Emilya Green
Well-Known Member
Hempy, being open rez, allows and encourages the roots to grow down into the rez. SIP with the 1" airgap, does not allow the roots to migrate into the water.
SIP Club - Getting Hydro/Coco Results In A Soil Based Medium
- Thread starter Azimuth
- Start date
they don't really grow in to the hempy res either. and the air gap is everything above the res lol
Emilya Green
Well-Known Member
my hempies always grew strong roots down into the bottom. Upon watering, there was not an air gap. In a sip, even filling up to the tip top, the medium and the water never meet except through the foot... and the foot apparently is not supportive of the roots going more than half way down through it.they don't really grow in to the hempy res either. and the air gap is everything above the res lol
all my hempys will "touch" the res but won't fill it to the bottom of the bucket. the roots will lock the media up, and even pull the perlite up a touch, but there's always a least a quarter to half inch they won't go in to at the very bottom.
i would expect them to lock the whole bucket, especially as i put them through a steep dry cycle all through. we could feed twice a day in flower but i do not. it's similar to droughting but not quite the same effect.
edit : i think you could do droughting in sips much more effective as well. which is part of my interest.
Emilya Green
Well-Known Member
Mine didn't fill the rez, but a different looking root grew down in there... lots of them. I always assumed that these were the specialized "feeder" roots. You can find these in soil grows too. The reason they don't fill that area is probably the same reason they cant follow the foot all the way down into the water in a SIP... there is just too much water?
we call them water roots up here locally. if you look close they get the fishbone structure the same as in dwc. it occurs in any media, just more pronounced in hydro styles. they are just harder to see in soil types and don't develop as much.
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- #827
But that really depends on how you build them. You build the 'wicking foot' or what I call the false floor type. In those there is an air gap across the entire based save for the wicking foot column and the only place for the roots is down that column because of the air pruning that happens with the gap.
The other style, and the one I think gives me better roots, is the dome structure. In those there is a void created by a dome and with those the grow medium drapes over it all the way to the bottom. In that one roots do grow all the way to the bottom.
As stated above, my medium goes all the way to the bottom of the container and therefore sits directly in the water and roots will go to the bottom.
I was always kind of disappointed in the roots I got with the false floor, wicking foot type, although the plants looked and did great so I'm not sure it matters all that much.
- Thread starter
- #828
I got those fishboning roots in my old design where I was trying to keep my organic soil out of the reservoir so I placed a layer of hydroton in the bottom to a level about an inch above the drain hole. I could watch them in my clear container and they would start fishboning even before they reached the water. Once they got down into it they went crazy.
I've since changed my design and my first 2g version just got flipped a couple of weeks ago but I'm looking forward to seeing what the roots look like in it.
my outdoor planters are built sub irrigated but with a much smaller res and no air gap. those things pull two vegetable harvests in a season where we are lucky for one in this climate.
i've never dug to the bottom of the planters but have pulled some pretty deep roots. i'm removing the top third of the media this year and refreshing it.
Emilya Green
Well-Known Member
That dome may indeed by a superior design then, but I get a much bigger rez. I am happy with that since I am still seeing superior growth with the SIP. I am now curious just what the standard will eventually be.
- Thread starter
- #831
I think it's certainly growers choice between tradeoffs. No matter what variation I've tried I've always had great results.
And you could try the dome version in one of your tubs by using 4" or 6" drainage pipe. You'd get mostly the same size reservoir I'd think and a much easier build. That's how I built my outdoor veggie garden tubs.
Emilya Green
Well-Known Member
yep, I was already planning on getting some 6" pipe to lay in my 27g tubs for the elevated outdoor garden in the spring instead of the tub in tub design. I have to build a table out there to get my tomatoes out of the dogs reach and these 3 big tubs are going to perfect. I haven't dissected one of my 5g sips with the pipes laying in the bottom of them, but I imagine quite like yours, the roots are growing all the way down in them, at least so as to have water contact.
That's just a clear funnel made from a 2L bottle.
That's not perlite, it's paint strainer bags with Growstone gnatnix in them about 1/2 to 1 inch thick. Does a decent job keeping gnats in check and acts as a mulch. The media is Black Gold Organic a bit of wc, Roots Terp Tea Bloom and some DrEarth All Purpose Life. Water only other than a tea last week.
this is the insert of the sip
Good eye Az and that's a dip stick in it.That's one serious funnel you've got going there!
- Thread starter
- #834
Who makes that one??
CBDMed
Well-Known Member
CBDMed
Well-Known Member
Hola a todos, haha.
I am conflicted. May I please ask for some better perspective here?
@ReservoirDog was saying earlier that the Octopot Ph.D.'s strongly advise tube watering only, so as never to mess up the moisture gradient.
So I have been trying to do that, but it is restrictive, because some stuff goes much better on top (CalMag, molasses, Recharge, etc.).
However, I noticed that @Emilya Green top-fertigates, and gets her usual stellar results.
I also noticed that @Krissi Carbone top-fertigates (with her self-watering planters) and her garden is amazing.
Moreover, @Bill284 purposefully top-fertigates (sans reservoir) and also gets superb results.
So, how big a deal is the moisture gradient, really, especially in comparison to the existence of an air gap?
If I may, I guess my questions for you-all experts would be:
Is it safe to say that maintaining a stable moisture gradient may hypothetically provide a real advantage?
If so, then how big of an advantage is it?
And, since top-fertigation messes up the moisture gradient, which one is of more benefit (top-fertigation, or gradient)?
One could also ask, "How much damage am I doing to my grow each time I top-fertigate, versus how much benefits am I gaining?"
Thanks.
I am conflicted. May I please ask for some better perspective here?
@ReservoirDog was saying earlier that the Octopot Ph.D.'s strongly advise tube watering only, so as never to mess up the moisture gradient.
So I have been trying to do that, but it is restrictive, because some stuff goes much better on top (CalMag, molasses, Recharge, etc.).
However, I noticed that @Emilya Green top-fertigates, and gets her usual stellar results.
I also noticed that @Krissi Carbone top-fertigates (with her self-watering planters) and her garden is amazing.
Moreover, @Bill284 purposefully top-fertigates (sans reservoir) and also gets superb results.
So, how big a deal is the moisture gradient, really, especially in comparison to the existence of an air gap?
If I may, I guess my questions for you-all experts would be:
Is it safe to say that maintaining a stable moisture gradient may hypothetically provide a real advantage?
If so, then how big of an advantage is it?
And, since top-fertigation messes up the moisture gradient, which one is of more benefit (top-fertigation, or gradient)?
One could also ask, "How much damage am I doing to my grow each time I top-fertigate, versus how much benefits am I gaining?"
Thanks.
Emilya Green
Well-Known Member
I am using Geoflora and being a once every two week top dressing, I knew that at least on the day of fertilizing I needed to water that top dressing in by watering from the top. I have determined by observing my larger plants in late veg, that this one time top watering does not adequately feed my plants. I am adding another top watering at the halfway point to virtually give them another top feeding, and I think this is going to solve my problem. The rest of the time, I still believe that enough water is coming up from the bottom to keep the nutrients and the microbes moving... but just not at the very top surface.
So when I top water, I can clearly see that this water connects with the water below. If I fill my rez and THEN top water, I will get additional runoff below from the drainage hole. So my water is going down, while the rez water is coming up. Does my water going down stop the wicking of water from below? I can see how it could, if I regularly watered from above... gravity will win... I get that. But did my one time in a week stop the SIP action? I am also purposely not watering to runoff, so I am using a minimal amount. No, in my experience, a little bit of top watering does not harm the SIP. PhDs don't always know what they are talking about, especially when a random variable like GeoFlora is thrown into the equation, and sometimes practical experience wins out.
So how much damage from top watering once a week? Practically none. How much are you gaining? Well, you could choose to not feed I guess or go with a different kind of nute. I guess the benefit there is subjective.
CBDMed
Well-Known Member
Great! Good to know!
Great! Thank you for sharing that.
Yes, knowledge is great, but practical application is the real test.
Thank you, @Emilya Green !
Happy toking!
Fenderbender
Well-Known Member
11 days
So I filled the res yesterday and made sure all the soil around the ring was wet again... yet now when the light comes out.. the water level indicator dropped a lot? what happened? did the bottom layer of pebbles soak itself full?
So I filled the res yesterday and made sure all the soil around the ring was wet again... yet now when the light comes out.. the water level indicator dropped a lot? what happened? did the bottom layer of pebbles soak itself full?
- Thread starter
- #840
Keep in mind that the Octopot PhD's recommend a non-soil (i.e. peat moss) based mix in their pots and so there is likely no advantage to top watering once the mix is wet, and they found that the moisture gradient was the ideal one to use.
@Emilya Green is using organic soil with Geoflora nutes and they recommend top dressing with them every two weeks and those require a wetting to activate them, hence her partial watering. Is that ideal? Probably not in the true mathematical sense of measuring a model and changing variables. Does it really matter all that much? Also probably not especially since it's only an every two week exercise for her.
For her it's a tradeoff, she wants to use an organic mix which requires wetness up top. And as far as I know, we don't know what the experiments were that lead to the "never top water" conclusion. For all we know bottom watering only was some small percentage better but in the world of black and white you always go with the better numbers if you are trying to maximize your outcome.
Did they test their pots with an organic mix, and if not would their results be different? We don't know so maybe @ReservoirDog or @Twalte will be better able to weigh in there. Bottomline is Em found a way to use an organic mix which is outside the recommendations of Octopot and to do so she needed to modify what they say is Best Practice for an entirely different media.
@Krissi Carbone 's pots don't have the reservoir capacity to properly fertigate her plants entirely from the bottom so top watering is required, and @Bill284 's mix with his perlite layers likely would not wick as well as a homogeneous one, but it provides excellent drainage and extra air which allows him to water much more frequently than is typically recommended.
I've built a lot of different variations on the SIP theme and can say that they all worked great, so this system is extremely forgiving. Is there some mathematical ideal way to do it? Probably yes, but from our experience it doesn't seem to be some huge difference in results with an occasional top watering.
Is top watering in these pots ideal? Probably not which is why we try to to it sparingly, but the results don't seem to be affected by much. Can you get great results by only top watering? Don't know but I think @cbdhemp808 has an idea in mind that will likely test that out, but to my knowledge he isn't up and running with his design yet.
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