Auto-irrigation

I use netafim Netbows and I’ll never go back . They are hard shell, and 10" though so they aren’t a great option for all.

1 Like

The exact media mix has a lot to do with how well it absorbs water and wicks to the rest of the roots. The best potted plants of any kind I have grown did well because I was able to flood the rootball entirely at each watering. Some media with a lot of peat can dry out so much that it sheds water, even when the package states it contains a wetting agent. Whoever’s system you want to emulate, you probably need similar media.

1 Like

sorry to hammer you with questions man, info on this seems to be pretty scarce (at least where I’m looking). any chance you, or anyone else reading this would happen to know a good resource on how to integrate an Opensprinkler with Teros sensors/dataloggers, and actually be able to implement the sensor’s functionality. Pi’s have been intriguing to me, but i’ve never had a god excuse to use one. This seems like it may scratch that itch, so i’m definitely not afraid to figure it out myself

1 Like

Go read through this. Automated irrigation build

3 Likes

<3 thank you

1 Like

@Medicine.grower gave you some solid options for data logging with the Teros 12’s. Aroya has the Solus app for spot checking with them. I don’t have experience with the open sprinkler controllers unfortunately.

Feel free to send me a DM, I’d be happy to help get you set up.

3 Likes

I did a year of testing with blumats in both coco and soil. If you go blumats go all the way. Get the top of the line mechanically driven pressure set up. The passive one is cool for small gardens, but once you get into 100+ plants it becomes nonsensical and unreliable. I was doing 100-300 at the time and you will have too many emitters at those numbers to be worth it on the passive set up. Also woulld keep each passive setup of blumats between 40-100 plants no more. I would go straight manifold on a timer or the top blumat set up if forced to not be hydro anymore. At larger numbers you will eventually come to the conclusion that current culture type DWC hydro is the way to go…Jacks + DWC is just incredible and quality indistinguishable from any form of organics.

3 Likes

The thing that has stopped me looking too far into dwc or rdwc for my small setup is having to worry about chilling the water. Are you running a chiller(s)?

I just set blumats back up in my flowering tent. This is queen Anne’s revenge a few days post flip and with blumats.


1 Like

Yeah for small I would not at all go DWC. Soil is king there. I feel blumats were not good for soil…reason being the inevitable fungus gnats. You lose your wet dry cycle and it makes it completely vulnerable. Yes many improvements in other areas but it just wasn’t worth it. In your set up I would keep the blumats though. You definitely can’t afford a malfunctioning manifold by the looks. You need to be sure whatever you are growing those in can contain the size of the reservoir you are using. Blumats will fail every once in awhile…I built long runs so used pond liner and 2x4’s cut to however big I needed rows.

1 Like

I can appreciate everything you said there. Fungus gnats are why I took a break from blumats but I’m using bacillus bacteria to control them now. They aren’t at a zero population but the numbers are reduced by like 95%. That will likely be a never ending battle.

As far as the reservoir/spills go, done that :slight_smile: the reservoir feeding both of those plants is only 7 gallons so it won’t flood the tent above the floor liner if it did have a runaway event. I have 3 7 gals plumbed together but I can turn them off individually. This way I can have the next bucket ready to go when the current one empties.

Edit to add , I used to run blumats with the pot elevated on a pot stand. Runaway events happened inevitably with that setup. This time I’m setting the pots on the ground in a tray so that if a flood event starts, the soil should get fully saturated and the carrot should shut back off vs draining the whole reservoir. I’m curious to see how differently things work out.

1 Like

Awesome welcome back to ‘mat life @VAcutsclub Good luck! I’m bout to setup another spot with them today. Prolly do pressurized maybe passive at first.

1 Like

What bacillus product do you use for the gnats? My girlfriend is addicted to houseplants and brings an insane number of them into the house with gnats in tow in most cases. This might be helpful.

I’ve been using mosquito dunks. They’re small cork ‘donuts’ a few inches in diameter. The way you’re intended to use them is to throw the whole donut(s) into a pond and repeat every month for the duration of the mosquito season.

I had great success almost wiping out the gnat population by breaking the cork rings into pieces and putting a chunk into my reservoir periodically. That creates some issues when the cork breaks down so I’m trying something different now. I added a little chunk to the tray that my pots sit in and broke some of the cork up on top of the soil (the bigger white chunks under the drippers in my pic above are pieces of the cork).

I didn’t specifically look into products for indoor plants but I bet they exist. I had the dunks so I figured I’d give them a try but they are likely not the ideal solution.

1 Like

I had read something similar to this a while back and tried it out, but with the green “light on fire” type mosquito coils. No wonder it didn’t work lmao, I had no idea the mosquito donuts were actually a Bacillus product, I’ll have to try them out.

1 Like

Put the dunk in an old sock or piece of cheesecloth when using in hydro. I change mine once or twice a week.

1 Like

Just use mosquito bits, easier to use than dunks imo

Mix in soil at transplant and call it a w.

I even incorporate them into my too dress mixes.

2 Likes

Okay so my memory from a post made by a breeder on Icmag along time ago (easily 14 years+) was that the donuts you buy at lowes contains too much of a certain nutrient and I believe that was sulphur? Over the years I found buying BTI for ponds resulted in amazing savings and a much fresher wet source…Do a search for the item below on amazon:

BMC Microbe Lift Biological Insect Control (2 Ounce) $29.95 (6 ounce) $27.16 (1 gallon) $149.99

3 Likes

This data sheet mentions that this particular manufacturer’s product contains calcium.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.planetnatural.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/mosquito-dunks-faq.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwihopO3mrL1AhVlHzQIHUafAF8QFnoECCEQAQ&usg=AOvVaw0xf5s1X2OKKxLE3Dai9v_j

2 Likes

I have floraflex drippers and the pot pro platforms so everything gravity drains into a 5 gal reservoir. there’s an automatic sump pump in the drain out res so any time the water is above 1/2” or soemthing it pumps out into a drain out bucket i have outside the room.

i have 4 whip drippers i think they emit 0.003gpm. I’m growing with beanstalk so i don’t need to go to runoff or anything, each plant gets like 500 mLs a day. i have a 55 gal res and a diaphragm RV pump on a recycle timer that connects to my trolmaster.

Interested in working more with drybacks but i’m such a small scale grower (caregiver) it doesn’t economically make sense right now to get something like an aroyo.

Let me know if you’re interested! happy to answer any questions, spent many nights scratching my head lol

hi everyone!, new member from the uk here.
what an excellent forum with loads of good in depth info to digest!.

i have tried drippers a few times in the past but didnt really gel with them and always went back to hand watering (small scale uk grower) but to be fair i wasnt very scientific with the irrigation scheduals and had never heard of crop steering with soil moisture sensors ect, so i am thinking of giving it another go but trying to do it some justice this time.

i have been looking at soil moisture sensors and the two front runners are metergroups teros 12 and acclimas TDR-310W, according to what i have read acclima seems to have the better sensor (time domain reflectometer vs capacatance).

anyone have any thoughts on this?, they cost around the same amount delivered to the uk so was just wondering if either had pros or cons from people who had used them.

i only plan on buying the sensor, i will be connecting the sensor to an esp32 and pulling all the data into home assistant from which i will be able to control irrigation events and graph sensor data ect.