Well playing around today, was going through the plants smelling and observing the flowering ones and potentially tossing a seedling or two “a pepper and a Easy D seedling” for some new seedling space.
So the flowering Blue Tooth and Blow Mind “respectively below” their smell and structure aside from my issues were just “whatever” Blowmind smelled like soap “ivory” and greenery and was small because it was the furthest along age wise and with issues, the Blue Tooth was just a curly mess with nothing much for smell just menthol and greenery so figured screw it ill toss them to make some more space and shuffle things around. mentality of “keep the best, toss the rest”.
The other two plants the Sour Crinkle has a Lilac Greenery smell with a bit of bite to it and subtle sweetness, and the other is one of my pass crosses, but just a fresh greenery smell "grass, shrubs, healthy garden bed type smell.
Anyways to the meat of this post. The root pucks on the two i pulled are like bricks, can maybe dent them 1/4" if im trying to crush it and the plants only used about half of the pot volume too, but alot of root for that small space and shows in the stem base size.
But here’s what has me thinking, ripped one root ball apart “took some work” but sucker is way dense and look at the inner roots. to me looks like a perfect environment for anaerobic conditions.
So has me thinking that i grew the roots so dense that it created an environment where anaerobic conditions would flourish and my watering method couldn’t keep up and that the recent added H2O2 was helping but also point to all the pH rising issues i was having. Now thinking about that to fix issues my feed water would ideally need the most amount or DO possible aka flume pumps, potential coolers, h202 frequent use, and even still super dense, im not sure i could counter it, apart from going straight hydro so the roots wont be packed together and i will still probably have to do all of the above to keep things happy anyways.
So has me thinking on going back to coco to keep things simple, as after considering the work that will be needed to reuse the Leca “Hydroton” even if drying and breaking it up after, then washing it, and the extra steps needed to keep things happy res wise with a possibility for quite a bit more res nutrient waste, plus needing rockwool for starters it makes Leca seem pretty wasteful, vs one time use coco that is just getting composted after…