Has anyone here vegetated plants for a week or two (or longer) in 4" or 3" rockwool cubes on an ebb and flow table, then successfully transplanted them into netpots (with hydroton) for rdwc / dwc buckets .......
I guess the downfall with the 1 to 2 week rockwool veg on a table would be that there would be little to no roots exiting the cube whereas you want the root promotion for the RDWC to take hold - unless I purposely leave some standing water between floods on an ebb and flow table - then the roots would creep out some..... which lead me to an idea..... (20 yr ebb and flow grower here, seen it all happen with the flood and drain lol)
What would prevent me from veg-ing them for a week on the ebb/flow table - no standing water, between floods. Then when the cubes get decent roots showing, put them in my 8" net pots (with hydroton), and put the 8" net pots on the flood table and flood and drain some more..... leaving a little standing water to coax some roots out.... run it another 7 days or so like that, then pop the netpots into the RDWC buckets - for another week or two of more veg (3-4 weeks veg total including the veg time on the ebb/flow table) . Would there not be a good enough amount of roots for them to take off into the RDWC at that point ?
The goal for me here is to 1) conserve on electricity, instead of firing all of my lights just to bring the clones up to a decent size, as the PART of the veg could be done in a concentrated fashion on an ebb and flow, and 2) this would get the whole program moving for me while I wait for some final RDWC components.
I have a few people telling me that a rockwool cube transplant into a netpot for RDWC is not the best idea, and I agree that nothing can trump a clone in a 1" plug residing in a net pot since day 1 - but I really do not see any roadblocks with what I want do, as long as I can get some roots coming out of the netpots before I take them off the ebb and flow table. On the ebb and flow, I would probably step up the floods, leave some standing water, cover the netpots with black plastic to promote the roots.... and use 3" rockwool cubes, (4" seems too big for the idea)
Any input, anyone ? Thanks.
I guess the downfall with the 1 to 2 week rockwool veg on a table would be that there would be little to no roots exiting the cube whereas you want the root promotion for the RDWC to take hold - unless I purposely leave some standing water between floods on an ebb and flow table - then the roots would creep out some..... which lead me to an idea..... (20 yr ebb and flow grower here, seen it all happen with the flood and drain lol)
What would prevent me from veg-ing them for a week on the ebb/flow table - no standing water, between floods. Then when the cubes get decent roots showing, put them in my 8" net pots (with hydroton), and put the 8" net pots on the flood table and flood and drain some more..... leaving a little standing water to coax some roots out.... run it another 7 days or so like that, then pop the netpots into the RDWC buckets - for another week or two of more veg (3-4 weeks veg total including the veg time on the ebb/flow table) . Would there not be a good enough amount of roots for them to take off into the RDWC at that point ?
The goal for me here is to 1) conserve on electricity, instead of firing all of my lights just to bring the clones up to a decent size, as the PART of the veg could be done in a concentrated fashion on an ebb and flow, and 2) this would get the whole program moving for me while I wait for some final RDWC components.
I have a few people telling me that a rockwool cube transplant into a netpot for RDWC is not the best idea, and I agree that nothing can trump a clone in a 1" plug residing in a net pot since day 1 - but I really do not see any roadblocks with what I want do, as long as I can get some roots coming out of the netpots before I take them off the ebb and flow table. On the ebb and flow, I would probably step up the floods, leave some standing water, cover the netpots with black plastic to promote the roots.... and use 3" rockwool cubes, (4" seems too big for the idea)
Any input, anyone ? Thanks.