Grow Room Pot sizes how shallow can i go?

[G.Leave]

Hello guys!
Sorry if I am bothering anyone with my different odd threads but my situation is an off the wall one. With only 34" of height available(floor to roof 34"), vertical space is very limited.
I've decided to go with a 300w dimmable 3w led(165w real draw) to give control over the intensity. Plants will be trained to keep a very low profile, and I am now looking at pots size. Autos will be topped at 2 true nodes and branches will be lsted heavily. Now pot sizes...I do recall remembering seeing someone growing in turkey pans? (or was I really, really high?) I don't have much vertical space so I would like to go as shallow as possible without limiting too much growth.(6" deep enough?) What I do have is a lot of other space available...I can up to 16"wide X 16"long. Medium will be soil/perlite mix using ff trio. Just 2 plants at a time under the single light...if it works out well i'll add another light.

 

[BR549]

I can't speak for anyone else, but they don't bother me. In fact, as someone who worries that his seven foot tent isn't tall enough, I'm looking forward to seeing what you can pull off with this space!

 

[TimeTraveler]

I'm doing a micro grow in a cabinet, and I fashioned a trough for mine that has about a 3 liter volume or so, but is only about 7 inches deep. In my case the plants had room for the root network to spread throughout the container, and spread they did. By harvest the soil was so dense with roots I had to soak the whole thing in water like a brick of coco just to get the roots free from the dirt.

I imagine if you give them extra volume in the other two dimensions you could go fairly shallow, but bear in mind the plant still needs to send a tap root down at least a little ways. You'll probably have best results with autos, as ruderalis naturally has a shallower tap root that tends to go to the side at the end as a result of evolving in a harsher climate where deeper roots weren't possible.

Just be aware that even with training and topping, you can only get so much from a small container and grow space.

 

[briman]

I'd go with 1 gallon smart pots.

 

[MediScrogs]

I'm interested to see how your grow goes along. I'm also growing with limited height with intention to bend some branches.

What autos are you going to grow? Are you sure you need to top them?

 

[G.Leave]

@BR549 - Yes its going to be a challenge without a doubt!! Really its just an grand experiment to fill the winter months.

@TimeTraveler - Thanks for the comment! I don't expect a whole lot of weight out of these plants, really its just for fun and to try out effects on some new strains. Autoflower not photo strains will be the plants grown in this setup. DO you think 6" will be deep enough for a taproot on an autoflower? Thanks for the info!

@briman - Wouldn't 1gallon airpots eat up too much vertical space...how tall are 1 gallon airpots?

@MediScrogs - These are the autos I will soon have at my disposal(all from the portal):
X15 Stone Dragons
X15 Moonstone
X10 Bloodstone
X20 Amnesia Stone 99
X10 Purple SourD
X10 SourD Mango
X10 Sour Caramel
X10 Sour Lemon

As for training/topping ect...I will likely throw down 4 seeds at a time(non feminized seed). If there is 2 females I will top the largest one and only lst the smaller one. I'll then make a note on what produces best for the strain using what technique. Then the decision will be made for run two.(unless I switch strains)

 

[briman]

about 6 inches and with those pots, I doubt the plants would get over 12-14 inches, especially with those genetics. Most of them are small to medium size, but the sour caramel has the potential to be big! With 1 gallon smart pots, I doubt you would have to even top the plants. It they do get too tall, you can always bend em over. If you top any auto, it could set the plant back a wee or two weeks and take longer to finish. I would just use smaller pots(like the 1 gal smart pots) water more often and cut your feed down a bit. That will take care of the height issue. Cutting/topping on autos is a bad idea.

 

[G.Leave]

OH really! I thought they were taller for some reason! I'll avoid the sour caramel inside the cab then and keep them for outdoors.
Thanks for the topping info as well...I will have my first run with lst only, and i'll have to see if I can round up some of them airpots. As the post and plants will be smaller as planned I might have to rethink my numbers and go for 4 females.

 

[jackmc]

Hey 912GreenSkell. I've never topped a plant intentionally but on my current grow I was trying to pull the tops over to get bigger buds from the bottom branches and I snapped the main cola stem. I didn't notice it until a day later so taping it up didn't work. Instead of stunting the lower branches on the injured plant have shot up and are budding nicely. I've also tried FIMing a couple of plants which hasn't worked yet. But I've been overly cautious about cutting the top of the main cola.

 

[G.Leave]

I know topping autos is a pretty controversial topic. On the auto portal there is quite a bit of documented success topping autos. As I have so many seeds now I will likely do my own topping experiments to see what works best in my situation.
A wise old man told me once "You'll learn much more from your failures, than you will from your successes"