air line in soil?

[nvthis]

I like the idea of air pruning. I have seen some of the things they claim from airpots on their site. Very impressive. I could not imagine vegging plants indoors with the intent to grow them outdoors without using this system. Seems to me it would be the way to go.

So, really man, I already have the air pumps and necessary tubing. Now the challange is how to use them 'as is', or with minimal investment.

 

[IRISH]

:ciao: hows this for a suggestion from a hydro/dirt farmer? lol... ok Nv. hows about we take your tube, and put holes down the entire length as you suggest, making the tube 2 inches taller than the top of the container you will use...

heres the good stuff. you don't need a nylon, or cheese cloth inside the tube, if you drill your holes the diameter that a quarter inch(prolly larger, like 3/8 inch) piece of tubing attaches to each hole. like fingers sticking off the tube in all directions, with tees off each 'finger'. then fill with your soil...

add a cap to the size of tubing your using, and drill a hole the diameter of your tubing in the cap, add air line, attach air pump, and waa-laa. BAM...:hubba: ...

just an idea from a stoked pot head at 5:45 A.M. ... ...

maybe you could engineer the tubing in the potto spiral from the bottom, to the top. this would keep it simpler, cause you'd be working off one tube???...

my biggest concern is the air all going to one submerged location. once the soil is in, well, its in.and , another concern would be, will the air dry my roots, before i figure it needs watered?...

another idea, would be to use a large air pump, say in the 250 Lph range, with a baffle (is that the right word?) attached so multiple air lines could be run into the soil, assuring air delivery to all the key points???...

any takers willing to do an experiment with this style of grow? TEST.TEST.TEST... lol.lol...

i got to much on my plate now to undertake this. and besides, i was told i was old today. ...so go away, and let an old man be... Irish...

 

[pcduck]

Man, you really need to learn to read a little bit. Tossing replys without reading the whole thread first never helps anyone.

First, AS I STATED EARLIER, I don't use 'nutes'. I use Subs SS. That's 'water only' soil with amendments. Second, AS I STATED EARLIER, I am dying to do hydro. Wish I could. Some day I will. A dedicated soil grower? Only because I must!



Ok, so with the original question... Any folks got any good ideas???

Sub's soil has many amendments that add the required nutrients..so you do use nutes

Go hydro because that is the system you are trying to build anyways but with soil. :rofl:

 

[BBFan]

Whoa Irish-

Wake and bake today? Sounds complex, but maybe something my simple mind can grasp. How would you keep the soil from clogging the lines?

I was thinking an airstone at the bottom of the pot with a lot of perlite (perhaps some gravel too?) to keep it from clogging? I know the soil would leach down over time, but maybe?

I'm setting up a microgrow (UKGirl's Cookie Grow) and I was thinking of testing this idea.

What do you think?

 

[ozzydiodude]

The one thing, I think about is how the organism is the soil are going to react to air flow all the time? If the air flow kills all the benifical organism, What is going to help the plants use the nutes properly?

 

[LEFTHAND]

this may sound stupid.. but i have to say it i ts a must...
what if you tool a 1/2" oround peice of pvc pipe.. drill holes around the bottom middle and top.. put a cap on it... top and bottom.. fill tube with perlite.. and stick the pipe a few inches away from the stem (root mass) and pump ain in through the top hole???
dunno just a thought... i think that would wrk better then just a tube or air stone..
LH

 

[LEFTHAND]

I think even with this the air would exit the pvc and travel up the sides of the pvc and straight out of the soil... I do HVAC for a living and I have gone to a lot of schooling that deals with air flow.. The only way I see this working with soil is to make a pearlite rich mix of soil lets say 50-75% pearlite.. Without opening up the soil and making it airy your never going to pump air throughout the soil it just doesnt work that way...

true true. then one still would neet to find a way to destribute evenly.. or it will just "burn" if you will air paths in the soil.... making tunnels for air to escape outwards..
hmmmmmmm.. dont think its worth the time and money trying..
hydro the way to go..
LH

 

[pcduck]

IDK but don't worms build tunnels/airlines/tubes to and through out the root system? Get worms and feed worms. IDK but I think this is what nature does.

 

[cubby]

I too have been curious how to incorporate an airline into my system. I think I have an idea. A simple pvc pipe pushed down through the middle of the pot with holes drilled into it. There would need to be some kind of material that would let air out, but keep soil from coming in This might could also double as an effective water delivery device? I dunno. Maybe I am just blowing out of my butt! What do you guys think?

I actually do something like this with my compost pile. I used a 4inch o.d. section of pvc with a cap on one end, drilled a million 1/32 inch holes in it, wrapped it in landscape fabric (so the water could leach out but the compst could'nt fill up the pipe). It just stands in the middle of my compst bin. I wrap 6mil black plastic around the entire compst bin to maximize heat and biological activity. The pvc serves to get water to the middle of the pile.
Like you I've wondered what other uses this could have. I'm currently toying with the idea that you could use it to deliver nutes directly to the root mass. A pipe of maybe 1/4 inch put in the container so liquid, or even granular nutes could be poured into the top should work.
The fewwer holes you put in the pipe obviously would allow you to slowly apply the feeding.

 

[nvthis]

Sub's soil has many amendments that add the required nutrients..so you do use nutes

Go hydro because that is the system you are trying to build anyways but with soil. :rofl:

Hey hey, good morning PC, Mindzeye! Look guys, I'm not trying to push nails through anyones seat here. I stand behind my statements 100%. Sure, the amendments make the soil very nutrient rich, in fact to a point as where if you were to plant directly into it, it would fry a plant. Hey, call it "nutes", call it amendments, call it medium, heck call it Chinese food for all I care but at the end of the day I still come in way under $40 "nute/amendment/Chinese food" cost per grow. Period. Thank you, drive thru.

Ima let this go for now I find myself having to repeat myself way to much here. If you need me futher, read above^^^. Peace and respect

The practice of the aeration of roots, or soil rather, has been around long before hydroponics was even a word. When we talk about aerating soil why must we suddenly become hydro growers? And since when did hydro growers own air? Now, before my hydro brothers get their hackles up please understand, I would be doing hydro now if I could. In spirit I am one of you, but your undying insistance that soil growers must become hydro growers is not really improving this situation.

Ok, what IS the difference? DWC guys, how long do you run your air pumps? And, if one of your air pumps breaks and your not there to deal with it, what happens? Well, I think we all know that one. The DWC is water/air dependant. Constantly. The same system that provides DWC plants with that explosive growth, dynamic nutrient delivery and stunning harvests is also potentially one of it's weakest points. Can we agree on that much?

When we talk about aerating soil we're talking about a simple gas exchange. In fact there is no reason to have the air engage or even interact with the water at all. That's the difference. Should the air pump break down we might get to it tomorrow, or this weekend, or maybe next payday. I don't really know but would venture to guess that the actual use of an air pump would be very limited. I mean how much would you really need? 1 minute 10 times a day? 1 minute 5 times a day? 2 minutes twice a day? More? You get the picture.

For the moment, for me anyway, the jury is still out on this one. I still need to see that this would be beneficial. In theory it should work. Guess we'll see.

Hey IRISH! I see where you are going with this... Ok bro, from now on we're gonna call that the "Irish tree"

 

[nvthis]

If your running an air line to a bucket why dont you just get rid of the soil and fill it with nutrient solution to ph of 5.8? then you have a DWC and none of that dirty, pesky soil to clog things up...

:confused2: Defending???:rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

 

[dirtyolsouth]

How about a bubble wand? Those long flexible aquarium bubble making 'snakes' that come in different sizes? Or is there someway you could force air through a 'soaker hose?' These may get clogged with soil particles but maybe not completely? Hmmmmm....

All I can say is my last grow was soil and I flowered my plants at 12 in tall and they were 24 in tall when I was done...

My current grow I flowered my plants at 12 in tall and at 2 weeks of flowering they are 36 in tall.. I should have flowered sooner because I didnt know how fast plants grow in a DWC...

So IMO soil was stunting the growth of my plants, if your going to mess with pumps and tubing just go hydro, its as simple as a bucket an air pump and nutrients..

HIya Mindzeye...

How are things over yonder in In-n-Out land? Growing marijuana RULES in hydro OR soil... It's always interesting to me when someone has an opposite perspective on some aspect of growing. Oddly enough, I actually prefer my slower growth rate in soil much more than I ever did the explosive growth rates I got in hydro... Honest! I found that unless I really knew my strain I frequently ran into what you did.... missing the timing on growth rates due to the explosive growth in hydro. With me it was often harder to time the finish of one strain with getting my veg plants into 12/12 at the perfect time. And I'm ALWAYS trying some new strain to add to my selection. With soil I find there is a wider timing window not only when putting them into flower but for vegging too... Once I started playing around with vegging in soil and giving them a bit more time I was able to veg plants with much more controlled growth rates.

The way the soil buffers and utilizes nutrients either in the soil as organic amendments or added from a bottle is something I find very hard to beat. Mother nature blows me away... How do it know? Sure using soil doesn't have the 'horsepower' that hydro does but for me... the explosive growth rates in hydro IME are TOO much, TOO fast and that makes growth much harder to control in my show. I try to keep all the growth in my show about 44" tall or so.... with all the budding happening at the top 1/2 to 1/3 of the plant... My goal is to fill up my canopy evenly and keep all developing buds hopefully within 3 feet of my 1K with the tops of my plants within about 10-12" of the light... This way ALL the bud is withing the 1K's 'optimum' lumen distance and I get absolutely NO scruffy fluffy buds... Just rock hard nugs... With hydro I found this much harder to control and achieve. Even when I only vegged in hydro the growth rate is SO fast that timing the next round of bloom girls was much harder in hydro than soil... And that's a big part of why I use T5's instead of a MH too... I want a lot of my growth to happen down in the soil and with T5's I get a growth rate above the soil that I can gauge and control with a much wider window for error should my current flower girls take a week longer than I thought they would... Hydro is like a speed boat... soil is a yacht... you gotta take slow turns with soil and there's a very predictable lag to the whole process... if you start to take on water... you got TIME to bail it out before your boat sinks... In hydro one wrong move and you could be bouncing end over end and STILL going 200mph... toward disaster!

I've also had some really good results experimenting with Humboldt County's Own Bushmaster... A vertical growth inhibitor derived from sea kelp. Someday when I get the space to play with hydro again I'm going to do some hydro grows with Bushmaster... You can veg longer and then put on the vertical brakes very effectively with BM. Most of my strains grew another 4-6" during their stretch when I got the dose nailed... and then then they stop any more vertical growth and the plant flips harder into flowering mode with much less stretch throughout the plant.... I even had great results with a couple of Sativa dom strains so this might be something the hydro grower could utilize to get more dense, explosive flowering with a tighter plant profile... I've read some forum posts where guys with coliseum/omega/vert setups are treating clones with BM and getting better yields by being able to veg them closer to their desired size and then stopping the veg growth and holding that size more consistently as they flower for a more predictable growth pattern in the canopy...

BM sounds a bit like weird science but if it's made from sea kelp how bad can it be...

Rock ON! Have a good weekend!

 

[nvthis]

If just pumping air into dirt worked then why would I use an aeration spike on my lawn? Your saying I should just stick a hose in the ground hooked up to my air compressor and let it go?

i was trying to defend myself from the soil Nazi's....

So in my opinon soil was stunting the growth of my plants, if your gowing to mess with pumps and tubing just gow with hydro

weed doesn't grow on hopes and dreams

I can just keep going back man. There are no soil Nazi's. There is just you. Much of what you have to say is nothing more than derrogatory and opinion shoving'. Don't get me wrong friend, opposing opinions are healthy. All I'm saying is don't sit there trying to tell everyone you are just defending yourself when that is clearly not the case. You weren't defending crap. And one more thing Mr. Mindzeye, please don't take any interaction with me personally. It's cool man. I dig open discussion and don't hold anything against anyone. Trust me bro, when the time comes for me to switch to hydro I'm gonna be hunting you down!

 

[nvthis]

So I bid you farewell and Ill let you rule the general growing forum and Ill just stick to the hydro forum... Because lets face it you arent growing right unless you grow with nothing but molasses

Uhh.. Pout much?:rofl:

Oh c'mon man, it ain't like that. Look, we're all adults here. We should be able to hold an open discussion without someone stomping out of the room. Seriously. If you read back aways you will see (again and again..... And again) where I applaude hydro growers such as yourself. Dude, your cool here man. No need to bail. Look, this is obviously upsetting to you. Just get up and go outside for a minute! This is a discussion forum and your input is not only welcome, but incouraged! Thinking I have some sort of beef with you is incorrect. It just ain't like that.

And as far as "is it $40? Is it $100? Is it $whatever?" It's pretty self explanatory, but I think I see your confusion.. I amend my soil. Once that is done there is 2 months before any plant ever sees it. Once I plant in it, there is nothing to add but water. It has affectively become my medium. If you would like to know more about it I would suggest contacting Subcool himself. He's been using it for over 20 years. He is very happy to discuss his recipe with anybody. See? No big.