Down Sizing Large Potted Trees

What I mean by down sizing is changing the environment the plant is growing in by size. I'm going to transfer this coffee tree from a 35gal dirt mix tub to a 5gal insert using the system. I was doing this 10yrs ago , just before the greenhouse. It was what I was working on while I was there. Kind forgot my beginnings.

Since I've been working on the system I started noticing the different types and growing habits of roots. To explain it I came up with a saying that "The reproductive rate of a root is directing related to it's reproductive capacity and inversely proportional to it's degree of differentiation. " Roots grow different ways in different situations. In hydro roots do better with air than not. In aquaponics Plants can only absorb so such waste without added air. Plants are fine but you poison the fish. All those things and more affect how roots grow.

One of the advantages of the system is the volume of dirt mix to the system. Without air I give it 5 to 1. With air I give it 10 to 1. But where to start. The mix. What happens is the sealed container. Thru simple evaporation causes the Perlite to pass water vapor up thru the mix. Those vents are soon choked over by air roots forming. That causes the top few inches to dry. Once that happens the water can only go thru the plant, out the leaves for respiration. Big advantage over dirt which loses 80% to the air. Under that “crust” of Perlite is where moisture and air mix. And the difference again shows over dirt mixes. Primally “ph”. The way of getting the plant to take in the fertilizer your giving it. I call it force feeding. Thing is doing it Organically ph isn’t considered.

Which means you can grow anti aerobically as well. When the ph goes wrong the cell wall start to flush off. Then the bad bacteria move in. But because the growing plant sets the ph it’s not effected by changes. The way a plant does this is by wilting. Releasing juices back into the environment to bring the environment back. Bacteria helps by consuming those juices to produce more juices to balance the environment. Consuming the juices rather than the plant. The next is the lower all water environment. This is where all the action, life and death struggles of micro-funa goes on. Even inside the plant. When that gets broken down it’s plant food. With the seasons the bacteria grows fast in the Spring and dies off during the Fall and Winter. The plant is sitting in that soup waiting for Spring. Where the cycle starts all over again. An by the way because it’s a water environment the plant can freeze over winter and come back in the Spring. Neat little trick huh.

But the over riding concern here is water conservation. In a sense this down sizing helps me to realize that in practice. This move forces me to realize that. I don’t need large volumes of water for large volumes of dirt any more. Funny thing is I was doing this 10yrs ago.

Blueberries are a good example of Bio-Ponics. See with Bio-Ponics ph doesn’t matter. The plants juices and Bacteria inter actions set the ph. You know you can grow Blueberries in a bale of Peat moss. It’s that low of a ph. But with Bio-Ponics the juices from the roots are consumed by the bacteria. The ph for both becomes the same. Which is why it works anaerobically as well. Anaerobically...growing plants anaerobically. Yes and I have an explanation. In Nature as in the system a root section is divided into three parts. The top few inches below the dirt are the air roots. Below them are the nutrient roots and below them are the water roots. In the system their called, the always dry section, the always moist section and the always wet section. An just like in Nature the always dry section can be under water for awhile just like the always wet section can be dry for a while.

A major difference is that ground once dry takes a lot of water to moisten it again. All the while the water is evaporating in sunlight. With sealed containers the water only has the plant for the water to transpire thru. Which is why I say the system saves about 90% of water used. In Nature you lose about 80% to the air. Another 10% to the bacteria and fauna that lives in the soil. That only leaves 10% for the plant. That’s why you can look at a modern farm and see the SHEER waste of our most valuable resource. Even growing our own plants show a disregard for that resource by watering till it run off. That’s wasted water. In our culture we waste water every time we turn on the tap. The world is running out of fresh water and we should save as much as we can while we have it to waste. That’s another reason to down size the fruit trees. I had a 100 trees here that times I had to water from the 500gal tanks. Even after mulching they’d dry up fast. I’d run out of water in a month and had to use city water. But that didn’t happen very often. Makes me wonder why it had to take a move to make me remember it.

Something I want to remember to say is about mixing the system mix with roots that are pressed into an insert. I put a bed of system mix for the root mass to lay on. Then pour more mix on top of the root mass. Then violently pull up and down with short strokes. That gets the mix falling thru every gap the motion opens up. When the roots start to appear just top dress with more mix. Keep doing that until the roots no longer peek out the mix. The same measure for the crown of the tree sitting at the right height above the mix. The mix is granular so it slips between the roots as you move the trunk up and down. That lifting spreads the mix thru out the roots in the container.

The Down Sizing of trees isn't limited to fruits and Coffee trees but works with Bio-Fuel as well. I was looking at the different types of Bio-Fuel plants and the best has been the Barbados nut. I have quite a few and two large 6' multi-branch trees. Those were in 5gal dirt mix buckets. Transferred to a 2gal insert with a 5gal container. The roots started pushing out the 2gal insert after 2 months. The "system" mix is the same for all the trees and plants no matter seedling or full grown tree.