(r)dwc Worth The Hassle Over E&f? Better Yields? Sog

[Juicin]

Hey Everyone

Just wanted to get some opinions on whether or not setting up large multi site DWC rigs is worth it relative to large ebb and flow tables. I'm talking ~8 plants per square foot SOG so the netpot/medium width will not be very large. No more than 2 week veg from clone, large tables. Possible upgrade to RDWC if the tables please me enough to make more than a few of them, or need a chiller for summer etc. But nothing more than one man can handle

Assuming I was able to dial it in just as well as the E&F, would I be getting substantially better yields with all other variables being equal? (not sure if it's possible to have a strain that performs equally well in both setups but assume it is)

The biggest benefit I can see from DWC is the large amount of space for the root mass. To get anywhere near that I'd have to fill the E&F table with soil or hydroton to give the plants as much space as I could. And also the plant will constantly be getting fed.

But are either of these two things likely to get me enough yield justify the extra labor/cost to setting up relative to the E&F? Again assuming I could dial both in optimally, so pretend there is no chance of failure. Even though there are multiple reasons it's more likely in the DWC

 

[heisen]

setting up a DWC for a SOG.have fun with that.You might be able to get away with large multi hole totes but you would need alot of air stones and cool a lot of water.For suck a short veg time i dont think it would be worth it.I think where DWC shines is bigger plants that veg quick but easy to maintain once set up.

 

[Juicin]

setting up a DWC for a SOG.have fun with that.You might be able to get away with large multi hole totes but you would need alot of air stones and cool a lot of water.For suck a short veg time i dont think it would be worth it.I think where DWC shines is bigger plants that veg quick but easy to maintain once set up.

No it would be a normal rez with a piece of plastic mounted on top....Easy enough to cut the stuff I've done it before. You can source plastic at your nearest industrial zoned area probably....That's as far as I had to look

In a low pressure aero though, and I didn't even use it just sort of made it to do it years ago. Would be easier with air stones I would imagine...Or just sprayers to aerate about the same except i would have to raise them up

It's mainting temps I'm most worried about, a chiller will mean I need the tables to yield very well to justify the expense. I expect it should cost* about double the ebb and flow without a chiller.

Edit - Double the cost per square foot. Smaller sized tables probably pretty close

 

[Juicin]

Something like this



But with airstones and or sprinklers to aerate. I'm not sure yet.

~1 min in to see teh system better

 

[EventHorizan]

Something like this



But with airstones and or sprinklers to aerate. I'm not sure yet.

~1 min in to see teh system better

What have you grown in so far?

 

[Juicin]

What have you grown in so far?

I've taken other similar hobbies from theory to reality

I have no fear about this one

Assume i can dial it in as well as anyone on this site, although obviously that's not true. If i wanted to hear about how you think DWC is too hard or finnicky I woiuld have jsut left it at the 1000x other threads.

Tried to head this off...lol

 

[EventHorizan]

I've taken other similar hobbies from theory to reality

I have no fear about this one

Assume i can dial it in as well as anyone on this site, although obviously that's not true. If i wanted to hear about how you think DWC is too hard or finnicky I woiuld have jsut left it at the 1000x other threads.

Tried to head this off...lol

Alright you got me figured out... I admit. I wanted to say dwc is to hard for you. Smh...
Son I preach dwc on this site.. rdwc to be exact.
The reason I asked your back ground was to see if you understood the terminology before I wasted 10 mins of my time talking above your head...
Anyway good luck.... welcome to the farm...

 

[Juicin]

Alright you got me figured out... I admit. I wanted to say dwc is to hard for you. Smh...
Son I preach dwc on this site.. rdwc to be exact.
The reason I asked your back ground was to see if you understood the terminology before I wasted 10 mins of my time talking above your head...
Anyway good luck.... welcome to the farm...

Well you're not alone lol, every DWC thread some one says it

So why do you run RDWC instead of ebb and flow? Just personal preference? Anecdotally get better yields? Studies that say higher root mass or constant access to nutrients increases yield?

How big is the advantage if you can get it dialed in? 5% increase in dry flower, 20% about? What do you think? Optimally obviously

I like the idea of RDWC but I'd have to scale up my initial plans to make it work with tables. I'll def make an ebb and flow table as well to compare. On the face of it though I much prefer the idea of DWC. Maybe it's all the threads of guys saying "it's great but not for you" no man can resist the forbidden goodness

 

[SimplyCmplex]

I've run both, actually all 3. Dwc, rdwc, and flood table. I'd personally take top fed..with saturation dialed in over all of them.

floodtable is great if you can adequately supply enough floods...I never could flood the table enough to keep them happy...granted it was a 70+plant table.

rdwc Great growth..I mean great! ...changing and cleaning the rez every other week can be a hassle. Some strains just don't prefer soaked roots.

Dwc great growth from most strains...some don't prefer having their roots grown in water, leaves always drooping, unhappy looking, but steady growth. Changing multiple sites every 2 weeks sucks grease monkey balls!!!

Top feed trumps all I feel. Giving them constant supply of nutrients and oxygen, you get just about the same vigorous growth as rdwc and dwc, without individual site refilling.

Imo you probably won't see a big change to warrant a total switch, other than just trying something new.

 

[SimplyCmplex]

Wow..sog too...it can be done...sogging with dwc or rdwc you'd hate life.

 

[Juicin]

High plant counts make drip systems a giant pain, I had originally wanted to do a stadium or coliseum with drip or hand water but scrapped that idea after considering the difficulty of scaling something like that up. Monitoring hundreds of drip lines sounds like much more of a nightmare than most other systems when each line is not producing much bud. With larger plants it makes sense to top feed but with what I plan to do

And while I may have to clean the rez an extra time a month in DWC I'm ok with that if the yield follows.

Even pulling 10% more a year would pay for any labor costs for not much more labor would be no big deal.

 

[Juicin]

Wow..sog too...it can be done...sogging with dwc or rdwc you'd hate life.

If you scared go to church

I don't see why multi site DWC aren't everywhere beyond the law and chillers. If it wasn't for high plant counts being a limiter no one would run these buckets....

 

[SimplyCmplex]

High plant counts make drip systems a giant pain, I had originally wanted to do a stadium or coliseum with drip or hand water but scrapped that idea after considering the difficulty of scaling something like that up. Monitoring hundreds of drip lines sounds like much more of a nightmare than most other systems when each line is not producing much bud. With larger plants it makes sense to top feed but with what I plan to do

And while I may have to clean the rez an extra time a month in DWC I'm ok with that if the yield follows.

Even pulling 10% more a year would pay for any labor costs for not much more labor would be no big deal.

Ahh..I missed the 8 plants per sqft. For real... flood tables dialed in with the right strains can definitely hang with either dwc or rdwc. With much less work too.

Let's talk numbers for a sec...assuming all things equal, at the end of let's say a year with 4 total grows. Flood table vs dwc/rdwc would be negligible. If a difference at all.

 

[Juicin]

You're not a believer in more root mass = more flower?

Or constant nutes = more flower

That's really the key differences between the two as far as I can tell. My problem is I can't really find any information about DWC or cannabis. It's all about soil and commercial agriculture

Here is a study from texas A&M recommending a constant feeding regimen. They want drip feed but there is no reason to think it wouldn't apply to ebb and flow. They portray it as common knowledge

(3rd paragraph)
http://aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/ornamental/greenhouse-management/fertilizing-greenhouse-crops/

Now root mass I can find studies, but none about hydro. Which might change things, and obviously none of these are with cannabis. Here is one with sugar beets and in soil. I know cannabis is "m3" or whatever and beets probably aren't but it's close



You don't buy into this this stuff for hydro? Or not enough for it to make any difference? Pretty big margins reported in some of these studies

edit - not a study just an overview from A&M

 

[Mmjcaveman]

I would like to add that rdwc may actually be one of the most time efficient, money efficient, growth efficient, ways of planting.

I personally have experienced using
Ebb n flow
Top drip slabs
Coco coir
HP promix
Dwc
Grodan slabs with grodan cubes
Then rdwc finally

I set this system up thinking it would be a great system and it really is.

Ever since I installed this, I have watered 50 plants by hand over 2 times and have to pay much more attention to them as well so they all get their individual needs.

With this system you can literally (if you have good nutrients and equipment) walk away from the grow as far as feeding goes for up to 2 weeks with the correct methods such as keeping your water chilled and having a ph doser and monitor.

I personally have a large patient plant count and would prefer uninterrupted scheduled maintenance on the plant over hand watering anyway.
Plus the results that I see from the system are outstanding, adding misters to the system would just blow it out of the water I would think.

So far I really really enjoy my rdwc but I HAS only been 8 days.

Let's see how things pan out

I think this is day 1 in the rdwc. Went through some leaf septoria issues with all my plants recently for some reason and had to defoliate the plants and they are STILL happy as fuck in this system.

I actually have some of the same exact strain in some of my own mix (75% HP pro mix / 25% perlite) and I am seeing better growth in the rdwc even with mykos and azos added to the base of the cube upon transplant and they were transplanted on the EXACT same day

 

[Mmjcaveman]

This is like 6 days in I think after the defoliation issue granted they look like shit and bare as fuck. They REALLY are thriving. But I also use success nutrients so who would have guessed

 

[Juicin]

I would like to add that rdwc may actually be one of the most time efficient, money efficient, growth efficient, ways of planting.

I personally have experienced using
Ebb n flow
Top drip slabs
Coco coir
HP promix
Dwc
Grodan slabs with grodan cubes
Then rdwc finally

I set this system up thinking it would be a great system and it really is.

Ever since I installed this, I have watered 50 plants by hand over 2 times and have to pay much more attention to them as well so they all get their individual needs.

With this system you can literally (if you have good nutrients and equipment) walk away from the grow as far as feeding goes for up to 2 weeks with the correct methods such as keeping your water chilled and having a ph doser and monitor.

I personally have a large patient plant count and would prefer uninterrupted scheduled maintenance on the plant over hand watering anyway.
Plus the results that I see from the system are outstanding, adding misters to the system would just blow it out of the water I would think.

So far I really really enjoy my rdwc but I HAS only been 8 days.

Let's see how things pan out

I'm really enamored with the idea of the mister/sprayer hybrid DWC. I worry about getting the levels just right so muh plants get the nutes they need. Doing an NFT/DWC hybrid sounds like a good fix to that. Only problem is more heat

I'll be looking for a thread on your upgrade.

edit - and since you've got that nice little experiment running. I'll be looking for that too, or feel free to keep us updated here. Def on topic

 

[Juicin]

This is like 6 days in I think after the defoliation issue

Damn everyone living the dream but me

 

[SimplyCmplex]

I do believe more roots = better growth. But with a 2 week veg from clone you lose rootmass. If you're trying to scrog Id go flood table. If just growing straight up rdwc...but floodtable for ease.

Changing 8 plus buckets is a chore...but definitely rewarding. Id Veg some clones out longer and training them ...cut down on the plant quantity, and up the weight per plant. Oh and if you run into water/nutrient related issues in rdwc...you pass it amongst all your plants.

 

[Juicin]

Well while I would lose rootmass relative to longer veg plants*....In relation to a flood table it's going to be huge. Same space from a birds eye view. But so much more depth for the roots to grow on the DWC

Check the roots in the video on top of the thread...and it was like 2" rockwell cubes they grew in. Granted I'm pretty sure the guy in the video let like 100 of the plants on that table die because he was lazy lol

You can get some mass with a 2 week veg. And my understanding is the roots will grow in flower as well. Although that may not be a good thing for yield*