Ok, thanks bro!
How does rotational growing affect growth pattern?
Do you *have* to choose shorter strains or could you grow sativas in there somehow with LST, topping, Bushmaster, etc.
How does nute delivery work?
What are your options for providing a base and securing the plants to the wheel?
What's the rotational speed, can you change it, and if you can, what would be the effect of faster and slower rpm?
Sorry if you've covered some of this stuff already in your journals.
np bro. easy questions.
1) i know what the rotation supposedly does to the auxins and all that technical jazz. so far i have not seen any of the claims come true, it has not made the plants any shorter, any bushier, it has not shortened the finishing time at all.
the only noticeable difference that i have seen in the growth pattern in the wheel has been the tendancies for the plant to invert its fan leaves. i think it doesn't know which way is up, so the orientation of the leaves can get twisted.
gravity only plays part of the role in the direction a plant grows, the other is light. i think these guys will still try to go towards the light regardless of the confusing spin, so it's kind of self correcting.
2) pretty much any indica or indica blend should be fine with a short or no veg time. topping could work but would severely cut down yield, esp on a sativa. never used bushmaster, but have heard good things for years now. maybe will give it a try someday.
as far as lst'ing to the outside, stay tuned and we'll figure this out together.
3)nutes are like any standard hydro setup. i have a res, i fill it with RO water. then I add base nutes (for grow right now i am using cns17) then supplementals like carbohydrates, cal-mag (micronutes), bloom enhancers, etc. whatever that week calls for.
the resevoir is hooked up to a flood tray where i can set the height of how much the table will fill to. i set it to just break the plane of the bottom of the rockwool holders before i put the rockwool in to insure proper distribution.
right now, i have the powerhead (pump) set to flood the table for 45 minutes every other day. 45 minutes is the time it takes for a full rotation of the wheel, so every cube gets a chance to be dipped into the solution just once on its rotation. this means the bttom 1/4 is submerged for about 5 minutes. rockwool has a strong wicking effect, so it will saturate it self about half way up, but as it rotates upside down, it should distribute the nutes evenly.
i change my res every week. plus i flush for one rotation with hygrozyme and clearex between each change to flush the medium and clean the res.
4) unless i manufacture something myself, i have one option. a green cube that allows a 3" RW cube slid into it, then it in turn slides into a channel built to accept 5 of these cubes. 16 channels = 80 plants max.
i did modify these cubes for my current grow to allow for bigger plants by utilizing a bigger rooting space. i drilled out the sides of the holders to allow the roots to grow out of the sides. by placing them close, and not letting alot of light get in, i think the roots will just expend between the gap. also i doubled up and put 2 cubes in each holder, so i'm breaking the omega mold with this one.
5) like i just said, its geared down to about 1 rotation over 45 minutes, so .75rph. lol, slow. i have no control over the rotational speed, the good people at omega think that they have found the "magic" rotation speed that is the best for all plants. lol. DOH!
sometime in the future, i am going to either gear it down more again or get sa controller to control the speed of the motor, because (personally) i think weed in specific might benefit from a slower turn speed. the omega guy says a tomato plant will turn up under gravity in 15 minutes. . . well i have personal experience that one strain of weed will turn up in 15 minutes while others may take hours. i think you could tweak it for each strain if you had control.
speeding it up a bunch also poses some interesting questions. gravity will play much less of a role in regulating plant hormones and growth, and centripetal force will take over. . . if the plants could survive it, you could set the speed of rotation to give like 1.5x gravity or 2x, and who knows what would happen.
at this point, i haven't fooled with it yet, so i can't speak from experience.
would be a cool experiment though. maybe they would be twice as dense! lol.
if you stay tuned, you will be on the cutting edge. lol. knew knowledge being gained, cataloged, and reviewed by the world.
keep learning SS. information is always changing.