I first learned of this method 30 years ago in Ed Rosenthals ‘Closet Cultivator’ and I find its the ideal method for the lazy gardener, I’m looking to find out how well it will work with rockwool as Ive got 35 rooted cuttings and very limited space, the ten parents I have flowering are in 6"-8" square pots of a soil mix with 3 lengths of 3/4" nylon rope inserted into each pot, they suck up 5 litres in two days and are doing well.
I was hoping that I could put the rooted rockwool cubes into a larger cube in a pot.
Im assuming with this method and the rockwool, the size of the pot wont limit the size of the plant as it does with soil mixes.
I could fit more in like this than using an NFT tray and wouldnt need a pump.
What do you think?
Rockwool can definitely be bottom fed. I have done flood and drain mostly when bottom feeding rockwool and it works just fine. However it does take a little time for the water to wick upwards within the cube, much longer than coco. NFT might not provide enough water depth for anything bigger than a 4" cube for it to get saturated.
When I have done it, it was only for veg, then in flower they got the drippers. Its been a couple years since I have done it, but I did go fairly far in to experimenting with it. Certainly easy to implement.
The most impressive, at least one of, I ever saw on the internet: guy doing a million plants on a custom flood/drain table in tents. Was on the old autoflower dot net.
I butcher the specifics every time and can’t find it any longer, but the gist:
5x5 Grow Tent
5x5 flood table with rez and waste underneath.
timed pump sucks water up and spills into table.
Timed escape of water with failover safety draining to drain “rez”, waste bin.
A million autoflowers from seed in rockwool
Four CHEAP amazon “quantum board” style lights
Like a hundred pounds of pot.
Obviously not a million plants or a hundred pounds, but very impressive. The roots got all fucked up and interchaged and it was tough to manage/reach but this guy was a whiz and had it dialed in. Super cheap lights, active and deliberate canopy management, dialed-in consistent nutes. And this was from seed, so heavy canopy management to even it out! From clone at a heavy advantage for consistency
Im trying this right now. Hugo block on a wicking Highagin 3d printed base in a Autopot bottom with wicking string material. So far so good. It has emptied it once already so it’s definitely wicking.
Problem is rockwool can be too wet and the roots won’t grow inside. Go watch a youtube vid of Hoocho who used rockwool with some cucumbers or something like that and when he cut it apart there wasn’t a single root inside, it was all wrapped around the cube and the slab because he had a top drip system that just kept it too wet.
Ive had great success with rockwool cubes and NFT, using a GT901 tank , the roots go out the tray into the spreader mat as you would expect, most of the cube is concealed by the corex cover and the only issue is supporting them later on.
I think i’ll have to get it down from the attic because although a wick into rockwool might work as you say, I hadnt considered what the cube itself will be in, would each cube go into a plant pot with a wick or two inserted?
Assuming that wouldnt affect growth as it would withsoil GT901 NFT Tank