Ok started experimenting with some Homemade Airpruning pots. Basic premise of an airpruning is you trying to prune lateral roots before they hit the side of the container and start spiraling around the walls. By pruning of the root tips it causes the roots to branch out and forms a much denser root structure and allows for shorter distances to the main tap root and stem. This is in no way a new technique and was been used by nurseries for years and there are products on the market which accomplish this but I needed something that would allow for me to keep compact mother plants and a means to keep them healthy for long periods of times. My first pot that I have made was using a heavy duty 6" net pot. In order to keep my mix in I cut out some pieces of window screen. After playing around with a couple different ways found that easiest to cut a circle then 4 squares for the side since there is a slight taper to the pot. The next part is what takes the most time, I went through with a heavier needle and laced thread through the screen to hold it in place in the pot. Next filled it up with some sunshine 4 mix and rinsed it heavily to wash out anything that makes it through the screen. In order to keep the pot from drying to fast I drop it in another pot, so far have not noticed it dry out any faster then a regular pot. Although if need this will allow me to do heavy flushes to remove salts and leave the net pot outside to dry out faster and not water log my mums as bad. Test subject a Strawberry Blue clone, roots are healthy just darker from seaweed mix I gave them a couple days prior to pulling them from Aerogarden. 3 days later roots starting to come out the sides of pot. 3 days top side of plant. Will update with pics soon and working on a second container I have found. With the net pods will be able to get a keep 9 plants in a 2x2 space.
A little bit further down the road. So far it has been growing great chomped it yesterday but still have a few to many nodes so might be clearing them out. I have some strawberry cough clones that finally rooted in my bubble cloner, there not in the best of shape but going to pick one to throw in another basket. From what I have seen so far like it over the rose pots for my mums but only time will tell for sure. This is at 2 weeks
I am hoping to keep smaller plants in them for my genetics. Got them in 7.5"x7.5" rose pots and they grow to quick specially my sativa heavy strains. So going to migrate them into some small air pots. Down side to use the net pot it depth. It has only been a short while and she is already filling out laterally very well. End goal is to get a 3-4 main branches at 12" to 16" height. I have a stainless steel pot I will be testing out also with more depth and slightly narrower. Just need to figure out what material to use to catch roots and keep my sunshine 4 in with. Consider making some felt socks to place inside. Will edit in the other container a little later.
very cool. I can save you some time and say the best way to do this would be any combination of the following, airpots (or similar/homemade) and either two or three inches of vermiculite/perlite at the bottom sitting in an aerated bucket with a float valve or the autopot sytem with airpots in it. you need to have a moist-dry cycle so the float valve is not as good as the autopot valve i think. also think about a space saving multimum with different grafted branches...
The Stainless steel version. All this is being used for is to keep genetics, have though about going the grafting route also though. Maybe will try an revert one of my root masses after flower and see how it goes.
That thing is awesome... but I'm curious why you personally perfer to grow in soil versus hydro? -Loki
that thing is fucking great! made me laugh when i saw "stainless"...too expensive i thought. till i remembered how much i paid for my airpot. ill def be hittin up the restaurant supply store!!
Ikea, was like 4 dollars, cheaper then an air pot and will outlast me most likely. Although stainless can rust specially when exposed to a heavy saline environment, will know soon enough how it hold up.
i plan on soil with that. ill do exactly as you did and line the inside with screen-ing. the stainless pot would be worse on the environment( i think) but will outlast you and me if taken care of...and its recyclable too
I know you'll probably never need/want to transplant a mother plant in one of these, but if were going to transplant, how much harder is it with a screen lining the inside? Do the roots grow into them where its dark? I was thinking of making a tiny 3oz version incase the 3oz challenge comes back around. I've got one plant I've been doing a little bonzi with for a few months, it's about 4 inches tall, but the stem is thick as a marker... it's hydro now, but a bonzi air pot would be sick... -Loki
Cloning my bonsai mums into air pots, still eventually will have to do a transplant but should make it much longer before it is necessary. It is very easy for me to flush since I can soak the whole pot in PH water and get all the buildup out. Then as roots grow out of them they dry up and self prune there tips, which in turn accomplishes the same thing as root pruning. Working on getting 2 good root bases then grafting my strains onto them. Will have one plant with strawberry blue, yumboldt 47, blue mystic, lavender, haze #2. The the other will be all my dutch passion stuff strawberry cough, white widow, mekong, shaman 1, frisian dew, and orange bud. Will allow me to keep 11 strains and only us 2 out of the 15 plants I am allowed.
Well the screen is cheap can always sew another one together if I have to cut it up to get plant out. Also cutting the roots free for transplant is not bad because it will cause more lateral branching. As for pruning the roots that is simple. Pull the basket up and leave it out to get some light for a day and the roots will dry out and turn brown and fall off up to the screen. I would guess right now as in today, per slit in the net pod have about 10-15 roots poking through (this is average some more and less). No clue how many slits there are but will say 100 for now (will count them later). That is 1k-1.5 root tips sticking out, just like when you top they will branch out which will grow out then get pruned. Basically your root mass will grow exponentially. Roots pull nutrients and water through the tip and hairs, so more tips the better off you will be. Finally using the SS pot. Put my Lavender from Soma in it.
i'm still trying to understand the concept of air pruning. i use regular white square pots and my roots completely take over the whole container. but if you want the shortest distance from the main tap root to the stem you can just snip it after the roots show? i just want to say that i have a degree in molecular biology and chemistry as well. and i have been doing this for many years. air pruning is basically letting your roots grow...then killing by the mechanism of air exposure. i just don't understand any of it. why is anyone concerned with this? i am seriously asking. what is the advantage? are you harvesting higher quality product or much larger yield vs. a plant that is not air pruned? that main tap root is the brains of your plant. it tells the plant what to do up top....it is the engineer of the plant....that sends messages to the laborers......
I myself have not done a side by side but, have looked through journals of others that have in controlled environments and they have seen increased yields. My interest in it is for keep long term plants the maintenance is simpler. One advantage to this is for plants that are being kept for longer then a few months. I can leach out the soil very efficiently. All I have to do is submerge the basket in PH water to lower salts. The number of waters goes up a little but not to much as long as you keep your pot inside another. I have seen a much faster build up of root mass note this is just from observation have not done an actual comparison. As for growth rate it seems about the same as the others but the plants seem to handle stress better being that they are getting used for grafting stock. My plant numbers are limited by the laws here so maybe when I free some up will conduct a side by side. Once I free up at one spot will grow a plant out from clone about a month then sacrifice it for root zone pics (should be able to in about a month).