Root Maker Slide Show

Root Maker Air Pruning Containers

Category:

Education

Tags:

• roots
• gardening
• containers
• air
• pruning

[TheEGS07]

The fatasgardner also commented that the smart pots fell apart during season! The Roottrapper bags are thicker and the while lining also makes them stronger. Of course thicker material and the extra step of lining the bag with extra white material adds cost. This is part of why these containers cost more than smart pots.

You get what you pay for! In a future post I will give more details about why the plastic rootmaker and rootbuilder2 containers are the best pots (not bags) that exist !!

[TheEGS07]

The Root trapper bags where designed to address these issues. The root trapper bags work completely different from smart pots. The material acts like velcro to the root tips. when the roots hit the fabric they get stuck. because they cannot grow forward they are forced to branch out. This fabric does not use air to prune the tap roots and roots that reach the bottom of the bag ARE pruned. These bags do not get salted and they conserve water while keeping the roots cooler due to the white liner

[TheEGS07]

The first issue is the bags hold moisture, but being that they are exposed to air and they dont hold as much as the soil... the smart pots tend to get salted when using mineral nutrition . Proof of this can be found on youtube as someone else posted a video on how to clean salts off of smart pots! The problem with salts building up on bags is that eventually you will prune roots with salt instead of air. Other issues where heat and water conservation as the bags are black

[TheEGS07]

the first problem with the smart pots are that when set down on wet earth or a plastic tray the tap roots and any roots that reach the bottom of the container are not pruned as the smart pot relies on air pruning and since the bottom of the bag stays wet... roots are not pruned. Next unlike the rootmaker containers which direct the roots to air holes on plastic containers ... the entire smart pots exposes root tips to air. While this may seem like an advantage , there are some issues with this

[TheEGS07]

let me quickly respond to fatasgardner... The rootmaker system was designed mt Dr. Carl Whitcomb known as they expert in root pruning technology.

Ironically enough he also invented the smart pots. The Smart pots where his first attempt at this kind of container. While they do work much better than standard pots... there are some issues with smart pots that Dr. Carl Whitcomb has addresses in his newer designs.

[fatassgardener]

the larger ones. A couple of them came apart on me mid season.

[cannasseur]

@fatassgardener which ones did you use?

[fatassgardener]

I used these before, Smart Pots are better and not as expensive. SMART POTS RAWK!!!!!!!