Paper towel to hydroton?? - Flood and Drain

Hi everyone,

I am on my way to my first hydro set-up. I plan on doing a 4x4 flood table scrog using hydroton in net pots over a 1000w light. I plan on covering the table with panda poly film so the roots/water are not exposed to light.

My question is.. is it okay for me to go straight from the germinated seed/clone right into the hydroton? I like the idea of not using any kind of plug (rockwool, rapid rooter) so I can water more frequently (once an hour-ish).. Will the net pot of hydroton support the plant enough to encourage good growth?
Will the plant support itself on the scrog screen so it doesnt matter anyways?
Will the roots grow out of the sides of the net pot and into the flood table if the top is covered by the panda poly film? I'm want the root mass as large as possible.
Are using plugs more efficient and I should just go that route anyway?
Does anyone else use hydroton only in a flood-drain setup? Would love to hear from you. Panhead if your around please chime in, I think you were doing something like this a while ago? Thanks guys.

I did it on this run. One tray used jiffy pods the other just hydroton. Just put the seedlings in crevices and they did ok. The jiffy pods actually seemed to do better after root formation, but I also used different nutes so not a fair comparison. I have found that the seedlings struggle in rock wool and anything that holds water until roots form. I also use sprayers and spray every 4 hours before roots form. Newb here so just what I have experienced.

We do 8" net pots with hydroton right out of the cloner works fine

blendy said:

My question is.. is it okay for me to go straight from the germinated seed/clone right into the hydroton? I like the idea of not using any kind of plug (rockwool, rapid rooter) so I can water more frequently (once an hour-ish)..

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If your using an aerocloner and have a healthy root system, than as @hammco2 said it works fine. If you just germinated a seed with a tiny taproot, well I suppose its possible but your asking for problems.

blendy said:

Will the plant support itself on the scrog screen so it doesnt matter anyways?

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If it has a decent root system the hydroton will support it just fine, in vegetative growth anyways.

blendy said:

Will the roots grow out of the sides of the net pot and into the flood table if the top is covered by the panda poly film? I'm want the root mass as large as possible.

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I read an interesting post about this, it must of been @panhead talking about this. I haven't tried it YET, but I believe the reason he flooded frequently was to keep root temp down.

blendy said:

Are using plugs more efficient and I should just go that route anyway?

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I don't think you'll find much of a difference. Do what works for you. Plants with healthy roots transferred to hydroton haven't failed me yet.

blendy said:

Does anyone else use hydroton only in a flood-drain setup? Would love to hear from you.

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It's dirty, but it gets the job done.

- Jiji

I think with clones that have established roots would do great. The thing that I had issues with were placing the tap rooted seed into a location in the hydroton, I bought, I think it was like 20 lb bag, its big lol. The pellits are the larger size so they kinda suck. Again they are doing ok

32 days flower

it can be done but its much easier and reliable to start seeds in rapid rooters. rockwool sucks because it stays too wet. 99.9% of the roots will be outside the rapid rooter so it doesnt really matter as far as that goes.

Thanks for all the replies everyone.

Since this is a brand new setup I have no mother.. So I'll try a little experiment.. Ill put some beans in rooter cubes and some straight into the hydroton once they germ. I may need to hand water the beans not in the plugs at first so they don't get too dry but other than that they will be exposed to the same conditions., we will see what happens.

I think the only differences will be, the hydroton seed dries out faster which you just mentioned, the rapid rooters have gel which supposedly helps the seedlings root, and when watering you could wash your seed down to the bottom of the container of hydroton before it has a chance to root.

"and when watering you could wash your seed down to the bottom of the container of hydroton before it has a chance to root."
Yes dont do that lol. I directed my nozzles at the net pot and cycled continuos till roots showed then turned it to 15 on 15 off. But yes as stated if watering be very careful, not a lot of support. Keep us posted as I just started trying different things myself.

We put clones from the EZ Cloner into hydroton never tryed seed root but then we only do clones have the strains we need so its a perpetual grow, Before we used the cloner we used root riot pods and if I was going to try seeds that would be my choice then they can be put into hydroton after they have established and will have a better chance.