Well, my samples from Sure To Grow arrived earlier this week. I was sure surprised when it got here. I'm not sure what I expected, but it sure wasn't a box 18" square by 14" deep.
When I opened the box it was packed tightly with the Sure To Grow medium. It had a large amount of 7/8" square by 1" thick cube still barely fastened together( the separate almost just by handling them without trying ot separate them) in sheets. Each cube has a small dimple/hole in the top of it and can be used separately or in sheets for seed sprouting.
Matt of Sure To Grow explained to me that he sent all of those little blocks because they didn't have any packages of their new product called "Hail" which sounds much like balls about the size of hydroton, which is intended to be used much like hydroton balls, but without the washing dust and the danger of slipping or hurting your foot if the should get spilled and you step on them. He advised me to separate the little cubes and loose fill my net pot with them until they could get me a package of the Hail.
All of the Sure To Grow products are dust free, PH neutral and inert from the factory. Even more importantly unlike clay balls and most Rockwool product they are soft and resilient. There is no way that stepping on a piece is going to make you slip like clay balls or hurt your foot/hand or other body parts that press down on them. It makes my other half and me both want to fill pillows with it.
There was also a 98 count sheet of the 1.5" cubes that are intended to either be used for sprouting seeds or rooting small clones. They have both a small hole for sprouting seeds and a X crisscross cut centered on the hole that can be spread open and the unrooted clone inserted. I believe that they also make them in 2" cubes but could be mistaken about that.
Then I got dozen 4" cubes with a cutout to set the 1.5" cubes into. They also have a semi-loose area in the bottom of the the cutout. It is intended to be used on large or tall clone that need support to keep them from falling over by push the fluffy bottom to one side or the other and inserting the end of clone into it. When you release the fluffy portion it springs back and hold the clone securely but still allows the roots and stems to grow and breathe.
They also make 6" cubes and various sized cylinders for use as an insert into pots. I could use 7" cylinders in my pots, either solid walled with drain holes or net pots like my homemade WaterFarm with a 10" net pot lid uses if I wanted to.
They recommend that the cloning or seeding cubes be premoistened by either dipping them in PHed water because the will NOT change the PH like Rockwool will, or by pouring the PHed water directly on the cubes so that as you insert the clone or seed there is NO risk of the dry fiber scraping the rooting hormone off or ther being an air pocket around the clone or seed. When transplanting the 1.5" cubes into the cutout in either the 4" or 6" blocks all you need ot do is to moisten the fluff in the bottom of the cutout. That is also all you have to do if you are inserting large clones.
You can also use either the little cubes as loose fill or the large blocks to plant bare rooted clones like from a clone machine.
I tried wetting one of the small cubes under a very small stream from the sink faucet and was amazed at both the quickness of the penetration of the water, which was basically instantaneous, and by the amount of water that it absorbed. It absorb quite a bit more water than my 1.5" oasis foam cubes which is the most absorbent medium that I have found and it was much quicker. That is more impressive when you consider that the 1.5" Oasis cube has three times the volume as the 7/8" x 7/8" x 1" Sure To Grow cube. The cube let a lot of the water drain out quickly which promotes good aerationof the medium and the roots/seeds/clones in it. After it drained for maybe 15 seconds and quit dripping is when I squeezed the water out of it to see how much it had retained. Within 2 minutes of finishing the squeezing the cube, it was dry to the touch. It "holds" water in the many mircospaces inside of the fiber block and slowly releases it either by evaporation or by the roots absorbing the water rather than the individual fibers than the individual fibers absorbing the water and swelling which would block water and/or air movement through the media. The cube was as soft and fluffy when dry as it was before I wet it down.
I noticed when I was wetting the small cube that it had a soft fluffy loose bottom that could be move aside when inserting either a seed or clone and would spring back over it.
The only concern that I have is it doesn't seem to wick water up very well, but I'm not sure if that is a good thing or a bad thing. It is my understanding that bottom watering through the holes in the bottom of a pot is more the result of the roots actually growing through the hole and directly into the water than wicking. I have also been told that most of the water actually evaporates out of the tray under the pot. No only that, I don't know of many pot growers that try to bottom water their plants rather than using the trays to catch what drains through the medium after top watering.
After soaking a small cube in water at the end of the wicking test I shook tihe water off of it gently and laid it on a saucer in 70F or better air with a RH of less than 25% to see ifit dried out quickly or dried more like my foam. This is oging to be a subjective test because all but one side of the STg cube is exposed to room air while the foam was in 2" pony pots with two layers in them and clones rooting in them I would water them until I got run off out of the bottom of the cubes and in nearly the same atmospheric conditions they still had moisture in the 3 to 4 days later when you would press on the foam. The little STG cube has ell over 2 times as much exposed surface for the water to evaporate through. I'll try to remember to post when it was dry to the touch and when it was dried out completely.
I'm going to try sprouting my bagseed tomorrow and probably start some clones too.
Now I can see why my contact at FHD in Canada was so enthusiastic about it. He said he virtually never recommend something other than their product line, but when I asked for his recommendation on a growing medium he said that he could not believe the difference the STG made with his WaterFarm.
Then he referred me to STG's website and I emailed them about sample and here I am. Oh, the head grower that trains dealers on the use of STG ( a professor in botany in Ohio, I don't remember which college but I can find out if you want to know)is coming through the PNW next month and will be stopping in Spokane to meet with me even though they don't have any dealers that I'm aware of closer than the coast. That seems like pretty unusual customer support considering that I haven't even used the sample yet and certainly haven't purchased any of their products. Incidentally I believe they make complete hydro systems too, but no one has tried to convince me to change from the WaterFarm system to one of theirs.
I wish I knew someone personally who has used Rockwool so I oculd have them compare STG to Rockwool based on personal use rather than what people tell me aboutthe Rockwool.
I'll keep you all informed as best I can.
Good smoking.
When I opened the box it was packed tightly with the Sure To Grow medium. It had a large amount of 7/8" square by 1" thick cube still barely fastened together( the separate almost just by handling them without trying ot separate them) in sheets. Each cube has a small dimple/hole in the top of it and can be used separately or in sheets for seed sprouting.
Matt of Sure To Grow explained to me that he sent all of those little blocks because they didn't have any packages of their new product called "Hail" which sounds much like balls about the size of hydroton, which is intended to be used much like hydroton balls, but without the washing dust and the danger of slipping or hurting your foot if the should get spilled and you step on them. He advised me to separate the little cubes and loose fill my net pot with them until they could get me a package of the Hail.
All of the Sure To Grow products are dust free, PH neutral and inert from the factory. Even more importantly unlike clay balls and most Rockwool product they are soft and resilient. There is no way that stepping on a piece is going to make you slip like clay balls or hurt your foot/hand or other body parts that press down on them. It makes my other half and me both want to fill pillows with it.
There was also a 98 count sheet of the 1.5" cubes that are intended to either be used for sprouting seeds or rooting small clones. They have both a small hole for sprouting seeds and a X crisscross cut centered on the hole that can be spread open and the unrooted clone inserted. I believe that they also make them in 2" cubes but could be mistaken about that.
Then I got dozen 4" cubes with a cutout to set the 1.5" cubes into. They also have a semi-loose area in the bottom of the the cutout. It is intended to be used on large or tall clone that need support to keep them from falling over by push the fluffy bottom to one side or the other and inserting the end of clone into it. When you release the fluffy portion it springs back and hold the clone securely but still allows the roots and stems to grow and breathe.
They also make 6" cubes and various sized cylinders for use as an insert into pots. I could use 7" cylinders in my pots, either solid walled with drain holes or net pots like my homemade WaterFarm with a 10" net pot lid uses if I wanted to.
They recommend that the cloning or seeding cubes be premoistened by either dipping them in PHed water because the will NOT change the PH like Rockwool will, or by pouring the PHed water directly on the cubes so that as you insert the clone or seed there is NO risk of the dry fiber scraping the rooting hormone off or ther being an air pocket around the clone or seed. When transplanting the 1.5" cubes into the cutout in either the 4" or 6" blocks all you need ot do is to moisten the fluff in the bottom of the cutout. That is also all you have to do if you are inserting large clones.
You can also use either the little cubes as loose fill or the large blocks to plant bare rooted clones like from a clone machine.
I tried wetting one of the small cubes under a very small stream from the sink faucet and was amazed at both the quickness of the penetration of the water, which was basically instantaneous, and by the amount of water that it absorbed. It absorb quite a bit more water than my 1.5" oasis foam cubes which is the most absorbent medium that I have found and it was much quicker. That is more impressive when you consider that the 1.5" Oasis cube has three times the volume as the 7/8" x 7/8" x 1" Sure To Grow cube. The cube let a lot of the water drain out quickly which promotes good aerationof the medium and the roots/seeds/clones in it. After it drained for maybe 15 seconds and quit dripping is when I squeezed the water out of it to see how much it had retained. Within 2 minutes of finishing the squeezing the cube, it was dry to the touch. It "holds" water in the many mircospaces inside of the fiber block and slowly releases it either by evaporation or by the roots absorbing the water rather than the individual fibers than the individual fibers absorbing the water and swelling which would block water and/or air movement through the media. The cube was as soft and fluffy when dry as it was before I wet it down.
I noticed when I was wetting the small cube that it had a soft fluffy loose bottom that could be move aside when inserting either a seed or clone and would spring back over it.
The only concern that I have is it doesn't seem to wick water up very well, but I'm not sure if that is a good thing or a bad thing. It is my understanding that bottom watering through the holes in the bottom of a pot is more the result of the roots actually growing through the hole and directly into the water than wicking. I have also been told that most of the water actually evaporates out of the tray under the pot. No only that, I don't know of many pot growers that try to bottom water their plants rather than using the trays to catch what drains through the medium after top watering.
After soaking a small cube in water at the end of the wicking test I shook tihe water off of it gently and laid it on a saucer in 70F or better air with a RH of less than 25% to see ifit dried out quickly or dried more like my foam. This is oging to be a subjective test because all but one side of the STg cube is exposed to room air while the foam was in 2" pony pots with two layers in them and clones rooting in them I would water them until I got run off out of the bottom of the cubes and in nearly the same atmospheric conditions they still had moisture in the 3 to 4 days later when you would press on the foam. The little STG cube has ell over 2 times as much exposed surface for the water to evaporate through. I'll try to remember to post when it was dry to the touch and when it was dried out completely.
I'm going to try sprouting my bagseed tomorrow and probably start some clones too.
Now I can see why my contact at FHD in Canada was so enthusiastic about it. He said he virtually never recommend something other than their product line, but when I asked for his recommendation on a growing medium he said that he could not believe the difference the STG made with his WaterFarm.
Then he referred me to STG's website and I emailed them about sample and here I am. Oh, the head grower that trains dealers on the use of STG ( a professor in botany in Ohio, I don't remember which college but I can find out if you want to know)is coming through the PNW next month and will be stopping in Spokane to meet with me even though they don't have any dealers that I'm aware of closer than the coast. That seems like pretty unusual customer support considering that I haven't even used the sample yet and certainly haven't purchased any of their products. Incidentally I believe they make complete hydro systems too, but no one has tried to convince me to change from the WaterFarm system to one of theirs.
I wish I knew someone personally who has used Rockwool so I oculd have them compare STG to Rockwool based on personal use rather than what people tell me aboutthe Rockwool.
I'll keep you all informed as best I can.
Good smoking.
