Which Pots Are You Using?

TurboTokes said:

After trying almost every pot available. 100% the rootball from a fabric pot is unbeatable. It is an amazing different the root you get from fabric pots.

There downside is transplanting from them sucks, to defeat that, I go straight from solo cup to 2 gallon smart pots. Grow 4' plants in 2 gallons of coco and the rootball at the end is solid, I dont get how it doesnt push all the coco out of the pot actually lol

Airpots are also very good, but there cost is just to much. I buy my 2 gallon fabric pots for $1 each and at that price they are disposable, although they are definetely re-useable if you wanted to

If youve only ever used plastic pots, do yourself a favour and try atleast one plant in a fabric pot (peferably HydroFarm brand if possible)

Click to expand...

No reason you couldnt line those cloth pots w some weed block fabric, then you could pull out the rootball w weed block fabric around it and then being it originally was a flat piece you can peal it off the rootball.

Plastic pots coated in spinout. They sell them up to 10 gallons I think. Anything bigger than that and they sell the paint so you can just cover whatever you want with them.
I've got 1,2,3 and 5 gallons for various uses.
All of the perks of fabric pot's root pruning with the added bonus of not having to water them as much.
No wet fabric to raise humidity during flowering.
I haven't looked back since trying them and the only way I would is if I were doing hydro.

Flowki said:

Lately I've been thinking this is the way to go if watered properly, from rooted cutting to final pot, at-least with the fast rooting of coco etc. I've read so many little things here an there such as not disturbing microbes, allowing roots to grow at full pace unrestricted, no additional transplant stress etc. @Dr. Who please shoot me down if I've ventured the wrong path?.

Click to expand...

I got no problems here.

I prefer to up pot several times to reach my "bloom or final" pot.....

I'm not a believer in "transplant stress" though!

If you allow your roots to begin to coil around the bottom of pots. That's where I up pot and I also cut or slice the those coiling roots in an X pattern and do the up pot. I water with kelp extract and pHed water....that's it. NO Transplant shock or stress". In 8 days those roots are beginning to reach that new pot bottom and the plant is considered "established" in the new pot.

Simply the way I learned for greenhouse production. Made for less plant loss and healthier plants at the sale point. They also tended to be very, very consistent in size by plant strain. Uniformity is a goal in greenhouse's....You want them all to sell..

MonkeyGrinder said:

Plastic pots coated in spinout. They sell them up to 10 gallons I think. Anything bigger than that and they sell the paint so you can just cover whatever you want with them.
I've got 1,2,3 and 5 gallons for various uses.
All of the perks of fabric pot's root pruning with the added bonus of not having to water them as much.
No wet fabric to raise humidity during flowering.
I haven't looked back since trying them and the only way I would is if I were doing hydro.

Click to expand...

where do you buy spinout?

Dr. Who said:

I got no problems here.

I prefer to up pot several times to reach my "bloom or final" pot.....

I'm not a believer in "transplant stress" though!

If you allow your roots to begin to coil around the bottom of pots. That's where I up pot and I also cut or slice the those coiling roots in an X pattern and do the up pot. I water with kelp extract and pHed water....that's it. NO Transplant shock or stress". In 8 days those roots are beginning to reach that new pot bottom and the plant is considered "established" in the new pot.

Simply the way I learned for greenhouse production. Made for less plant loss and healthier plants at the sale point. They also tended to be very, very consistent in size by plant strain. Uniformity is a goal in greenhouse's....You want them all to sell..

Click to expand...

Ok thnx mate. Do you think it's possible the size consistency was due to root limitation or?.

jonsnow399 said:

where do you buy spinout?

Click to expand...

Mmmm, chemical pruning!

You should keep in mind that this is done with heavy metals! One of the most used is Copper hydroxide (hence the pale blue/green of the product)....It works at pruning the roots ok BUT, the plant also uptakes increased amounts of copper.....

Healthy for a consumed plant?

NOT! Food stuff's are never run in the stuff!

I forget if it's Ed or Jorge that has it in one of their books. Lets just say they don't advocate it any more...

Dr. Who said:

Mmmm, chemical pruning!

You should keep in mind that this is done with heavy metals! One of the most used is Copper hydroxide (hence the pale blue/green of the product)....It works at pruning the roots ok BUT, the plant also uptakes increased amounts of copper.....

Healthy for a consumed plant?

NOT! Food stuff's are never run in the stuff!

I forget if it's Ed or Jorge that has it in one of their books. Lets just say they don't advocate it any more...

Click to expand...

MMMm, I love the taste of copper in the morning!

Flowki said:

Ok thnx mate. Do you think it's possible the size consistency was due to root limitation or?.

Click to expand...

YES. The idea is to slow the faster ones down as the slowers catch up. It's an equalizer alright. The other thing is it makes the roots take off with more side branching, with more "hairy or feathery" type of effective nutrient up-taking roots.....(increase in growth rates as long as sufficient nutrition is available to support the rate).....Over the years, I see that theory as being a "probable to a positive," in some plants (yes cannabis). After establishment, I feel I get effective increase in growth, over not doing it. I do not say I'm going to be faster then a single pot run. I do feel it's better!

Plastic buckets for me.

Tried fabric with soil then again with coco. Wasn't impressed. I get larger, stronger plants in 3 gal buckets than I did with 5 gal soft pots. I could be way off base here but I feel that killing off roots, "air pruning", during flower is likely not the best thing to do.

Plastic bags scare me, I don't like to sweep and it would be inevitable.

Fabric pots here. 2 gallon. After seeing the root ball from a 60" plant grown in a fabric pot. I'll never go back to plastic.

then: indoors in 1liter airpots with soil and 1&3gallon smartpots with soil under hps, then cobs & uvb to finish them off, had great results...

now: indoors in airpots with coco & smartpots with coco under cobs,
maybe its just the strains this go round but the airpots are creating more trees, while the smartpots seem to create more bushes, both are 3 gallons, my thoughts are the height and narrowness of the airpots creates the trees, while the width of the smartpots seems to create bushes...

mr. childs said:

then: indoors in 1liter airpots with soil and 1&3gallon smartpots with soil under hps, then cobs & uvb to finish them off, had great results...

now: indoors in airpots with coco & smartpots with coco under cobs,
maybe its just the strains this go round but the airpots are creating more trees, while the smartpots seem to create more bushes, both are 3 gallons, my thoughts are the height and narrowness of the airpots creates the trees, while the width of the smartpots seems to create bushes...

Click to expand...

I've read some posts that seem to agree with this sentiment. What do you think the difference means for yield or growing style?.

SouthCross said:

Fabric pots here. 2 gallon. After seeing the root ball from a 60" plant grown in a fabric pot. I'll never go back to plastic.

Click to expand...

after trying to clean and reuse my fabric bags I'll never use anything but plastic lol

just plain O'black round plastic pots.

by the time, the flower cycle is down, I'm usually over veg time: so I need to break down and clean and set back up ASAP.

what ever you pick, just don't make more work for yourself.

I have smart pots laying around, but even filling those things up is more work, they tend to use more medium too, because they expand when layering. I find out, what would use 2 bails of HPPRO would take more when using fabric, they tend to settle even lower; so I send up with these floppy sides, and its hard(er) to move the grid around. tipping and having to pull/push/lift from the base. rather then just hook the top of the plastic one and do it quickly.

washing plastic pots is less of a chore, salts and worse maybe even critters might stick in fabric.

I'm sure fabric pots work fine, maybe even better but IHMO cant justify the extra labor.

exactly ^

chemphlegm said:

after trying to clean and reuse my fabric bags I'll never use anything but plastic lol

Click to expand...

Buy two sets. Leave the dirty pots outside with plenty of sun till the other pots are done with. Pop the pots to get any dust off the outside. Fill it with dirt. That's what I consider clean enough. Other then that, they don't get washed or anything like that. Unless you count them getting rained on...

I haven't had any problems. Just ugly looking pots.

Flowki said:

I've read some posts that seem to agree with this sentiment. What do you think the difference means for yield or growing style?.

Click to expand...

although it is the unpopular opinion, from my 8 years of using airpots, they have produced more yield with soil than my smartpots. with me moving on to coco now after procrastinating all these years, i can only imagine the yield from a 7 gallon airpot indoors...

SouthCross said:

Buy two sets. Leave the dirty pots outside with plenty of sun till the other pots are done with. Pop the pots to get any dust off the outside. Fill it with dirt. That's what I consider clean enough. Other then that, they don't get washed or anything like that. Unless you count them getting rained on...

I haven't had any problems. Just ugly looking pots.

Click to expand...

i soak the smartpots in 5 gallon buckets & let the salts dissolve, then pour the water off in the backyard garden

Air pots indoors allow fungus gnat to enter at every level of the soil. I thought about using air pots before fabric. It's the easy access for bugs that turned me off to the design.

chemphlegm said:

after trying to clean and reuse my fabric bags I'll never use anything but plastic lol

Click to expand...

Put them in the washer with a cup or two of vinegar..I do a hot cycle followed by a cold cycle..