What's the matter with Rockwool for non commercial growers?

[hydrodreams]

.......
Personally, I think the biggest drawback hydro has is its fragility. Power outages are stressful enough. And the more tech you rely on, the more severe those outages get. I think people getting into it are (reasonably) overwhelmed by all the moving parts to hydro.......

Well with hydro, it seems to be the opposite of Rockwool: The bigger the room, the less you see it. Rockwool: the smaller the room, the less you see it. It seems to me.

 

[beluga]

Well with hydro, it seems to be the opposite of Rockwool: The bigger the room, the less you see it. Rockwool: the smaller the room, the less you see it. It seems to me.

I've definitely made the same observation.
I have to assume it's largely tradition - one grower teaches another, a friend sees their setup and tries to emulate it, they get a photo of their op published in magazine or online and someone tries to replicate it, and so on.

I think every media can perform well on a sliding scale, from micro to macro. It's just a matter of getting used to it and dialing it in.


... hydro's faster though

 

[ninjadip]

I've definitely made the same observation.
I have to assume it's largely tradition - one grower teaches another, a friend sees their setup and tries to emulate it, they get a photo of their op published in magazine or online and someone tries to replicate it, and so on.

I think every media can perform well on a sliding scale, from micro to macro. It's just a matter of getting used to it and dialing it in.


... hydro's faster though

There's an interesting video by Migro showing that coco outperforms soil in mass, and full hydro outperforms coco

 

[beluga]

There's an interesting video by Migro showing that coco outperforms soil in mass, and full hydro outperforms coco

I believe that's to do with air supply.
Soil (especially those bereft of microbial symbiotes) doesn't allow much gas exchange; coco provides more; hydro, oxymoronically, provides the most.

 

[RonnieB2nd]

It's not very hard to recognize that allmost all of the big indoor companies in North America are using Rockwool as their prefered medium. In many videos where they talk about their facilities they also state the reasons why they chose to do so: sterility, steerability, consistency of medium from the manufacturer, low weight makes it easier to handle etc.....

In contrast to us non commercial growers(or better: "non-multimillion dollar facility owners ), where Rockwool is rarely seen anywhere. What is the reason for this? Is Rockwool especially sensitive for any imperfections of any kind in a grow room?

Does anybody know?

I am growing with coco and I am quite satisfied with the results, but I have always had a kind of a secret crush on Rockwool but never touched it since in any growshop they told my that nobody asks for it...

Absolutely nothing if you have automatic watering or else you'll be watering the plant a few times a day manually

 

[hydrodreams]

There's an interesting video by Migro showing that coco outperforms soil in mass, and full hydro outperforms coco

The hydro just had more total plant mass. The total weight of fruits was the highest in Coco.....

 

[Habosabin]

There is no way that soil would produce twice as much flower as hydro with 3x less mass. Makes zero sense.

 

[beluga]

The hydro just had more total plant mass. The total weight of fruits was the highest in Coco.....

View attachment 1282181

Huh. Something is way off there, but good looks pointing that out.

 

[Habosabin]

no one would use hydro with a 5% fruit return when soil returns 44%. That fruit column has typos or something. Soil returns 300% more than hydro. Something is not right. It’s weird that soil and coco return almost 50% fruit by weight and hydro only returns 5.5%.

 

[Anthem]

Just makes it harder to grow in RW

 

[hydrodreams]

Just makes it harder to grow in RW

What makes it harder to grow in RW?