Drip trays

[Bennyblanko]

Hey there people 

 

basically my problem is this I'm a new grower n I've got two friends who've grown for years now one is telling me if I don't get drip trays I can't possibly get good weed whereas my other friend says I don't need to worry about them can anybody shed some light? thanks 

 

[Cannabissapean]

Bennyblanko,

It depends on what kind of grow you are interested in performing.   It sounds like one of your friends runs hydro while the other grows in soil?  It also depends on whether by "good weed" you mean tens or hundreds of plants, versus just one or two at a time.

If you are wishing to grow in soil and you don't mind dedicating a lot of your time to feeding plants every single time, then this is not so important a deal.  But nearly all other forms of growing are related to hydroponics in one way or another and you need to have reliable catch and return trays for that to run smoothly.  And anyone growing for volume knows that a good drip system saves time, relieves stress, and increases yield.

If you want to run hydroponics, then what becomes your greatest concern is how to reliably and efficiently get your seedlings/clones successfully started in the correct initial medium so that they can be successfully transplanted into the desired production medium for your hydroponics setup.  YOU must do most of the work in the Seedling and Vegg stage, whereas THE PLANTS do most of the work in the Bloom stage.  The idea is to reduce the amount of work that you have to do; that increases your enjoyment as well.

Your biggest job is getting the seedlings to that next stage.  That's where automation comes in.  Being able to control this fragile stage is of utmost concern, and that control is most easily achieved through some form of automation.  Don't let that word scare you.  If you can set a timer switch then you've almost mastered it.  It is through automating some of the aspects of our grow operations that we relieve ourselves of the majority of the daily headaches, and also thereby, we eliminate many of the human mistakes that can lead to failure of a crop.  Our work-burden is reduced, and we can then monitor and adjust the system, instead of having to feed the seedlings and plants every-single-time.  With decent nutrients designed with cannabis in mind, one only needs to mix the reservoir solutions once every week or two, and monitor/ adjust the solution once or twice a week.  Basically automation gives you the freedom to live your life again while knowing that your system is doing exactly what you want it to do even while you are away, playing, earning money, or getting high, or whatever; your setup is producing for you.

The drip-tray(s) is important in that it holds our seedlings/mothers and it catches and returns the feeding solutions in a closed system, reliably so that we don't have spills that ruin our homes or waste the solution and thereby potentially starve the plants.  Drippers CAN also be used for soil grows, but the run-off is usually either drained directly into the ground for outdoors, or for indoors it is caught only long enough to be drained to waste, so I wouldn't call those drip-trays, rather drain-pans.

 

I think you will best appreciate the advantage to having drip-trays when you view a series of videos on a basic do-it-yourself hydroponics setup, I'll link below. 

This 9-Part series of 15-minute videos is one of the core basics for the beginner hydro grower, and it works beautifully.  Mr. Green did a great job producing this years ago in British Columbia, and it is the basis from which most all other hydroponic setups are built.  No, he didn't invent hydro, but his video was one of the first and one of the best and most entertaining tutorials for the purpose of the home do-it-yourselfers.  If you are like me, you'll watch it again and again.  Take notes, because afterwards you won't be able to stop yourself from wanting to go to the store and begin buying the components.  If you have difficulties finding some of the parts, I have some creative sources you may be interested to hear, many of them are internet-based sources, others are surprising sources in the general market.

There are many types of hydro:  DWC, aeroponics, bubbleponics, ....  No, I'm not gonna try to list them all, and there are as many variations as there are grow setups.  Every setup is different.    Mr. Green shows you how to setup:  "Drip onto Rockwool for Seedling/Vegg", followed by "Ebb-n-Flow (aka, Flood-n-Drain) for Bloom".  Of course, you are free to design your setup any way you wish.  Mine is very similar to his and it worked from the first go.  

Here is the link.  If the link ever fails to load, then just go to youtube and look for "Mr. Green - I Grow Chronic".  I've also seen it translated to Spanish and German.

 

[Dust]

Like cannabispean slaid it depends on what goal you want to achieve, but for sure your friend saying that only dripping will succeed is wrong. Now you have all the choices explained above all you need to do is see which one suits you more  go around the forum and check at the grow journals with various technics and mediums and see which one attracts you more

 

Good luck and im sure you will love the growing world  

[Bennyblanko]

Nice one the fellas I'm in coco so the drip trays can be left till the next one and I want a nice yield but maximum power on the weed would you say the drip trays needed next time ? Also it's an indoor haze grow super silver I believe