Learned that from posts here and on youtube before making an account. Its amazing how much info is on this site if youre willing to dig.
Forreal!? I wanted to do an experiment someday with cotton batting in place of the cocomat. 6 plants, 3 on cotton batting, 3 just sitting on the tray. I think I will try it my next grow now that youve peaked my curiosity.
I know of the video you watched. The guy's name was Mama something I think. It's what sent me on a long journey of experimentation a couple of years ago, which recently lead me to very small pots of coco with Blumats in Dutch leach trays.
I will 100% attest to the insane root system that is created by covering the trays in panda film. I used rockwool slabs and Unislabs, and what I noticed was the roots were mostly concentrated at the bottoms and beneath the slabs. I couldn't get the panda film completely air tight, so they liked the sub-layer the most.
I think it's why that dude used cotton batting. I didn't really trust the long term sterilization of wet cotton, so I bought a thick roll of coco mat. I never got around to trying it because I started using 6" coco cubes instead of rockwool because I founding hand watering them under the panda film was a pain. I tried to use Blumats with soaker hoses, but they didn't jive with the rockwool, so I bought the coco cubes and tried to replicate the rockwool setup.
But then I thought of using the dutch leech trays because I was vegging in them. I figured I could reduce the footprint of the flood trays and also just move the leach trays from the veg room to the flowering tents without transplanting them. I ended up disliking the coco cubes, so I decided to use similar sized fabric pots and fill my own with Canna Coco.
The problem is the Blumats makes the Leech trays too hard to cover with panda film because the leech trays aren't as tall as my flood trays. So I'm kind of back to square one. I'm trying to decide if I should stick with this setup, which is looking good now that I have the kinks worked out. Or go back to rockwool and maybe flood and drain the panda filmed leech trays. Or buy smaller flood trays for the coco / Blumats.
But yeah, I really want those roots back.