No till in an earthbox

Anyone experienced running no till in an earthbox?

I'm currently building my own, will end up just like the ones they sell in the US.

Do you let the reservoir at the bottom completely empty so as to give the soil a bit of a dry period?

Do you have to top water a little still to keep a cover crop alive?

I think @Hollatchaboy did this, not sure if it's still going/how many cycles it lasted

Also there's the Build-a-Soil series on it, which I'm aware of but haven't watched in its entirety...

Yea I had one running. Ran it three cycles. Works really good, but I realized I was actually doing more work in the long run, so I switched to auto water, dtw coco. It only takes me 5 mins. to mix up a bucket of nutes, dump it in the res, and ph it. It's more consistent. Not to mention, no more bugs, not even fungus gnats.

Spineytingley said:

Anyone experienced running no till in an earthbox?

I'm currently building my own, will end up just like the ones they sell in the US.

Do you let the reservoir at the bottom completely empty so as to give the soil a bit of a dry period?

Do you have to top water a little still to keep a cover crop alive?

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No. Don't let the reservoir run dry. The purpose with SIPS growing is to keep the soil moist and let the plant drink what it wants , when it wants

natureboygrower said:

No. Don't let the reservoir run dry. The purpose with SIPS growing is to keep the soil moist and let the plant drink what it wants , when it wants

Click to expand...

That's not entirely correct, imo. I would let the res run dry, but not for dryback, it's not needed, but more because dead, decaying, organic matter, has a tendency to cause anaerobic conditions. Id let it run dry to get rid of the stagnating water, and keep anaerobic microbes in check. I would only let the res stay full, if I used em1 every res fill. This is just my opinion though.

Hollatchaboy said:

That's not entirely correct, imo. I would let the res run dry, but not for dryback, it's not needed, but more because dead, decaying, organic matter, has a tendency to cause anaerobic conditions. Id let it run dry to get rid of the stagnating water, and keep anaerobic microbes in check. I would only let the res stay full, if I used em1 every res fill. This is just my opinion though.

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No problems with stagnate water if you run a bubble stone in your res. You dont want the rez to dry out completely or your wicking soil may stop wicking water ( per Earthbox )

I run a new water only soil every grow, whenever I used Em-1 i suffered what looked to be minor nute toxicity.

Op, if you like videos you can check out Herbin farmer and pedros grow room on youtube. Especially Herbin, he ran no till and subirrigation.

Re: letting the res run dry, I've been letting mine go dry, but not stay dry for more than a day, and I don't notice any difference in the saturation of the top layer of soil between having the res full vs nearly dry. Maybe the soil in the wicks dries out first, I wouldn't know...

I also don't really stress about having anaerobic bacteria down there. Wherever there is enough oxygen, the anaerobic microbes will get out-competed by aerobic ones, and since there are holes in the bottom of the soil tray, it means that even the bottom layer of soil is exposed to air (part of the beauty of the SIP design). The wicks are the only place that might get anaerobic if you leave the res perpetually full, and that's like maybe 5% of your soil volume. If you're worried about it just let the res go empty before refilling.

Thanks all. Great info. Buzzing to get it started soon. Boxes all built and ready to go. Going to run two 90l earthboxes in a 4x4