I am contemplating moving away from soil and thinking about a wicking system due mainly to the simplicity and the lack of needing a pump as my power goes out rather regularly and I do not trust it for nothing. How well do they work for when the plants are larger and require more water?
Good question. The only media I can think of (besides soil of course) that will have good wick effect is probably coco coir. Personally I’ve tried only passive hydroponics with clay pebbles and it hasn’t been any miracle grow. Once plant grows bigger together with higher temps it starts to drink a lot and outgrows small reservoir and that is exactly why I’ve moved away from passive hydroponics. Second reason is missing aeration of water (nutrients) which I think also causes much slower growth when compared to classic bubbler. You definitely should have connection to some large reservoir (joined vessels), because I think with traditional wick size of reservoir is enough only for small plants. Be sure to use right material for wick and appropriate size (or more of them) to supply enough moisture when plants are bigger.
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Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo were losing more soil growers every day. i could never do hydro. ph testing. measuring nutes, all that water and water changes. nope nope nope. wayyy too much work for meXD
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It’s not a wick but the Grodan Grow Cube might be what you’re looking for. The bigger sizes can accommodate a lot of water. Let me know if you require more information on Cubes.
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There are other systems like SIP… Self Irrigating pots that wick water from the bottom, but I dont care much for these if using a top ammended water only method. I need the top layer to be wet and keep the microbes going.
But back onto topic if you are looking for wick method pots…
The only wick style pot I’d consider is “Octopots” Its an intersting hybrid of SIP’s and hydro. I just dont like the small tanks. Blumats I can hook up to the tap if I want to, with a pressure reducer. Or just use trashcans I convert to tanks, I prefer HDPE plastic, but LDPE seems to work just fine. 40+ gallon tanks on the cheap. Just have to elevate them.
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a submersible pump can be operated using a ups. my timer turns on for 4-5 minutes only and the pump is very low on power, only turns on 4-8 times/day depending on season. I disagree that soil is less labour, a nice flood and drain to me is less work and more productivity
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The system I checked out used perlite and vermiculite for soil and a 10 cm (4") wick consisting of a tube of perlite to wick the water up. I can see this keeping the bottom of the pot moist but I am curious as to how well the mixture would really soak up water to the top layers. The beauty of this system is the simplicity but how well would it work?
I think it will work. Depends on the quality of soil and its moisture holding capacity. Perlite and vermiculite (at least the one that is available here) are hydrophobic and don’t hold moisture, there are mainly for keeping soil mix airy.
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Interesting. Article stated moisture wicking ability of these. I forsee an experiment lol
You can do a combination of both, a soil and wick system. You should be testing your soil and the water you’ve mixed nutrients with anyway! Shame on you!
Sorry, but there is no way they are in any way hydrophobic. Just the opposite. Both hold a TON of water, and they wick very very well.
Here is a test I did a few months ago. This is a 2" diameter Plastic plumbing pipe filled with perlite. The bottom of the pipe is sitting on a dacron fabric that is sitting on a chamber with water in it. The water has to wick up aprox 10" to get to the top. The second pic shows what happens when you rest a cardboard tube on the perlite at the top. Within less than 1/2 hour, the tube was soaking up water that wicked up from the bottom.
As far as how much water they hold, I did some experiments on that too. Take some dry perlite, and weight it, then add water until its soaked, then drain off as much water as you possibly can. You will find perlite holds almost three times its weight in water.
Perlite = 6.2 grams dry.and 17,7 g wet = roughly 285% water by weight.
Vermiculite is similar, but I have not actually tested any myself.
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If you want super simple, “set and forget” hydro growing, nothing is easier, cheaper, simpler, or less trouble than hempy buckets.
Take any bucket, drill some holes in the sides a little ways above the bottom (for a 5 gallon bucket, it would be about 2" up), fill with perlite, and start a plant in it. When ever the leaves start to droop, add water/nutes until some runs out the holes, .
Of course, as with ALL hydro, and ALL soil grows, you still need to PH the nutes, and mix to the proper concentration.
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