Blumats vs drip irrigation vs hand watering for x12 50 gal smarties outdoor, he

[EastBayGrower]

Hi guys,

If any of you outdoor gurus can please give me some advice I would very much appreciate it.I'm starting my first outdoor crop this year all medical I'm nor cal in 50 gal smart pots, I won't be able to get to my girls daily, maybe twice a week at most.

So my main question is, how often will I need to be watering these girls at there peak? And how much water per pot? (any specs can be found in my grow log in sig) would a 50 gallon res. Of right water be suffice to for a week of watering?

I've started a variety of strains indoor and lst'd em in 1-2gal pots to build up root systems before transplant.

But now we get to the heart of the problem, where I'm really torn from my lack of experience outdoors, I really like the ease of Blumats and the results look fantastic, the only issue I see is since there's no dry cycle it could a use root rot or something, any exsperience/comments? Or maybe hand water until they get established in the 45gal then put in a blumat?


Or the 2nd option is a normal drip irrigation system using a 50 gal resovior with ro wate, I think I would do the gallon per hour drippers, since I could change different droppers out for heavier feeding plants (like .5 gallon to 1 gallon per hour) and 8t would use a timer. Anyone prefer this.method over the otheres? Which droppers are best? Gallon per hour? Straight flow?

And then there's just good Ole hand watering in the 50 gal smarties, my concern is that during the summer I would need to water more than once every 3-7 days sI unless I can find someone whose close which is another option to water, but then that's putting my babies in inexspierenced hands... that's not nice...


OK so please help guide me to find the best solution for outdoor watering needs , thanks in advance guys, I freaking love this place

 

[EastBayGrower]

Bump

 

[DrGreenthumb333]

Man I wish I knew more about automated watering systems, why not trying to pm backyard farmer he's got extensive knowledge on this subject, there are many others but he's the one that comes to mind first, he pokes around on shcrews thread called motherlode gardens 2015.

As far as how often there gonna need to be watered there are many factors, what your soil mix consists of, how many hours of direct sun you get, how big they end up getting, weather you use mulch or not.. etc.

 

[EastBayGrower]

thanks for the response man!

I just started transplanting to 45gal smart pots today

still dont know thou, gallon per hour drip setup or blumat Maxis?

 

[MRsistatumbleweed]

how much water will 50 gallon pots need?? heaps... ha ha sorry thats all i have useless info i know..

was good to look over this thread and will be intrigued as to what people recomend..

come on people get posting..

 

[Dready_jake]

I would say as someone who used the drippers fro a very short time before they clogged. Avoid the drippers at any cost. Open spagetti lines for the win.

 

[mofoo]

put in on a drip system that can turn on and off when its supposed too. lots of places sell timed dripper controllers or spaghetti lines same thing. If you could be there more then 2 times a week i would say hand water, but its a gamble if you miss going there once a week you could have dried out plants.. as for how much water i would say at the "peak" a 50 gallon might need 10 /15 gallons of water daily AT most.

 

[Dready_jake]

J just wanna point out that spaghetti lines and drippers are very different because drippers clog. Take the dripper out and you have open spaghetti line that won't clog. The timer might need to be more specific but j recommend That over drippers any day.

As far as blumats hand or auto. I've only done the letter two and can only recomend the timed auto over hand watering. It's a bit more particular and requires some dialing before you can set it and forgetbit but I've had great results feeding coco 3 times a day in my system.

Are you running soil it coco. Will the water have nutes or not. Important notes. If running straight water which is recommended by the blumatters, (I think. haven't been in there in a while) then drippers and blumats would be harder to clog.

But as I've said before j can only recommend AVOIDING drippers as they can clog even with straight h2o. The rest depends on your factors like medium

 

[EastBayGrower]

thanks for the replies guys, let's get this discussion going...

So as of now I think I'm going to forego the blumats in favor of a timed drip system with gallon per hour emmitors.

The only issue I have with open lines is that on my last drip system I did that but the pots closest to the pump would get wayyyyy more water then the pots further down the line (anyone know why? I thought just plain "least resistence" but might be weak pump?)

I will be running plain ro water thru the drippers only, I'm thinking bout 4 1gallon per hour emmitors per pot, with 15 min cycles giving me a gallon. Then I will handwater once a week if needed and go from there. And FYI I'm growing in modified version of a supersoil, peat based with some soIL added (ffof) and lots of perlite so it's an airy soulless mix.

I placed my first Tahoe og into its 45 gal smart pot 2 days back and it took about 7-10gallon to initially saturate the pot (shouldn't even need more than that daily).

I'm also going to throw a few 30 gallon smart pots out too so I need the drip system to be flexible (I could change out gallon per hour emmitors depending on him much water the plant needs on my weekly checks)

So as of now that's the idea. 2 or 3 55gal res. connected, With a timed pump that sends water out a 1/2" mainline to a 1/4" feedlines using a T w/ 4 emmitors per pot Which will then have the 1/2" line return back to the resIvor so water is Constantly in motion

I will try to put on an inline filter to hopefully keep the drippers unclogged. But this seems like the cheapest most effective way for me at the moment. I like the idea of blumats and will defiantly look into the further since I still have some ti.e before the drip system is needed (2 weeks maybe?)

as of now I expect the pots to go almost a week without water (added some polymer crystals to mix as well)

If you guys see any flaws or anything I'm missing please chime in

 

[Dready_jake]

Did you have a loop? Or was it a straight line with an end cap? Cuz with these systems you have to have a pressure loop to keep it even

And if doing straight water blumatts or timed drippers should be fine.

 

[EastBayGrower]

Did you have a loop? Or was it a straight line with an end cap? Cuz with these systems you have to have a pressure loop to keep it even

And if doing straight water blumatts or timed drippers should be fine.

yeah i mentioned in the post (or should have) that the 1/2'' line will run back into the resivoir so constant water flow and pressure is maintained... sounds good then,, hopefully drip syste, will be cheaper then blumats which was about $300 for all 12 plants

and yes i will be building this system in the next week or so and show pics, not leaving you guys without the goods lol

 

[Dready_jake]

No. Not like that. A loop on the manifold.
A tee coming from the pump. Both sides go to plants. THATs how you maintain even pressure

 

[EastBayGrower]

No. Not like that. A loop on the manifold.
A tee coming from the pump. Both sides go to plants. THATs how you maintain even pressure

the only problem i see with that set up is that ive done it before (mentioned above) and did a T with feedlines the coming off it going to pots but i would get different flow rates on the lines closest to the T (i might have punched the 1/4'' lines into the 1/2'' line not directly on top of the line so they would fill at different times?) , BUT that was not with Gall on per hour drippers, that was with straight flow spikes... hopefully the gallon per hour drippers keep a constant flow rate between lines..

how is that a benefit from my idea of using a 1/2'' feed line coming from the res then T's coming off the 1/2'' line going to each pots 1/4'' drip line, which then circles back into the resivoir.. the main beneift i see with this set up (on paper) is that the water would be constantly flowing through the 1/2'' line going into the res and then back out again, i would think that is better than having a 1/2'' line going to a T with a 1/2'' manifold with 1/4 lines coming off it (would i use 1/2'' to 1/4'' T's for this?) and then ending being capped off, so now the water that is left in the line when the pump shts off is sitting in the line, in the sun, until next watering..

 

[Dready_jake]

Still think were missing each other. The T starts a loop that pressurises evenly. This thread starts with a picture of what I'm talking about.
https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?threadid=62654

The spaghetti lines also have to be the same measured length.

With these two very important details my system and others have the same flow per pot with no drippers.

I actually have a tee on each spaghetti line so there's two water points per pot
you probably can't see much of the system but there is a perfect circle of 1/2" black tubing connected with a T. That tee leads to the pump. The loop has single spaghetti lines going to each pot. Each line has a T on the end to spread the flow

 

[EastBayGrower]

Yeah man wereally defiantly talking about 2 separate systems of drip irrigation, I understand yours, do you see what I mean by the benefits of the recirculating style vs the one you mentioned, because after the watering when the pump I s shut off the water will be sitting in the lines stagnant until the pump is turned back on

Thanks for the replies and k+ for all

 

[Dready_jake]

Yeah man wereally defiantly talking about 2 separate systems of drip irrigation, I understand yours, do you see what I mean by the benefits of the recirculating style vs the one you mentioned, because after the watering when the pump I s shut off the water will be sitting in the lines stagnant until the pump is turned back on

Thanks for the replies and k+ for all

I'm sure there's a way to prevent stagnation. I've got it figured out on mY small setup but without raised plants and a Rez below its tougher I know. For my setup I'll put the loop on the top of the table edge(currently its around the bottom of the tray around the plants). And a small hole punched right above the pump on the line. (I've got one now at the top of the Rez as an experiment. It'd be better down below). My thinking is this small hole will allow the water in the line to depressurize and drain back to the rez


But as far as the pump without drippers .that loop is how we do it. The issue with the recirc style your going for is the open end doesn't pressurize and flow evenly to all plants.