Indoor Testing the eazyplug pyramid mini.

[The Iconoclast]

Mondo Smash, Cookies n Creamix and Bruce Banner #3 are all powering on it is hard to believe this is only 7 days since the top. Cookies and Mondo are both spacious while BB has those branches that want to grow straight up, with the lower leaves wanting to grow straight down making a peculiar shape.

 

[The Iconoclast]

Mango Isle came down today and she is utterly unrecognisable from the two I grew a year ago. She has chunked up considerably and looks pretty good, not to mention that a third large plant would have been too much. I kind of rely on one of my beans always being a bit small. In this grow the Creamix and the Mondo Smash are both looking to take up a lot of space, only 4.5 weeks old and already well into flowering, so I needed BB3 to be if not small then at least narrow.

SMQR secondary branch bud accidentally snipped off a few days before harvest, been drying for four days...

 

[The Iconoclast]

Man, so much happens in 2.5 weeks! Should have updated earlier, all three at 7 weeks today, and BB already has very frosty chunky spear shaped buds, the other two are less developed but they're only 7 weeks and the BB is making them look bad!

As for the eazyplug re-use/bowl grow, I purchased some glass straws however I can't push them through the stones. I ended up managing to get a bit of 13mm pvc pipe down to the bottom this was a bit tricky due to needing to keep the small pebbles out, but I got there in the end. Now the straw can be easily inserted to take a reading. Ended up topping the Tre Lime Sorbetto at d12 at the third node and removed the first node. So I just have four branches, which will hopefully keep it manageable, I'm also thinking of doing a Night Owl like this with just four branches as well, it makes a nice easy to care for symmetrical plant.





As a bonus I already had a 4in glass funnel which fits in the pvc pipe enabling me to fill from the bottom up and thus keep the top pebbles dry. Whether I continue with this I am not sure, She is coming a long well and I'm still filling and draining the tub every day. I might make some adjustments to the next one. I'm not seeing much in the way of any roots coming out the side, so that is interesting.

Normally I'd get another three going on Saturday but I'll hold off for another week.
Next up will be the new Mulberry F3, Outlier Z, Compound V and Instant Classik

I also plan to grow one in an outdoor pot using just the cow manure and grass clippings from the local beasts.

 

[kfigerm]

so you go only bottom feeding now? I wouldn't advise to. But prove me wrong mate! Hope it works out as you intend.

 

[The Iconoclast]

so you go only bottom feeding now? I wouldn't advise to. But prove me wrong mate! Hope it works out as you intend.

Honestly I don't know wtf I"m doing or going to do, one part of my brain want to do something then another part kick in to KISS it. I'm pretty surprised I have not run into trouble yet. The plug is staying moist but I was still top feeding it up until a week ago anyway. The idea in my mind was to bottom feed eventually, but really I'm just testing this to see what happens it didn't even occur to me until I found the glass funnel.

Tell me more about bottom feeding, what problems have you found. I might have to go back through your thread for clues. Isn't this what auto-pots are? Now I'm confused.

 

[kfigerm]

well i think pyramids may want it sweet moist to do their job. My way is to let them do their work with soaking full from the top and let any roots that go down profit from the runoff - they take any EC as long as they can suck the res(t) in a few hours.
The pyramids can't feed or even out inablances of what isn't in them.
You rely on the bottom res and hope for the best they cope with it while the above runs dry (or do you see sucking up at least up to the middle of the pyramid so you could assume she is somehow saturated?).
I would keep them moist. If the top (pyramid) runs dry, it may be unnecessary to keep the upper roots lively and concentrate in the roots below the pyramids. So you could go with rockwool directly imo ;-)

 

[The Iconoclast]

These are all good questions, but yes I would aim to always keep the pyramid damp. What I do is I spend a lot of time just staring at it, and past images of roots and what might happen and different images of how deep if at all should the pyramid be. These images keep replaying and gradually over time something emerges. Right now I'd like to know what is going on under the water line. I'm also not sure how close the water line is to the bottom of the pyramid. I didn't really think about it too much at the beginning.

Like the only reason I tried feeding from the bottom was just because I found the funnel, and what I was doing previously was pouring the nutes in from the top all around the stones and also at the base of the pyramid, and then I would spray a bit of water on the top to rinse off the nutes. So nutes drying on the surface is something I try to avoid, while acknowledging that it's not a big deal so it is relegated to a low priority.

I'll continue like this for as long as I can to gather as much information from this current grow. I have all these abstract images in my mind that all revolve around roots somehow being in an air gap, and also I have other auto images that make an appearance. Maybe all this will lead to something completely different, like re appropriating my old Shallow Water Culture (SWC), to incorporate an old eazyplug with a few stones. I suspect this is where this is all heading.

But at the same time I also work towards simplicity, but I already have that, just using the plug on a rack, is as simple as it gets and it works well, the only problem is the constant attention they require without any watering automation. So I guess I'm really working towards a type of automation that is as minimal and leak proof as I can make it, meaning as few points of failure as possible.

At one point in the past the pyramid was going to be a way of making my SWC work better, but now my thinking is how can I rope my old SWC gear to serve the pyramid. As I say that, I'm thinking maybe I can use two pyramids in a single SWC and have two of those units in the tent, So four plants growing, all sharing a single 30 litre res in the middle. That just came to mind now...hmmmm ...I like where this is going...

EDIT: New plan is to water from the top with the panels in place for the next grow when I will use a full size plant. The bottom filling with the funnel will just be for this grow and maybe the next but only to take measurements when I need to know what's happening external to the plug.

 

[Cobstopper]

You’re gunna love how the BB3 turns out.
I’ll be watching your Mulberry because I got them on the last drop also.

 

[The Iconoclast]

@Cobstopper you're not wrong about BB3, showing me the famous golfball nugs, she has made herself extra slim so she fits nicely between Mondo and Creamix (and allows space for the tre lime sorbetto in the plug test), which are beginning to fatten.

The plug test has shown me that I can squeeze in another bean three weeks after I plant my set of three.

Very happy about the plug test and I'll be running a Night Owl in the next one, and I'll also do the same training which is 2 nodes only, (2 and 3), It is making a nice shape, it's very easy to train four banches to make a cross, then all the smaller branches can grow up with no more work. By using the clips and leaving them on it puts a permanent bend in the stem, then I let it go back up so it makes a tulip shape.

New Bean debutantes! Outlier Z in a pot, currently in the shed hopefully will survive getting eaten. this was my original Night Owl purchase with Mango Isle, so only three seeds, first one didn't pop second one sank like a stone, and this is my last one so she earned the right to be kicked out of the tent. Other beans are Instant Classik, Compound V and Mulberry F3

I now have three weeks to decide what Night Owl is going in the tub, branchy, or not?