Clay pots? Wither thou goest...?

[Mummyscurse]

Before diving into these forum posts, the past couple weeks, I had astonishingly little knowledge of the importance of getting oxygen to a plant's roots!

If this is so, however, why do I see NO photos of crops being grown in clay pots? If it's important, when growing in soil, to allow the soil to dry between waterings, precisely so that air can reach the roots regularly, why isn't clay the best way to allow soil to dry more quickly and evenly throughout, rather than from the top down, as with plastic pots? Why not more clay in use...hell, ANY clay in use?

 

[W ï l l]

They're heavy...

As well as a good soil, and plastic containers with plenty of drain holes, helps prevent the rootzone from getting soggy, and allows for the soil to breathe. Most of the O2 in the soil comes from water...not an air exchange with the environment.

Clay pots will absorb nutes...and end up dumping them back into the soil when its wetted again. Bit of a loss of control there ya?

 

[Mummyscurse]

Makes plenty of sense, W ï l l. I hadn't thought about the clay leaching nutes, and "time releasing" them back into the soil, when watered. As for the weight of the pots, just think how healthy we'd be, moving those buggers around all the time...who needs aerobics and progressive-resistance weight training! <G>

All I know is that when I water my 8" pots thoroughly, it takes darn near a week for the soil to become as dry as advisors here indicate it should, before rewatering. Part of this is poor drainage, I imagine. ( Any thoughts, anyone, on using 8" net pots for soil growing, or is that just ventilation overkill of the soil?)

I also have never used any kind of fans on the plants directly, or to help cool any growing area, itself. All that moving air certainly would help dry soil in a hurry, I should think!

In a sense, the question was a rhetorical one, because I've read enough here, already, to have made the decision to go with a Bubble Bucket hydroponics system ASAP. (I like the "passive" nature of the Bubble Buckets approach... minimal tubes, valves, and moving water all around....ummmm, as long as the gosh darn air pumps don't crap out for an extended period!)