Please see below for the root pouch I did myself. I am worrying about ending up with a soggy root pouch base like the one shown with the arrow at 2. photo. I tested a small pot (from the same felt material) with a regular soil and saw that water drains each time a bit slower indicating that soil particles are blocking the felt pores . I have not tested with my substrates (which are soilless) though… Composition being peat moss, cocopeat, pine bark and perlite.
Furthermore I would like to ask if there is any link between felt/fabric density (e.g. 250 g/m2) and the threshold where air pruning stops?
I mean after a certain thickness roots may not be able to penetrate and get in contact with air right?
The arrow is pointing to the perched water table. Unless you change the laws of physics you will always reach a point where surface tension defeats gravity. If you add more perlite, and also DE the size of perlite, you can lower the perched level, but never get rid of it.
That one looks pretty good to me! Mine is higher.
Make sure all the soil is the same. If you use a different soil at the bottom, you will raise the perched water table, not lower it.
I have no clue for your other questions.
Thank you. Keeping the height of the pouch a bit more can be another measure in the case of blueberries right?.. As far as I know their roots penetrate no deeper than 10 inches right?
That sounds right. I have moved plants and they have sprawling shallow roots. A lot of very fine roots, at least mine had them. Yes a taller bag would keep the root zone drier.
I like fabric a lot, but I have the opposite problem. Keeping them wet enough. Blueberries don’t like wet feet, but do like to be moist. You must be in the Pacific Northwest. Or in the wet south.
If the pouch is setting on the ground there won’t be a perched water table. For that to be true there needs to be a continuous capillary pathway for the water to follow. A plastic pot setting on the ground will probably have a PWT. That’s because there is an air gap that interupts water drainage. If you put a sock in the hole in the bottom of the pot and set that on the ground water will drain thru. Any capillary pathway to the soil will drain out the excess water.
To get air pruning the outside edge of the media needs to dry out between waterings. The roots are pruned in that dry media not in the fabric. So the fabric needs to be permeable to water. That allows the media to dry out some.
Only reason I remember is I was reading another topic about 10,000 blueberry plants and using pumice as a substrate, an noticed that the poster was from Turkey.
I read that too, interesting for sure. But I didn’t remember! I always thought Turkey was rather hot? But I suppose it has regions like so many places. I would love to visit there sometime.
it will but if you have any plants that put down deeper roots, they will root themselves into the ground. happened to me with some cheaper grades of pots i used years ago.
just to give you an idea, Turkey s latitude corresponds to that of Maryland and more or less of Pennsylvania…