The Gee Spot - You Finally Found It

[Gee64]

Gee I've only ever had roots poking through the bottom of the bag with swicking or if the bag is placed on top of soil. I'm super keen to see what my root balls look like after this grow.

Please share the results in your swick thread

 

[Carmen Ray]

Please share the results in your swick thread

I will. Would you be open to maybe doing a blog on root comparisons by grow method, possibly with your hypothesis that the plants will thrive if watered from below as well as from above, mimicking a plant drinking from an aquifer as well as from rain as you previously described. Or a separate journal of course, nudge nudge

 

[Gee64]

I will. Would you be open to maybe doing a blog on root comparisons by grow method, possibly with your hypothesis that the plants will thrive if watered from below as well as from above, mimicking a plant drinking from an aquifer as well as from rain as you previously described. Or a separate journal of course, nudge nudge

Funny you should say that lol. I just finished a full disection of the rootball. I am cropping the pic's now. Gimme a couple hours. It's a pretty good disection. I will post it in here but it is in depth enough that a blog would be a good place to store it for reference later on

 

[Gee64]

The pot lightly shaken out.

After a full rinse.

The main.

 

[Gee64]

Here is the main with just the tap left on it.

Here are all the big side roots. They don't look like much from here but I had to get up high for the photo.

Here is a shot up closer of one.

And another.

And another.

All the big side roots together.

 

[Gee64]

Here are all the small side roots. They grow off the main tap strategically between the large side roots.

They are all different and specialized I would think.

From full on feeders....

To full on drinkers.

Here is all the smalls.

Here is all the bigs.

The fluffy leftovers that broke off seperating everything.

It's a lot of feeders here.

All together floating in a bag of properly moist, aereated food it could eat a lot. Too bad my light died or this would have been a great finish.

 

[Thirvnrob]

I read @Keffka ’s current journal - took me a couple days, but I got caught up. I tried to start at the halfway point on this one, but I quickly realized I have to start from the beginning to grasp the information that’s being shared. So excuse me for a few weeks while I read this one.
My name is Robin & I’m an organaholic.

 

[Thirvnrob]

Here is the main with just the tap left on it.

Here are all the big side roots. They don't look like much from here but I had to get up high for the photo.

Here is a shot up closer of one.

And another.

And another.

All the big side roots together.

The first one has a cyclops face!

 

[Gee64]

I read @Keffka ’s current journal - took me a couple days, but I got caught up. I tried to start at the halfway point on this one, but I quickly realized I have to start from the beginning to grasp the information that’s being shared. So excuse me for a few weeks while I read this one.
My name is Robin & I’m an organaholic.

Hi Robin

 

[Gee64]

This poor plant just won't recover.

No matter what I do it seems overwatered, so finally I lifted it out of the perlite to check the roots.

The perlite was dry to the touch as was the pot but when I lifted it I found this, and it was all water roots and man was it wet, dripping wet.

The roots formed their own reservoir in the perlite and it trapped a ton of water.

This plant needs air and it needs to start feeding itself so......

I shaved it.

Here is the razor stubble.

Its nice and tidy now.

Here it is a couple hours later.

After shaving, I gave it a full on root drench to soak the entire rootball and set it out to drip-dry.

This is a few hours later.

No signs of added stress.

Lets see if it gets better or worse. If it tanks the worms get it but the other darker clone is just starting to stretch so the sick one still has a week or so to perk up before the other one could benefit from it's space.

Flowering 1 in a 2gal is enough work, 2 pushes my boundaries of lazyness but if it puts in the effort so will I.

 

[Thirvnrob]

Hi Robin

 

[Gee64]

OK here is a really long dry read so grab a coffee.

I decided I needed to know how much water perlite can hold... I'm not sure where this leads but I think its good data all can use and very valuable to be aware of....

So pulling up that 2gal pot from the perlite and seeing just how many water roots were under there, and how wet it still was even though the bottom of the tub had been dry and unwatered for a few days, had me somewhat perplexed, as the same was likely happening under my other clone which is much healthier but still on the wet side no matter what I do.

The top 2/3 of the pot are fairly dry but the plant looks and acts overwatered, WTF?

I really don't see how that is possible. So after some thought it came down to "Well, exactly how much water does perlite hold??!!"

so here is what I did....

I took three 1 litre mason jars and numbered them 1,2, and 3.

In Jar #1 I filled it completely full of fairly coarse perlite that naturally rises to the top of a swick tub.

In Jar #2 I filled it with the general mix of coarse and fine perlite from the middle of the tub.

In Jar #3 I filled it with the fines that settle on the bottom of the tub.

All perlite was completely dry and when sealed inside a jar they all register 44%RH.

I have screen lids for mason jars so I filled each jar completely full of water and re-weighed each one to know exactly how much water was in each jar.

After sitting over night to absorb, and a very very small retopping of water to each jar from evaporation/air bubbles I turned each jar upside down and drained it out through the mesh lid and into a catch basin.

I let each jar drip for 15 minutes. After 15 minutes the dripping was completely stopped and I now had perlite at maximum saturation.

I reweighed the jars, did the math, and came up with the following:

1 litre of coarse perlite holds 83g water, or 8.3% water by volume so 83ml per litre of perlite.

1 litre of mixed holds 157g of water so 15.7% by volume or 157ml.

1 litre of fine perlite holds 224g of water so 22.4% by volume, 224ml

The average of all 3 is 155g or 15.5% water by volume, or 155ml. Almost identical to the measured mixed Jar #2.

My swick tub is a 20 litre tub. It was dry on the bottom for about a week now but when I scooped it out litre by litre to measure it out, and it actually was 20 like advertised, I found exactly 1 litre of liquid water in the very bottom of the tub but it didnt appear until I slowly scooped the top off layer by layer.

So in a tub that I thought was dry I actually had on average 20 x 155ml so 3 litres plus the liquid litre so 4 litres. 8.8 pounds of water hiding in a dry tub of perlite that I normally would have poured 2 litres into to top it back up.

1/3 of your soil give or take is perlite too so overall there is a lot of perlite holding a lot of water.

All together my 20 litre perlite tub and 10 gallons of soil have the ability to have aproximately 5 litres of water suspended in perlite when the bottom of the swick goes dry.

Thats 11 pounds of water readily available to the plant in a 10gal, but in a 2 gal on the same bed thats 9.25 pounds of water readily available.

You can see the need to adjust the swick tub size to match the pot size.

This poor 2gal is going to be wet until she drinks her way out of it at which point she will only get sparingly limited bottom drenches in hopes of the plant greatly pruning off the bottom water roots.

I will top water regularly and lightly to help the feeder roots.

Moving forwards I will never add more water to the reservoir than the perlite in my pot and reservoir combined can hold in suspension with capilliary action.

Anything beyond saturation invites oxygen deprivation. Standing water.

Quality soil is said to be 25% water. maybe fines in the soil mix at 22% is the way to go.

Use the coarse in the tub?

Thoughts or idea's anyone?

 

[Azimuth]

Excellent findings @Gee64 !

I'm thinking of applying your findings but in the opposite direction, by screening out the fines and seeing if that helps the aeration in my pots. I think my small SIP pots stay too wet as well so maybe less fines and maybe another part of perlite will help.

 

[Thirvnrob]

I ordered perlite on line & it’s pretty big & coarse. Am I reading this right? Is big & coarse a good thing?
I intended to add some perlite to my mix before I up potted, but a brain fart occurred…

 

[Keffka]

OK here is a really long dry read so grab a coffee.

I decided I needed to know how much water perlite can hold... I'm not sure where this leads but I think its good data all can use and very valuable to be aware of....

So pulling up that 2gal pot from the perlite and seeing just how many water roots were under there, and how wet it still was even though the bottom of the tub had been dry and unwatered for a few days, had me somewhat perplexed, as the same was likely happening under my other clone which is much healthier but still on the wet side no matter what I do.

The top 2/3 of the pot are fairly dry but the plant looks and acts overwatered, WTF?

I really don't see how that is possible. So after some thought it came down to "Well, exactly how much water does perlite hold??!!"

so here is what I did....

I took three 1 litre mason jars and numbered them 1,2, and 3.

In Jar #1 I filled it completely full of fairly coarse perlite that naturally rises to the top of a swick tub.

In Jar #2 I filled it with the general mix of coarse and fine perlite from the middle of the tub.

In Jar #3 I filled it with the fines that settle on the bottom of the tub.

All perlite was completely dry and when sealed inside a jar they all register 44%RH.

I have screen lids for mason jars so I filled each jar completely full of water and re-weighed each one to know exactly how much water was in each jar.

After sitting over night to absorb, and a very very small retopping of water to each jar from evaporation/air bubbles I turned each jar upside down and drained it out through the mesh lid and into a catch basin.

I let each jar drip for 15 minutes. After 15 minutes the dripping was completely stopped and I now had perlite at maximum saturation.

I reweighed the jars, did the math, and came up with the following:

1 litre of coarse perlite holds 83g water, or 8.3% water by volume so 83ml per litre of perlite.

1 litre of mixed holds 157g of water so 15.7% by volume or 157ml.

1 litre of fine perlite holds 224g of water so 22.4% by volume, 224ml

The average of all 3 is 155g or 15.5% water by volume, or 155ml. Almost identical to the measured mixed Jar #2.

My swick tub is a 20 litre tub. It was dry on the bottom for about a week now but when I scooped it out litre by litre to measure it out, and it actually was 20 like advertised, I found exactly 1 litre of liquid water in the very bottom of the tub but it didnt appear until I slowly scooped the top off layer by layer.

So in a tub that I thought was dry I actually had on average 20 x 155ml so 3 litres plus the liquid litre so 4 litres. 8.8 pounds of water hiding in a dry tub of perlite that I normally would have poured 2 litres into to top it back up.

1/3 of your soil give or take is perlite too so overall there is a lot of perlite holding a lot of water.

All together my 20 litre perlite tub and 10 gallons of soil have the ability to have aproximately 5 litres of water suspended in perlite when the bottom of the swick goes dry.

Thats 11 pounds of water readily available to the plant in a 10gal, but in a 2 gal on the same bed thats 9.25 pounds of water readily available.

You can see the need to adjust the swick tub size to match the pot size.

This poor 2gal is going to be wet until she drinks her way out of it at which point she will only get sparingly limited bottom drenches in hopes of the plant greatly pruning off the bottom water roots.

I will top water regularly and lightly to help the feeder roots.

Moving forwards I will never add more water to the reservoir than the perlite in my pot and reservoir combined can hold in suspension with capilliary action.

Anything beyond saturation invites oxygen deprivation. Standing water.

Quality soil is said to be 25% water. maybe fines in the soil mix at 22% is the way to go.

Use the coarse in the tub?

Thoughts or idea's anyone?

Fine in soil all day.. greater surface area for the microbes to anchor on plus a fat water retention bonus.. a match made in heaven.. I would definitely opt for coarse or possibly larger for tub use.. You want wicking action more than water retention and it seems like fine would complicate this process quite a bit, especially under pressure, I can see it caking easily

 

[Gee64]

Excellent findings @Gee64 !

I'm thinking of applying your findings but in the opposite direction, by screening out the fines and seeing if that helps the aeration in my pots. I think my small SIP pots stay too wet as well so maybe less fines and maybe another part of perlite will help.

I think every soil mix could require a different perlite mix.

 

[Gee64]

I ordered perlite on line & it’s pretty big & coarse. Am I reading this right? Is big & coarse a good thing?
I intended to add some perlite to my mix before I up potted, but a brain fart occurred…

The bigger and coarser the perlite, the less water held per litre of perlite, so coarse perlite is dryer than fine perlite. Dry perlite allows more air passage. So I think different sized pots and different styles would require different perlites to run optimally. You need air and water. Then there is flow. The more water perlite can hold, the more water per minute it can move.

I think I like mixed.

I am still pondering this but water always flows from wet to dry so i think you need the right amount of perlite in the tub to be able to flow to the perlite in the pot without flowing too much.

I just pulled a 2gal cloth pot with a clone in it out of a 20 litre perlite tub and carefully laid all the roots hanging out the bottom into a 3 litre tub of perlite.

Now the pot has 3 litres of mixed perlite in it and the swick tub has 3 litres of perlite in it.

The plant was healthy, brix 17, but overwatered from the swick.

All the water that goes into the new small swick will be runoff. I am going to topwater to mild runoff and let the perlite hold it for the plant to drink back. If I need to water directly into the swick I will but I am going to try not to.

Here she is in her new tub.

You can see how overwatered it is sitting on 20 litres of perlite. I hope I did the right thing, today is Day 7 of flower. She was suffocating.

 

[Gee64]

Fine in soil all day.. greater surface area for the microbes to anchor on plus a fat water retention bonus.. a match made in heaven.. I would definitely opt for coarse or possibly larger for tub use.. You want wicking action more than water retention and it seems like fine would complicate this process quite a bit, especially under pressure, I can see it caking easily

For top watering I think fine would be better for sure.

 

[Azimuth]

The bigger and coarser the perlite, the less water held per litre of perlite, so coarse perlite is dryer than fine perlite. Dry perlite allows more air passage.

Certainly true of an all perlite section, but how about when mixed with finer particles of soil and organic material? Seems like air passage wouldn't be really all that much of a thing other than maybe changing air pressure moving it.

 

[Gee64]

Certainly true of an all perlite section, but how about when mixed with finer particles of soil and organic material? Seems like air passage wouldn't be really all that much of a thing other than maybe changing air pressure moving it.

I have no idea how it will react with soil, as in large vs fine perlite, but if the perlite is wetter than the soil then the soil will keep absorbing until its dampness becomes equal to the perlites dampness, so if coarser perlite holds less water then flow into the soil would be restricted compared to fines in the soil. Less water in the soil means more air, the 2 are intimately tied together.

Then there is the swick itself, which is pure perlite, which the size of the perlite is probably best if it matches the amount of perlite in the pot, as volume will become a thing, as 20 litres of perlite in the swick will keep the pot fully saturated for a lot longer than 3 litres can.

With 3 litres it won't take the plant long to drink its way out of overwatering.

Then there is the calcium issue that LOS faces if never top watered, so filling the small swick via runoff will negate the calcium issue, plus the res will get tainted with soil runoff so maybe the giant horde of water roots in the perlite will develop into some feeder roots if the swick has a ppm to it from runoff.

Maybe.....