Smart pot/air pot question

i get my air pots of ebay and i think they brill i get better yealds now iv swapt to air pots.

 

from what i've seen.. their fabric looks proprietary

 

Their fabric is proprietary. Smart pots will custom make any size pot you want. All you got to do is give them a call.

 

air pots are the bomb.

smart pots are fabric.

Air-pots are plastic and have thousands of holes and don't allow the roots to spool in the bottom.

The difference is big.

 

LumperDawgz gave a link to the smart pot manufacturer and I can't find it right now. He indicated they provide the material on a roll so you could make your own.

Mania made 100 gal "smart pots" using the fabric liner used for small ponds and purchased at either the Orange or Blue store. Check out his outdoor grow in 2010.

It can happen.....

 

there's no circling of roots in smart pots either. the fabric allows the roots to grow into them which encourages the plant to branch out its roots laterally, producing a huge, hearty rootball the size of the entire container. it's called air-pruning and it works... plus with smart pots there's no holes for your dirt to spill out of after watering, i.e. you don't need holes all over your container because the fabric of the smart pots breathes.

i've had a go at constructing my own out of a felt like material, after all was said and done i only saved something like $1 a pot. if you're running a large scale op, there's a little savings there but for most of us home gardeners the cost of 10-20 smart pots for your grow is hardly a major investment. plus you can simply throw 'em in the washing machine and they're ready for your next cycle. you can't wash the air pots and once that plastic cracks(and it does) you're stuck buying more. smart pots for the win, you can order 'em in bulk too and save a little coin if you're going big...

 

I have to admit that I've never used smart pots, however, I have used Air-pots and have been most impressed and pleased with my results.

Re: cracking. Hasn't happened to me (feeling lucky I guess).

To circle back to the original post. IMO had lumped smart pots and air pots together. My response was to draw the difference between them.

I'm older than dirt and have learned that not everybody likes vanilla ice cream, some people like chocolate.

 

Finishing off one grow with Air Pots and have two more planys in Airpots. These plants look amazing. I don't know what to credit them to. Either the great advice I have got on here - re: Soil Amendments, or the Air Pots. Could be both, I don't know. I do like these Airpots. I unwrap them, hose them down, put them back together and on to the next grow. I have not heard about or had a cracking problem this early into using them yet. I hope I don't. They are a bit spendy, but my plants seem to thrive in them. Again, the credit either goes to the soil, the amendments, the pots or a combo of all the environment. I go with the combo.

JaK

 

IMO, isn't that fabric the same black fabric they use in construction/home building when they run it along the edge of a property to keep fill from going into bordering land? It allows water to flow through, but holds back fill such as gravel, etc. I used to see builders use it in Alaska whenever they starting building on a lot. They would run it all along the border of the property.


JaK

 

Hey Jak,

That stuff might work. Ask 'em if it has anything impregnated into the fabric like maybe a herbicide to kill weeds or sumthing like that.

If it ain't got anything cooked into it, then it probably would work. Think about giving it a good rinse and let it air dry before you use it.

Plus you'll probably save some $$$.

 

Just pulled a plant out of an AIr Pot and wanted to show you guys the root system. I didn't do a great job and lost a significant amount of fine roots in taking it apart to show you guys the result. The plant was in here for 10 weeks, exactly. Seems like a pretty healthy root system.

Other shot is of a plant that has been in Airpots for 2 weeks, exactly. Went into 12/12 yesterday. It was showing female 5 days ago while in 18/6. I have another next to it, but just an inch or so shorter. Both are very healthy. I have 3 more Air Pots on the way. I have the 2.4 gallon ones.

The plant in the pot got burned from touching a fluorescent light bulb. I am really glad I caught it when I did.

JaK

 

it is not silt fence... i thought that it may be. silt fence is woven strand, smarts are more like a heavy duty industrial grade aggregate seperation fabric, (haven't seen it at the box stores) with felt like backing

 

thanks, inthedirt. wasn't sure or not. you know, this smartpot fabric is kind of like the Airpot stuff in that I believe you can order large amounts of the material to cut your own pots into custom sizes, but it seems that it is hard to get. Maybe they only sell to retail or private owned nurseries.

JaK

 

IMO, I have a theory that I was hoping to test out but I didn't get to make it happen. You read like someone that's on the same type of hunt I am... maybe not, IDK. Anyway, my theory flows something along the following lines. Since you are interested in making your own grow containers you might find some interest.

I believe that we can grow a much more productive plant if we allow more room for root developement to occur in length and width of container versus depth of container. This is due to how a cannabis plants root system develops. Due to it's fibrous root system it wants to expand horizontally not vertically. Maybe you've experienced something similar but everytime I remove a plant from a 3 gal or larger size container the bottom 4" - 6" are grow medium without any roots and the entire circumfrence of the container is congested with roots. This leads me to think that if we would allow for more horizontal root growth opposed to more vertical room for root growth we would witness a larger root mass. If we see a larger root mass we will also see a much larger and fruitful plant above ground. I did a little research on 'root systems' of plants and kind of got lost down a bunny hole but I did learn a few things that I didn't know about plant root systems before the trip.

Something to think about if you want to make your own containers. You can make them anyway, size, shape, or form you want. I suggest: 6" deep x 12" wide x 18" long. About the same volume as a #3 container I reckon and that should be plenty of volume for a ~120 day grow. Remember, we're only growing our beloved for ~120 days. We need to factor that into our grow equations to provide an efficient envirnonment. Shallow, long and wide is the ticket I do believe.

If you ever get something going making your own let us (me) know as I would like to observe.

Cheers in Twenty-eleven!

 

Feckin Good Theory Possuum-38-North ,,,

 

This P-38 guy is pretty smart

I agree with him. Which is why I use a BIG diameter (22"±) pot.

If you don't drench the plant, the roots will gravitate toward to top of the soil (medium). Conversely if you drench the plant, you will have roots collecting in the bottom of the pot.

Me thinks that ole P-38 uses just the right amount of water. Sly devil he is.

 

i am using these pots for the first time