a private place outside to hose them down...(dont want all that dirt runoff clogging the sewer pipes either)

for my indoor grow i gotta keep everything inside no privacy in the backyard...so hosing down smarties is not reasonable here. thats why i just use growbags, might not be environmentally concious but they are so cheap i just buy new ones every round, zero time wasted hosing and washing... you can even wash the growbags easier too if you decided too...

 

[OrganicOzarks]

thats what i would do too if i had to go back to bags like these...i did a "leech" test and left a bunch of them inside a 5 gal bucket filled with water...ppm and ph before and after were the same.





i would still have perlite and root mass stuck to the sides, peices of leaves...i was concerned about washing my clothes in the same place i did smartpots. if you had an old dedicated washing machine it would work, as well as a private place outside to hose them down...(dont want all that dirt runoff clogging the sewer pipes either)

for my indoor grow i gotta keep everything inside no privacy in the backyard...so hosing down smarties is not reasonable here. thats why i just use growbags, might not be environmentally concious but they are so cheap i just buy new ones every round, zero time wasted hosing and washing... you can even wash the growbags easier too if you decided too...

I feel you. I guess washing smartpots in the backyard is a bonus of living in the Country. No neighbors. Unless you count the deer, coyotes, squirrels, opossums, birds,etc. None of them can narc either. I use to live in the middle of a city. It was the more urban part. Multicultural is the politically correct thing to say. I don't miss that shit one bit. You can't sit out back smoking a joint while your cement mixer is going with your latest batch of soil without a few people wondering WTF? The things I do here make me laugh when I think about where I use to live. The stress level has to be much higher with all of those eyes looking at you. To each their own though. There are pros and cons of everything. The one thing I miss is easy access to ethnic food. Indian, Thai, GOOD Italian food, Mediterranean, Mexican restaurant ran by Mexicans, etc..