New Grower Wick watering with Smart Pots, input please

[Amendment64]

Sorry for the following long post! I'm a newb to growing and since I live at high latitude and altitude I made the choice to go auto just to simplify things especially since I have a short season outdoors. At 8200' just south of the 40th parallel north, the summer weather will be relatively hot, very dry and VERY SUNNY as well as pretty damn windy, too. "On the mountain", more or less

A few months of research have gone into this but I have absolutely ZERO growing experience and really don't want to waste my money and time on something when I could easily be working against myself without knowing it. I've done quite a bit of HW and think it should at least "work" but I would appreciate and LOVE opinions and input to maximize my odds and hopefully yield Let me know what you think of all this:

I'm going to germinate and go a week or two in tiered dixie cups with Light Warrior then transplant to a passive hydro-style (wick) watering system with organic soil in 5 gallon Smart Pots. The smart pots will have wicks coming out the bottom running into a reservoir underneath them. The soil will be 70% OF, 20% Light Warrior, and 10% a vermiculite and perlite mix, all mixed well except I plan to run a 1" layer of perlite in the bottom of the pot to increase drainage and aeration where the pot will be sitting on the reservoir (since water may end up suspended there). I've read making the soil that light in consistency should help the capillary action/wicking. The wick(s) will be 5/8" nylon rope and the top side strands will be separated and spread evenly throughout the soil...I'm going to mix my soil then put it in 4 different smart pots for a test: 1 with 1 wick, another 2, up to four wicks, wet the soil, then test how moist each pot gets and stays in the growing environment just before my season. I believe the light soil desired for wicking will dry out quickly especially in smart pots and especially on hot, sunny, and windy days (although with a proper wick set-up the plant is able to regulate it's own water intake and hopefully overcome the high aeration of the soil which itself should be good for the roots unless it gets too dry...intended outcome: well watered but highly aerated roots)...so in essence I'm looking for enough wick watering action for a rather large and highly aerated grow container, so I imagine 1 wick, albeit a thick one, won't provide enough water. The water reservoir will have multiple air-stones in it and be fed with crisp and delicious mountain well water. I plan to feed Trio over the top.

Thoughts!? I'm mostly worried about running into something that'll keep the wicks from working well and that my soil mix won't perform...I'm also betting that even though I'm going for simplicity, I may be making something more complicated than necessary (was the long post a hint!?)..did I mention I'm a noob?

Some reasoning on my part:
I decided to not use the bottom of the smart pots as wicks themselves because I'd be afraid of getting roots in water as some have experienced when doing that. I decided to not use a perlite wick "base" like I've read has been successfully done to wick with smart pots because my grow will be outside meaning I'm gonna want the water reservoir completely covered otherwise water will get drunk by bigger wildlife and gotten in to by bugs and smaller critters. The smart pots and light soil should give me highly aerated roots and hopefully self-regulating watering with the wicks. I decided on a wick watering set-up because of that self-regulation, the ease of use, and 'cause I'm a noob who'd probably overwater my plants. I'm also going to be leaving the grow for days at a time when it will be tended by another noob who'd likely overwater. "Keep water in the reservoir, dump nutes over the top, viola!" I hope to make it hard for us to screw this up. And I know 5 gallon pots are probably a tad big for autos but if the set-up works I'll pray they fill out nicely! If I spent a whole sunny summer day outside without sunscreen I get burnt bad at this high altitude...I'd think the plants would love that same sun day after day, hence why I'm going big. The water reservoir will be 7 gallons per plant and can be refilled daily so they shouldn't go thirsty.

Sorry again for the long post. THANKS FOR ANY INPUT AF! :thumbs:You can bet your panties I'm gonna be documenting this grow on here either way.

 

[SCARHOLE]

With a 5 galon bucket an autos you shouldn't need to root prune them.

I tried cotton wicks , they failed. They Could barley move any water.
Indoor maybe but out in the heat they sucked
Google or youtube "earth box".

It's hard to over water a medium/harge outdoor plant

I would put the nutes in the water, not on the top of the soil.


Earth boxes with some of the bottom soil in the water works great!
They water from the bottom up to prevent evaporation.
Be sure to put mulch the top of your dirt to stop evaporation. I also use water absorbing polymers.
Where its realy hot the plants like shade in the hottest part of the summer afternoon.

 

[SCARHOLE]

I also cage my guerilla grow 5 gallon earth boxes.
Because on the prairie animals are viscous.
1/4 in cage material 48 in high with a caged roof.

But grasshoppers here were the hardest.
But a old OD legend UncleBen told me to use Imidicloprid/ synthetic nicotine
That stoped the grass hoppers cold.

I'm at the same latatude as S colorado.
And have some experience with desart guerrilla grows.

I'd recommend watering the top of the soil in the heat also.
My OD ladies got 5 gallons of water a week an the still suffered when it was 110+ for a month+ Shade is your friend in real heat. Plant on the sw side of a tree for example. My tree top grown plants did as this as my full sun light guerrilla this yr, due to record drought an heat..

Outdoor if you can't em hide you can't keep em.
Even if its in your yard.


Start your plants in lots that allow ALOT of downward growth of the Tap rot when you start your auto.
( Talk narrow planters 2litter soda bottles nlacked out.64 oz big gups cups)
When you transplant the seedling out door she's need s to be able to reach the moist soil with the tap root.

Good luck man.
(Sorry for my drunken spelling)

 

[Amendment64]

I'm using 5 gallon smart pots, not buckets.

I've read numerous success stories using nylon braided cord/rope. There's even a university study where they showed that a braided nylon wick was able to move water against gravity (up) 20 inches while in use (watering plants). There's a few nuances to wick watering to get it to work well: using a nylon braid cord specifically, washing it with hot and soapy water to remove manufacturing contaminants that reduce performance, pre-wetting the soil, pre-wetting the wick, and spreading the strands of the wick throughout the middle depth of the soil. I've read many people doing this successfully report that their root balls become entwined with wick...the wick itself is essentially an extension of the root ball running directly to the water source.

I think mixing nutes with some water for over the top feeding will suit my grow better because I can make sure the plants definitely get the nutes instead of clogging up my wick like many passive hydro growers experience or just sitting in the reservoir because the plant isn't taking up water (because it rained, for example). I'm still debating on the nutes because not all of the Trio is organic and I've read that some people don't bother with nutes when they're using nutrient-rich soil like ...of course many use and still use their nutes in addition since their plants seem to eat it all up growing big.

It doesn't get like desert hot up here so I'm not too worried about the heat itself, it'll never get above 90 and even that will be a rare occurrence...the summer weather generally keeps peak day time temps around 75-80 Fahrenheit.

My property is fenced in and in a gated community full of gun owners...and everyone minds their own business here, thankfully. I'm not worried at all about the security of my plants.

 

[Amendment64]

No more thoughts?

I'm basically looking for someone to tell me why my grow set-up may not work...flaws, improvements, etc.

 

[wg]

Hey man, this is a pretty in depth question - It's good you've done your homework and you understand everything that goes into wicking. Honestly, you probably know more than I do when it comes to creating a wicking system, but here's my input:

I'm pretty sure it'll work, there's nothing glaring at me that says it will not work. If you want organic nutes in your area, look into BioBizz or Old Grower's or even House and Garden.. Test the rope you're going to use - run it from a resevoir to a container that's above it (6-8 inches) and split the braid on the rope. Fix the rope to the cup and see how well it wicks water to the cup. If gravity works correctly, the water will drip into the cup.

 

[Amendment64]

Thanks for the reply, goodie! Good to know nothings popping out at you....that's mostly what I was looking for, a sanity check.

I already have a bunch of test planned out for different numbers of wicks using my exact grow set-up (smart pots, grow medium, water reservoirs all set-up as I'm going to use it during the grow) but without plants. I also want to test the difference made by a wick with end strands spread throughout the middle of the pot AND with no strands spread out but the wick itself coiled through most of the soil depth...since I've seen people speak online of doing either and want to see what performs better.

Are you saying that local organic nutes would be preferable to Trio nutes? The problem for me is that I don't know diddly about nutes and only trust Trio because I know a lot of growers use them and I've also found a Trio schedule for autos on here posted by FullDuplex I think. That took out all the guess work which I like...I wouldn't know how to use anything else beyond following whatever rudimentary schedule is included with the product, something surely not adjusted for the short auto season.

 

[wg]

Honestly anyone here could help you with the nutrients as you go along - while using a guide is great (I used the exact same guide, made the exact same soil when I started autos, so I truly speak from experience) - it doesn't work the exact same for everyone. Your water PPM & starting pH matters. Some nutrients are so much simpler than FoxFarm and not as hot - also you have to tailor most nutrient lineups to the plant. Even FD's schedule can cause burn in some plants or deficiencies. So if it can happen with any nutrient line, why not run an organic line? We have a new member here who has some good organic experience and I'll refer the thread to him.

If you don't have one of these, make sure to pick one up for the tests. PH part sucks but the moisture part worked great for letting me know when to water my plants the first time around, it'll let you see how your wicking system works.


http://www.amazon.com/BestDealUSA-Plant-Flowers-Tester-Moisture/dp/B006KY5OUG/ref=pd_sbs_lg_8

You definitely know what you're doing and if you can set-up a system that requires the level of expertise you're talking about then I'm sure you can grasp tailoring a nutrient line to a plant. Don't underestimate yourself!

 

[X]

whatsgoodie2 asked me to look in and, while I do have some organic experience, I have absolutely no experience trying to water my plants through any kind of wicking... sorry. I have seen too many examples of it failing to invest any time into it... besides, I don't do guerrillas anymore anyway. You will have to experiment, even if you get advice. As is always the case with experimentation, you risk losing your crop. That is the decision you have... is the benefit worth the risk.

With regard to what soil you use... I grow completely organically using a proven TLO recipe... that's what I choose now, for my own reasons. When I did guerrilla grows, I used Pro-Mix and osmocote. It's a personal preference... There's plenty of guidance available here for whatever medium/nute regimen you choose.

I will offer one word of caution and I mean absolutely no disrespect, we all have to start out with no experience... I have never seen any experiment end successfully on a growers first attempt. I hope it works out better for you.

 

[Man In The Jar]

You might want to google earth buckets and/or global buckets you may find some useful info on the use of wicking water to feed you plants