They were cheap and the perfect size for what I needed. I think I spent like $1 per
smart pot versus $5 for plastic. Based on some reading, plastic is problematic anyways? I did read about someone scoring the sides of plastic pots before planting in them and seeing a reduction in root circling, but I needed guaranteed root health, not speculation. They are really just an experiment, never used em before and wanted to see if the claims were as true as I've seen on here and other forums. Convenience and cost effectiveness was the determining factor in them. Didn't mean to come off with that tone, realized that was kinda condescending of me to say it like that, I apologize.
Hell, I even questioned buying them to begin with because I was concerned about the coco drying out too quickly with them, but I also didn't realize how thick the fabric is either. Thinking one could make these easily with some landscape fabric and save a ton by doing so, will give that concept a try eventually.
I've stopped using the
CaliMagic for the time being. Plants don't seem to miss it and with my runoff EC being 2.1 I figure there should be enough cal and mag to get them through mid flower at least and will remedy any issues at that point if they arise. My input EC was 1.7 when I measured the runoff yesterday. Had an increase of 60 ppm over a period of 10 days in terms of runoff TDS @ .5.
This has led me to believe the
CaliMagic is sticking around in my medium as with 10mL BioRoot and 10mL A&B my EC is only 1.7. Adding even 2.5 mL
CaliMagic puts it up at ~2.0 and that's unacceptable from my understanding, causes the plant to not be able to take up the nutrients as easily.
I also dropped the pH based on some reading I did yesterday to see what happens. I fed with a pH of 5.1, which according to the soilless feed chart puts me right in range for an abundance of availability for nearly all the nutrients. As a result, in one day the purpling of the stems has actually diminished and one clone is even getting back to completely green stems and petioles. We'll see how a few days treats these ladies.
I've been reading a lot about different nutrient profiles and controlling these profiles. I believe I've got the plant of action for the nutrients dialed in pretty good. I'll make another long ass post about that though and get some of you geniuses to confirm I'm on the right track or have completely missed the pot.
Anyways, look at these ladies. Screen is taking its time filling in, but the ladies are branching out well. Whoever said you can't get decent sized fan leaves in a micro grow has never grown in coco, the far back left plant has leaves the size of my hands. Though that doesn't say much I ain't that big of a guy.
Group shot
Temp residing at 77* F currently, high of 81* daily mid-day through the evening. 27% humidity at this moment, though you can see the daily fluctuation between 37% and 22% RH.
Under screen shot
This is that fat one I mentioned, fan leaves the size of my hands in a micro grow.
Hindsight says I probably should've used different string and made the grid larger, but this is my first attempt at scrog, so it's all a lesson. LST seems to be much more rapid than this. Wanting to flip soon, it's gonna be too hot by May to be trying to fight temps in this tiny cab.
I have 9" of grow space above the screen, so I'm hoping these ladies don't try stretching for the stars. We'll see, it's all a timing thing in this kind of set up, right? Don't want to go too early, but don't want to go too late either.