Air Prune roots in hydro?

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MrNorCal

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I am growing in coco pots and coco on an ebb and flow table. I was wondering what to do when the roots pop out of the pots. The guy at the hydro store said that they would air prune themselves, but if I am growing 6-8 plants on a 3' X 6' table then I have plenty of room to let them explore and get bigger. More roots means bigger growth right? I was thinking of covering the top of my tray with some panda plastic, and circulating some air underneath. I am going to do a Scrog with longer veg for better yield with fewer plants, so the bigger they get the betterWhat do you guys think? Any ebb and flow users, how do you handle this situation?:confused:
 
Typically I use air-pruning tecniques when using rockwool for cloning. As you know the # of roots will increase within the rockwool as older exposed roots begin to die back as they are exposed to the air and light. My rockwool cubes are usually planted in a larger medium after heavy root explosion and then they're allowed to expand without limits from then on out untill flowering. Point is imo air pruning works great for early root development but should be avoided during later veg and flowering cycles.
 
MrNorCal said:
I am growing in coco pots and coco on an ebb and flow table. I was wondering what to do when the roots pop out of the pots. The guy at the hydro store said that they would air prune themselves, but if I am growing 6-8 plants on a 3' X 6' table then I have plenty of room to let them explore and get bigger. More roots means bigger growth right? I was thinking of covering the top of my tray with some panda plastic, and circulating some air underneath. I am going to do a Scrog with longer veg for better yield with fewer plants, so the bigger they get the betterWhat do you guys think? Any ebb and flow users, how do you handle this situation?:confused:

good day Mrnorcal..
im a noobie just to let ya know off the bat.:D
but you have a few options, you can fill your table with hydtroten. and have a finer screen filter for your fill hole. so roots dont plug it up..
then your roots can roam freely.. theres a few diferent ways of doing this actually..
but if you have the patients to veg longer and the room to grow em out then yeah the bigger usually the better. if you have the room to do so.. if you crowd and under light your hurting yeild.. so bigger isnt always better in that situation. instead of using a table look into 5gal pails and net pots.. or rubbermaid tubs... lots of room for roots and great potential. IMHO. hope this helps a little....im running an ebb n flow, and i have a 2x6' table, im not using it, i like big plants .. without big pots im in tubs..
LH
 
Thanks Jman and Lefthand for the input. I think I am going to go ahead and put some panda plastic over the tray and cut holes out for the pots. Then find a way to circulate some air through there. I don't want to use hydroton. Pain in the A**. Thanks again guys.
 
MrNorCal said:
I think I am going to go ahead and put some panda plastic over the tray and cut holes out for the pots. Then find a way to circulate some air through there. quote]

well your welcome.
what if you were to get a small clip fan or comp fan, 12v DC and pipe the air in from the top. that way you still can keep the "darkness" for the roots but add air flow, nice thing about that your keeping the electrical part away from water.. just a thought..
you can also do the same with PVC piping.. and drilling a bunch of holes in... ..
and yeah hydroton is a pain in the azz.
LH
 
I'm not sure how i'm going to do it yet, but my first thought was to go off my intake into the room. I was thinking I could put a splitter on the duct and then have one end going onto my floor, and the other end I would reduce down to the size of a garden hose and stick it in the top of the tray, not enough to be under water during flooding though. Your idea is definetley worth looking into though Lefthand. Whatever is cheaper.
 
sounds like a plan... if you reduce it the size of a garden hose i would go with pvc piping 1/2"-1" same idea as yours down size and split it.. take your pvc piping run a decent section of it on the inside edge of your table under the panda film with a cap on one end.. drilling holes on the underneth and front of pipe . i bet to have it run up both sides it would cost no more then 30$ to do a good job.. IMO this is.. more or less the same idea people have doing so with the 6"pvc piping in there rooms just down sized..
GOOD LUCK with what you decide and go with..
just glad to be of some help...
LH
 
no problem man. im just glad to help once agiain.
good luck dude....
LH
 

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