Growing trees in perlite

[blackcat]

Does anyone know if perlite is a suitable medium to grow trees in? I'm not ready to jump into water culture just yet and pure soil is just tooooo slow for me. I've grown smaller plants in pots of perlite but not sure if it is stable enough to support a 1 lb plant even with staking and/or tomato cages



btw i said perlite for simplicity. im actually growing in 100% PBH (thx seamaiden lol) but it is similar to perlite in consistency. just everyone knows what perlite is.

 

[jeb1010jeb]

25 years ago I grew in pint sized clear plastic cups filled 100% with perlite and pumped dilute miracle gro through a drip system into those cups. Didn't know nothing about ppm or pH. Man, those were the days!

 

[PuraVida305]

I just started with str8 perlite on a drip system... so far everything looks great been in veg 10 days... the perlite does hold more water than the hydroton... GL

 

[wobbly goblin]

you may want to do a test grow using napa part #8822 oil absorbent as it has a kitty litter type texture that has enough heft to support a plant and a better cec then perlite


fwiw

 

[t.o.med]

check out janus some of the biggest trees ive ever seen in any medium 100% perlite.

 

[Builtaforest]

Perlite is pretty versatile.

Can top-drip, handfeed, mix with promix, mix with coco, buckets, smartpots, all works etc.

Look into "hempy buckets" as well!

All the best

 

[Jalisco Kid]

check out janus some of the biggest trees ive ever seen in any medium 100% perlite.

Those were grown in lava.You can see the size of the lava in the veg tanks. He did switch over to perlite. Lava is my fav but too heavy and a bitch to clean. JK
In aero I have no support for the roots, just my highly engineered pvc supports you see in Janus's pic's and a bunch of bags of yo-yo's.

 

[AzGrOw-N-sMoKe]

I've grown plenty of 1/2# trees in 5gal hempy buckets with pure perlite with great success... they do need to be very well supported cause the perlite is real lite when it starts to dry up... it is also a leading choice in other hydroponic produces for many reasons... peace Az