Nice. How many are you keeping in the cups? I don't go below two liters in container size for "no-transplant" grows any more, but I know one can stuff nine "budcicle" plants into a square foot, so it's probably possible to leave plants in cups. I'd think something with a square footprint might work better, since that allows the entire area to be used for media (cups, being round at the base - and tapering down to it - do not allow this).
I hate to sound wishy washy on the numbers and plans, but in the moment I'm not sure. Part is taking some things a bit of a day at a time. I do sometimes make awesome big plans and as I gain experience I find they are a bit overboard. With that being said. I need to get my current flowering Rey out of my flower tent and she doesn't seem to be in a huge hurry EVER!
The end of this week I'm going to harvesting the three small clones from Rey. They are like you said kind of a Budcicle. Two are in small 20oz stadium cups that sit in a swiffer container to catch the water. The other aka "the Runt" is in a larger Waste basket like above, also in a swiffer refills container. Together removing them will open up quite a bit of room for at least two if not three of the oval waster paper baskets. I still need to transfer the SLh's into said baskets and tie them back down again. Since they are topped and somewhat manifold LST and approaching 6weeks I feel they are ready to flip and let stretch to see what they are capable of.
That action should open some room in the Veg tent to up plant the clones I took from them. I also need to take some clones off of the Gold Leaf girls and get them to sprout some roots first before transplanting. I like the idea of going straight to the final container, but I don't think I'm going to have room at this juncture. I will have to select which really healthy ones stay and the rest keep just a small budcicle grow of those going, or just kill them and let the other big ones dominate.
I like the idea of the square more efficient square or rectangular foot print. I haven't been able to find something that fits that description yet, without holes in the bottom that would defeat the Hempy idea of a reservoir. I have found some interesting PVC bags with in several sizes. (
1 Gallon Grow Bags | Grow Bags | Growace.com ) Available in 1,2,3, & 5 gallon sizes. The holes look like they are not too low so there could be a reservoir action. As I'm finding out with my current baskets they need watering every day with 500mls, some of that could be the narrow bottoms. I think I'm going to order some 1 gallon and since they are so cheap maybe some 2 & 3 gallons and try them out. "What the Hell!" I think the PVC Bags have the potential for solving some of the space and reservoir issues. At the very least everyone will have an opportunity to share with the success or failure of the bags.
Do you let them get as dry as possible before transplanting? That might help. What is your mix? I see lots of perlite, but is it 100%? I'm using a 3/1 Perlite/Vermiculite mix.
I haven't tried the dry technique as I had success with Sues technique of transplanting, until these last two that hadn't developed enough root structure to hold the Hempy Mix together. (The first GL Gilda had tons of roots when I moved her) Thanks for the idea moving them dry. I think I will certainly try it with the yet to be moved SLH's.
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