An idea, you’re basically trying to slow capillary action. That is done by widening the area the water has to travel. You can do this a few ways. Bigger, looser more airy wick. Bigger pots. Less water in your reservoir. Reducing your number of wicks.
I would add a barrier though to slow things. If you put small rock at the bottom of your pots like pea gravel it would do this. It will take more time for for the water to travel through the layer of gravel. You can run your wick through the gravel if you want to. Most people think the rock helps drainage but it does the opposite and facilitates capillary action and the pull of water back into the medium.
I know dumb ideas but maybe research capillary action for yourself. Best of luck.
In my mind its not necessarily the capillary action im trying to reduce even though its all linked, its the water retention of the media which uses capillary action to draw that water into itself i want to reduce.
So yeah one could meter the uptake threw intermediary layers like a pea gravel or perlite base and it might meter it enough or that in turn its providing a small air layer at the base of the pot to prevent that pot saturation and is something to play with , i just wonder on the variability of say what maybe a 1cm vs say 1.5cm layer would do and how accurate one needs to be, and pot height aka bigger pots would be another factor but im not gonna play with that due to limited height, and already having current my pots and bins.
As for wicks, i guess how im thinking about it is i dont want the wick itself to be the limiting factor and would prefer it to be an open pathway with the media with the plant included determining how much water is needed as say a slow acceptable uptake for younger plants once a root mass is established may be too slow for larger plants. So say me going to just a single strand sure the thought of two is for redundancy which with this material likely i don’t need to worry about, and technically it is one single strand it just loops back making two ends which is good in a sense that it doesn’t get easily pulled out as its sorta anchored, but mind you once roots find that wick its not really gonna go anywhere anyways and single centred wick would make moving pots easier but it likely wont have that big of an impact of uptake.
Though i will make up some perlite bottom pots to compare to say a straight hp pot and the others.
If you do like a perlite or stone I would go one finger deep with the size pots you’re using. Just my opinion. Also I might try something larger than perlite. The space between the rocks is what’s slowing the uptake. Bigger gaps, slower uptake.
I think it might be easier though to just switch to one wick. You could “throttle” the uptake by changing the density/tightness of the wick. Say a looser citronella style wick for slower uptake, a tighter more rope like one for fast uptake. You could also use this to control uptake through different growth phases. Slower when they’re small. Bigger when you need those heavy feedings in flower. In switching to one wick you could also go with a much larger diameter wick like 1”.
How about half HP half hydroton? Maybe pricey but it would give you big air pockets? Perhaps instead of layering - I think you might end up similarly saturated with an inert base layer but I’m just spitballing.
Already maybe up some other pots this morning after my previous comments, saying that my wicks are actually flat poly fabric material from a dollar store mop head, and when halved they are only say 1.5" wise when made flat, have done torch style wicks in the past but they have a tendency to be partially or mostly cotton based which rots plus don’t wick as much as you think water wise, then one starts going down the kevlar fire wick route for fire spinning and the mop head fabric just works and is easy to get.
@Foreigner at least in the past hydroton does take up a bunch of space but when i saw trying to grow straight in it the issue i had was its immovable especially once roots grow through it, in big beds im sure it would be fine but small pots the roots would grow through then pinch themselves off and cause root die off for me.
So we will see how there perlite bottom pots do and did single wicks as well, but already i can tell the 50/50 mix from yesterday likely is gonna be too dry
This is the way. Just like watering with a hose vs a dripper. It may be a gallon of water either way but one will oversaturate the soil while the other won’t.
Double wicks vs half width doubles, to half width singles = no difference in uptake
Perlite bottom filled pots did create a drier more airy layer where the perlite was but the potting mix still retained the same amount of moisture as if i was just running no perlite layer in the first place. One exception was this newer potting mix i tried straight it didn’t really retain moisture even compared to a perlite mix version of that stuff so i think that was just user error on my part initially priming it and it was to dry to start wicking properly, so ill re run just to see.
As for the various mixes
Straight HP to me = too wet
25% perlite to Promix HP = pretty good but maybe still slightly too wet.
50% perlite to Promix HP = Too dry
25% perlite to the other potting mix = too wet and more so than the comparable hp mix as well HP has more perlite base anyways
So just of it and how im looking at it so far is, the wick differences didn’t matter but there is no reason to go big if the small ones work so ill go small singles.
And mix wise 25-33% perlite to promix Hp seems like a good place to start and just running that without any intermediate layer, and if using the other potting soil has to be more in the 30-35+% range for perlite.
Hydroton doesnt provide enough root space in the same containers i would need to at least 5-10 times it to be comparable, and my past trials with it i ran into root rot alot as the roots would grow so much that all the space between would be taken up and due to the un compressible nature of it in small containers they would pinch themselves off root wise leading to dead roots then rot from there, plus always found the top two or more inches of it to be too dry and in limited headroom that height matters.
Saying that its also easy for me to go back to coco and pumps, just wanted to try a bit more non powered method that obviously needs a bit of tuning.
and garden plants plus reveg and seedlings, had to give them some feed water as the UFO squashes were starting to go yellow and they have all been on only water up to now.
So did a couple things, removed the autos i hampered them too much, photos wise the perky ones went dry res wise but not mix and ive just top watered with plain water the last couple days, plants on the right i pulled up the wicks to try and get them to dry out a bit so they throw out new roots in search of water, and ill try and keep them on the drier side till they do so, just trying to encourage root growth.
As for the youngens they got planted in some 25%+ added perlite promix hp, and we will see how that runs, but will maybe be a bit slower on going to wicks at least for the first little bit or at least fill very low so they dry out.
Also finally went out and got a new bag of coco, gave in but will be still trying wicks with the promix combo, just needs some work to get more dialed at specifics and best methods.
Moving along, so one of the photo’s in the top cab is not a photo, was a lone seed i came across while while helping my B-inlaw trim one of his outdoor plants last year, could of said it was a fast photo and maybe the that he had some autos previously that shed some pollen but i honestly don’t remember nor could he remember any details needless to say its offspring definitely isn’t a photo, so the above is what makes sense to me, its the right front plant.
With that said i may move the healthier Okanagan grape up from the bottom to fill that spot and toss that one.
Also just planted some sprouted autos seeds in new coco, so we will see where that goes.
Gonna cull a couple plants, and have some seedlings popping up, forgot how much water the canna coco can hold, and makes me re question things, so i may cut it with some perlite.
yeah i agree, wait till tomorrows pictures as i flopped the tops on them but its more for the purpose that they have been vegging for awhile so just wanted to spread them out a bit, should also go in and lollipop them to a degree before i flip to flower at some point.
As you can see flopped the healthy plants int he top cab and also moved up the okanagan grapes with one being good an the other with some mutant growth issues it may come out of.
Bottom cabs have been packed into one but will be spread out to 4 per, and are all some recent autos from some other members here @chronix@AzSeaindooin420@LoveDaAutos , just dont hold weight to me finishing these out cause im about to have a very busy summer plus on a time frame now too as to how long i can run these out, but should be enough time for me to play anyways.
, i just wonder on the variability of say what maybe a 1cm vs say 1.5cm layer would do and how accurate one needs to be, and pot height aka bigger pots would be another factor but im not gonna play with that due to limited height, and already having current my pots and bins.
