Outdoor Fertigated Coco Grow - Huge Plants

[MrBreeze911]

Hello everybody! I am interested in growing cannabis in my outdoor garden, in 30 gallon fabric pots, fertigated 3-5 times a day, using training and topping techniques, and using a trellis for support. This will hopefully cut costs and automate to eliminate a lot of work. Is this possible? I haven't read much about this or seen it be done. I live in hot, dry, california. I'm thinking about hooking up sensors and timers to arduino, an open source brain that can be used for electronics projects.

Arduino is an open-source electronics platform based on easy-to-use hardware and software. Arduino boards are able to read inputs - light on a sensor, a finger on a button, or a Twitter message - and turn it into an output - activating a motor, turning on an LED, publishing something online. You can tell your board what to do by sending a set of instructions to the microcontroller on the board. To do so you use the Arduino programming language (based on Wiring), and the Arduino Software (IDE), based on Processing.

Should I set up 3 reservoirs with calmag, grow, and bloom with pumps and a pressure regulator, attached to fertilizer injectors to pvc piping flowing water down to the plants in my garden, hooked up to a timer connected to my arduino project, and I can possibly program it to fertigate 3 times a day, taking readings of the runoff ec and ph?

I am a college student and these are fun projects for me to do in my spare time. Any feedback from anyone interested is much appreciated an welcome. Have a nice day!

 

[exploziv]

You can absolutely do that!
Fertigating 30 gallon pots to runoff might get wasteful in water and nutes pretty fast.. You might want to just water at target PH and an EC that sustains them. 3-5 feedings a day means u can leave the EC low if you feed the right ratios. You would only change the NPK ratios as the plants progress to next stage, so I don't see the point for 3 reservoirs at all. The electronics is easy if you say you do projects for fun. Just don't overcomplicate it when simple could do it better, you know.
Oh, almost forgot:

 

[MrBreeze911]

You can absolutely do that!
Fertigating 30 gallon pots to runoff might get wasteful in water and nutes pretty fast.. You might want to just water at target PH and an EC that sustains them. 3-5 feedings a day means u can leave the EC low if you feed the right ratios. You would only change the NPK ratios as the plants progress to next stage, so I don't see the point for 3 reservoirs at all. The electronics is easy if you say you do projects for fun. Just don't overcomplicate it when simple could do it better, you know.
Oh, almost forgot:

Hey exploziv,
Thanks for the response! So, how can I dial in the amount to nute water to give them per watering if not to runoff? Also, would there be any problems with mixing any nutes together in the single reservoir? I'm reading up about factors in root development currently. I wonder why coco doesn't get rootbound.. maybe it has to do with the low mechanical impedence and water air ratio when wet... If I normally water 707 soil in 30 gal pots every 2 to 3 days with 3 gallons of water, does that mean I should evenly divide 3 gallons of water between the waterings during a 2-3 day period.

 

[exploziv]

If you plan on using coco best way would probably be to water it to runoff, but be ready to use a lot of water and nutes. I couldn't tell you much more cause I am just learning growing in coco and my last grow was a bit of a fail, mostly cause I am a major pothead, but yeah still had and have to learn some things before I give advice.
Soil could simply be timed or measured with soil humidity sensors. Make sure you have a system that waters them equally! And more than one outlet per pot, in case of clogs. I can asure you fastest way to get it running well is to build it and make it take care of some plants for a while.

 

[MrBreeze911]

If you plan on using coco best way would probably be to water it to runoff, but be ready to use a lot of water and nutes. I couldn't tell you much more cause I am just learning growing in coco and my last grow was a bit of a fail, mostly cause I am a major pothead, but yeah still had and have to learn some things before I give advice.
Soil could simply be timed or measured with soil humidity sensors. Make sure you have a system that waters them equally! And more than one outlet per pot, in case of clogs. I can asure you fastest way to get it running well is to build it and make it take care of some plants for a while.

Okay awesome, thanks. I will update as soon as I make some progress.