Rock Wool Medium

[DirtyCoconuts]

Brilliant!
And it still indexes the hole....you must have some experience with this

[vegetalmatter]

It's been less than two months, but for those who are trying the rock wool + LECA mix for semi-hydro, how's it going?

Probably too soon to assess the state of the plants, but I'm interested in the "flattening" of the moisture gradient aspect

I missed out on grabbing some from Ray's website but might make a run to the hydroponic store this weekend

[WaterWitchin]

Originally Posted by vegetalmatter

It's been less than two months, but for those who are trying the rock wool + LECA mix for semi-hydro, how's it going?

Probably too soon to assess the state of the plants, but I'm interested in the "flattening" of the moisture gradient aspect

I missed out on grabbing some from Ray's website but might make a run to the hydroponic store this weekend

Well, crap. I forgot about it. But I have a new victim to torture into semi-hydro, so thanks for the reminder! That's how I plan on using it, if it works... to eliminate most of the dry line. So for the way I'm gonna try using it, it won' take long. I'll take a picture.

[Ray]

Everything is still a “go” here. All plants putting out roots like mad.

I have increased my “test bed” to include some phals, paphs and phrags in 100% cubes, and intend to switch all of the phals (from sphagnum) before they come in for the winter.

[MisterGuy]

I just found this thread. Two years ago, when I had a bog garden, I started tomatoes inside semi hydro with rock wool cubes. When they outgrew the cubes, almost immediately, I hadn't been expecting them to root so crazy, so I took a Dole Peach Fridge Pack plastic jar, which I believe is slightly over a pint, but I didn't have enough pellets. I took rockwool starter cubes for seeds that hadn't sprouted, boiled them, and layered them with the rocks.

By the time they were ready to go outside into the bog, it was a solid mass of roots and inert materials. I was planning to do it again, but move them to essentially S/H bucket in the front yard.

I would expect this to go really, really well.

[My Green Pets]

I had a Phrag Grande that grew very well in rockwool. I had it sitting in a water dish, too.

[vegetalmatter]

Got some cubes last weekend. I made a 50/50 mixture of cubes and LECA. I'm trying out the mix on a phal in traditional culture and a bulbo in semi-hydro.



The phal I plan on keeping evenly moist throughout the year and slightly dryer in the winter. The benefit I think is not having to repot it as often as when potted in sphag. The downside could be salt buildup over time. I am fertilizing light at 25 ppm at each watering. I will probably get into the habit of doing a plain ro watering every other week or so

The semi-hydro experiment is with a bulbo. For me, bulbos have the hardest time getting past the "dry-line" and immediately take off once I top off the pot with a layer of sphag

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At the last minute before cleaning up I decided to also try paph. godefroyae. My paphs all seem to all do pretty well in semi-hydro with just leca, but they do grow extremely slow..they might just be slow growers but who knows! maybe the flattened moisture gradient will inspire more roots at the base

[DirtyCoconuts]

I am excited to see this experiment progress. And that paph is beautiful! The leaves are flawless and so bright. Well done

[Ray]

My internal “Bill Nye” got to me, so I started a drying experiment yesterday afternoon.

I filled two square, 3.5” pots, one with cubes, one with a 50/50 mix with LECA. They were weighed, then saturated and allowed to drain for 30 minutes before being weighed again. I will take weights over time to compare the two.

I can say this though: the cubes absorbed almost 900% their weight in water compared to about 100% for the mix. (Of course, the mix weighed about 6x as much as the cubes when dry.)

Just a general observation this early, but the water absorbed by the cubes is evaporating a bit faster than that in the mix. I think that may be due to the fact that LECA gives up its absorbed water slowly, probably due to the spherical pores, while the porosity in the cubes are random, elongated gaps in the fibers.

[WaterWitchin]

I just incorporated the rock wool into several different plants where I've been struggling with dry line. Not a 50/50 mix, but strategically placed right above the reservoir, then another layer a half-inch or so from top. On the really tall pots, a few sprinkled in about halfway up. I'll give it a week or so and see how it goes.

Bill Nye, heck yeah! Let's get some science goin' on this project! Report in when ready...