The Everything SWICK Club: 2023 And Beyond

[Gee64]

I guess I'm lucky to be using synthetics for this plant since I don't think there are any active roots in the soil itself given how dry it is. If this were an organic grow it would be living on plain water in the res!


You mean for the next plant?

Exactly, to dial it in better.

I wonder how long that transition will take, from water roots to soil roots?

Lol I don't know but one clone got all it's water roots shaved off and it will only get top watered without a swick, and the other is still swicking but I'm not adding more to the res, only top watering for awhile, so lets see who gets where.

 

[Carmen Ray]

I'm using a swicky pad instead of perlite. My pots are tall, cylindrical 20 L cloth bags filled with super soil and plant roots. Spiky roots are trying to get through the bottom of the bag but they are air pruned. My soil is moist all the way to the top with a thin dry layer on the surface. I'm interested to see what sort of roots developed in my bags.

 

[StoneOtter]

Hi GEE. Fantastic work looking at perlite! Who knew size mattered! A cubic inch of small nugs of perlite has more surface area than one made of large nugs it appears. That makes me think water moves along the outside of them where it's stored on the nug and not necessarily in it.?

 

[Gee64]

Are ya saying that the sip fed too much water only and not enough food from soil ? Isn’t the water meant to wick up making all the soil wet ?

That is exactly what I thought would happen but in reality the plant grew a huge pile of water roots out the bottom and into the res, choking off the soil and the upper 2/3 of the rootball went dry starving the feeder roots.

I also use worms they till the top and bring moisture to the surface more too they cycle the nutes and mix em wel in it’s awesome there like my workers delivering food

I too use worms in my pot.

I do water too still atm though I hope to sip only next round whennoff these fabric pots

In the future I will top water my plants and let the runoff be the only way the res gets water. See if that makes a better result.

 

[Gee64]

Hi GEE. Fantastic work looking at perlite! Who knew size mattered! A cubic inch of small nugs of perlite has more surface area than one made of large nugs it appears. That makes me think water moves along the outside of them where it's stored on the nug and not necessarily in it.?

Thats my exact assumption. When I soaked the perlite over night I really thought the water levels would drop as the perlite absorbed the water but it only dropped a few ml's which I am assuming was air bubbles rising, not absorption.

 

[StoneOtter]

Good sciencing GEE!

 

[Gee64]

Good sciencing GEE!

Thanks Stone. Like Shed has mentioned though, soil and other factors play into this, but I am leaning towards making my swick reservoirs about the same size as the amount of perlite in the pot so the swick can't over power the pot with water. Maybe that will balance the ratio of feeder roots and water roots. If a plant drinks 1 gallon a day 7 litres of perlite can hold a gallon, so having 20 litres of perlite like I do is too much water I think.

 

[Hash Hound]

these are roots from wick fed plastic pots, both had a good amount of roots throughout

a 2g pot with wick

P205 CJ2 w8r (2).JPG

• Hash Hound
• Jul 22, 2023

P205 CJ2 w8r (1).JPG

• Hash Hound
• Jul 22, 2023

and a 3g pot with wick

P202 HD5 w8r (2).JPG

• Hash Hound
• Jul 22, 2023

P202 HD5 w8r (1).JPG

• Hash Hound
• Jul 22, 2023

 

[Gee64]

these are roots from wick fed plastic pots, both had a good amount of roots throughout

a 2g pot with wick

P205 CJ2 w8r (2).JPG

• Hash Hound
• Jul 22, 2023

P205 CJ2 w8r (1).JPG

• Hash Hound
• Jul 22, 2023

and a 3g pot with wick

P202 HD5 w8r (2).JPG

• Hash Hound
• Jul 22, 2023

P202 HD5 w8r (1).JPG

• Hash Hound
• Jul 22, 2023

I have had really good luck with wicks but eventually the organics plugs the wicks on me. Prior to that the plants love it. What do you use for wicks?

 

[Hash Hound]

What do you use for wicks?

I use an old cut up grow bag, same brand I usually grow in.
I don't know about getting clogged because I don't use organics in the res.

 

[Gee64]

I use an old cut up grow bag, same brand I usually grow in.
I don't know about getting clogged because I don't use organics in the res.

ok cool. Thanks I was using synthetic wool. I don't put organics in the res but roots grow down the wicks and pull vegetation and life with them. Algae and such, and the wick chokes off.

 

[Carmen Ray]

ok cool. Thanks I was using synthetic wool. I don't put organics in the res but roots grow down the wicks and pull vegetation and life with them. Algae and such, and the wick chokes off.

Following @Hash Hound example I am using the cut up grow bags as a wick pad, with wicks cut from a synthetic dish cloth. Although I have a lot of root activity at the bottom of my grow bags, the roots that penetrate the bags are air pruned. I am using organics in the res. My plants roots aren't clogging anything.

If you look at the roots that Hash Hound just showed us compared with your plants' roots and Shed's plant's roots, what are the differences and similarities in the type of roots that have developed?

 

[Gee64]

Following @Hash Hound example I am using the cut up grow bags as a wick pad, with wicks cut from a synthetic dish cloth. Although I have a lot of root activity at the bottom of my grow bags, the roots that penetrate the bags are air pruned. I am using organics in the res. My plants roots aren't clogging anything.

If you look at the roots that Hash Hound just showed us compared with your plants' roots and Shed's plant's roots, what are the differences and similarities in the type of roots that have developed?

I get really big heads of water roots growing through the cloth and hanging into the perlite like roots on a hydro grow.

The plant spends a lot of resources on water roots but doesn't grow much for feeder roots.

When I top water I get a huge feather duster root ball.

By weight I would guess swicking gives me more roots but they aren't the right type for organics. They would be splendid for synthetics.

I will get it figured out eventually.

I have to cut a bunch of Indica clones this week from my outdoor grow so I will soon have lots of testers. My plan is to compare 2 clones from the same plant, one swicked and one top watered and really see the difference, then make some adjustments.

I also think that the heavy moisture of the swick res is a bit on the cold side, as my plant looks both wet and cold, so I put a heat mat under the current swick grow and set it for 74F.

With warmth and only 3 litres of perlite I am hoping for a turn around in the next 7-10 days.

Today is day 4 after the one clone got its water roots shaved off, and it hasn't gotten either healthier or worse yet, but hopefully in the next 4-6 days I will see a change.

When I do the indica clones I will journal the differences between top and bottom watering and see what we can find out.

 

[Carmen Ray]

Gelato auto 1 roots

• Carmen Ray
• Jul 25, 2023
• gelato auto los organic roots sub irrigation swick swicking

Roots growing through the bag towards the res are being air pruned

I get lots of roots trying to poke through but they appear to wither away.

 

[Carmen Ray]

My plant is starving. The roots have now colonized the swicky pad and I think that is the reason that this plant is hungry. It's been drinking water and ignoring soil and feeder roots. I stuck in a BBQ skewer to detect moisture levels and it came out dry except for a couple of inches at the bottom.

I have given it another 2 Liters on the top and it is now running off slightly. I am considering my options and think I will follow @Gee64 suggestion to continue to swick but to top water as well. I'm not sure how this will go. I'll have to work with it to get the best results possible. If that doesn't work, I will remove from the swick altogether.

The swick was for me always a practical solution if I needed to get out of town for a few days but it seems like it can be problematic for organic grows. I've read quite a bit of Gee's experimenting but I'd be grateful if other organic soil swickers could weigh in please.

Gelato auto 1

• Carmen Ray
• Jul 31, 2023
• swick swicking top watering

Thirsty a.f. - swick not delivering.

Gelato auto 1

• Carmen Ray
• Jul 31, 2023
• swick swicking top watering

Four hours after top watering.

Gelato auto 1

• Carmen Ray
• Jul 31, 2023
• swick swicking top watering

Thirsty a.f. - swick not delivering

Gelato auto 1

• Carmen Ray
• Jul 31, 2023
• swick swicking top watering

Four hours after top watering.

 

[InTheShed]

I am considering my options and think I will follow @Gee64 suggestion to continue to swick but to top water as well. I'm not sure how this will go. I'll have to work with it to get the best results possible. If that doesn't work, I will remove from the swick altogether.

Shall I wait to see how yours do before top watering mine? Given how long my soil has been completely dry I don't feel like there are any feeder roots in there.

 

[Carmen Ray]

Shall I wait to see how yours do before top watering mine? Given how long my soil has been completely dry I don't feel like there are any feeder roots in there.

I wouldn't necessarily wait if I were you. The water will run off so there shouldn't be any harm done. I'd say it is worth the try. There may be active feeder roots in the lower level of your soil.

Mine showed measurable improvement after 4 hours, in the angle of leaf wilt, and 4 hours later even better but my soil is full of roots.

Gelato auto 1

• Carmen Ray
• Aug 1, 2023
• gelato auto swick swicking top watering

8 hours after top watering with 4 L of water to runoff.

 

[Azimuth]

When I ran organic SIPs with my old design (perlite or hydroton making up the reservoir space) and feeding my organic fertilizers extracts through the reservoir, I got deficiencies like you guys are showing even with my fish extract.

I switched to a design with soil all the way to the bottom and that seemed better so my conclusion was that the microbes needed in an organic grow to feed the plant aren't present in a water only environment.

Shed's salt based grow isn't the same issue I wouldn't think as there are plenty of growers using those type of nutes in SIPs to great effect fed only through the reservoir.

A perlite swick seems to operate on slightly different mechanics, especially an organic one where calcium is an important input for soil health and that element is heavy and seems to work better fed from the top. But for Shed's situation, I wouldn't think it would matter as much.

One way to find out is try it and see. One or two top waterings shouldn't hurt anything and may just solve the problem.

 

[Gee64]

July 15

Hi Carmen

I did some experimenting. I had 2 clones from the same mother in perlite swicks. They did really well until they didn't, and ended up looking pretty much identical to your problem, wet and hungry.

So me being me, I yanked one out and this is what I found.

If I was a hydro/synthetic guy I would have been thrilled to see a mass of hydro roots but I'm an organic guy so I want feeder roots. My plants need to eat their dinner, hydro guys have plants that drink their dinner.

I was going to feed them both to the worms but I had nothing else going on in the flower tent so I decided to shave the roots off of one clone and compare their futures.

So I layed her down and used a razor to shave her private parts below.

The one on the right was shaved. Both were top watering only for 2 weeks. They both did an amazing turnaround but both carry heavy scars from swicking starvation.

If you zoom in on the pots you can see hundreds of feeder roots exploding from the shaved one and none on the perlite one.

Here they are yesterday. The shaved one is still very light but color is returning, the left one that is still in perlite but only getting top watered is much happier than it was but still struggling.

It has a bunch of feeder root tips just starting to poke through the walls of the pot, but they are too small to see in the picture.

This pot was shaved.

This pot wasn't.

This is a rootball that was only top-watered.

My inconclusive conclusion is that swicking and synthetics go hand in hand and swicking and organics are polar opposites.

Organics has no need for hydro roots and synthetics has no needs for feeder roots.

I do think that with the extreme airflow a cloth pot provides, mixed with a synthetic feeding routine, that a synthetic swick will easily equal any synthetic soil grow, and very likely exceed it because of the O2 availability.

I'm very disappointed to be honest, I really wanted swicking to work for me.

It wasn't a total loss though, as I stumbled onto the fact that if you take a cloth pot full of soil, hydrated it for 48 hours on a swick, then remove it from the swick when it is fully saturated, and drop a bare root bubble clone into it, the clone immediately takes to the soil without any stress or hardening off period.

It's my new "go to" method.

I have put a lot of time and effort into cloning and no one single thing I messed around with had an effect this profound.

It was well worth the swicking trials.

Now I just toss cuttings into the cloner, drop them into swick-hydrated pots, and they are off to the races with zero coddling.

I drop clones straight into 10 gallon pots now and they flourish, when before, no matter how well I watered and pampered, I couldn't get them to adjust to soil without at least some stress.

So for now I will flower these 2 out to see how they finish, but moving forward I will return to top watering.

I will still experiment with swicking but to be honest, SWICK nor SIP has shown me a rootball that can compete with the feather dusters I get from top watering. I have seen numerous SIP rootballs that are huge, but they are always hydro roots, so for organics my conclusion is that natures intent was for organics, and natures intent was for rain to water those organics, and I always follow the roots, so its back to dripper lines up top.

I will still post here when I do swicking trials, and follow along what others post here, but my grows aren't going to be swick grows any more. Sip's neither.

No offense to the sippers, but I can grow better plants with top watering.

If I were using hard pots that may be different, but cloth pots already provide more air than any air gap can, and my root balls reflect that.

I do believe that swicking and synthetics will produce unbelievable grows, especially in cloth pots for the oxygen.

 

[Gee64]

To be honest, and I am going to try it one day, I think if you top water a SIP, or a SWICK with a very small perlite reservoir, and catch the runoff in the SIP/SWICK reservoir, but never add water from the bottom, and let the plant soak up the runoff until the reservoir is dry, you could easily mix organics and SIP/SWICK.

Just don't water directly from the bottom or leave standing water in the reservoir once the pot is fully hydrated. .