General Hydroponics Rapid Rooter Grow Plugs – Item of the Day
Every day I bring you an item on Amazon that I personally use or has been purchased by many members of the audience and I have researched enough to recommend.
Today’s TSP Amazon Item of the day is General Hydroponics Rapid Rooter Grow Plugs. Two years ago I began experiments in hydroponics and these plugs have been the absolute easy button. For instance these tomato plants were grown from seed in just 25 days, they even have blossoms on them already. I have been growing vegetables since the early 80s when I was a little kid in my Grandfathers garden. I have never seen anything like this, I am sure my GrandPa would have called it “sorcery”!
As you all know I am pretty new to Hydroponic Growing but now I am developing a full scale indoor vertical farm for home use, that will grow at least 25 plants to full harvest size a week. This new system will use a blend of deep water hydro and Kratky.
Two things will remain the absolute same though. One, I will use Barrina Grow Lights in it. Two I will use General Hydroponics Rapid Rooter Grow Plugs. When I started there were tons of options, other pre made grow plugs, some say jiffy pots work good and cost less, rock wool, LECA, etc. One product though had the most positive things said by newbies and the least negative, you guessed it General Hydroponics Rapid Rooter Grow Plugs.
Let me say I think long term I will find some option that is more economical. At 15 bucks a 50 pack they are about 30 cents a piece. Which really is not expensive when you think about what a head or organic lettuce or a baby bok choy sells for at the market. If I were growing 5,000 plants a week in a commercial operation sure it would add up. I figure for home scale production the cost is not minuscule but it is minimal overall. Also when starting peppers, tomatoes, egg plant, etc for spring it is almost not worth considering when most plants like that sell for 3 bucks or more a piece at box stores.
In the end here is the deal, I am in building mode with projects right now. The seed starting one, the indoor farm this week and two outdoor systems are coming too in my green house and aviary remodels. I want to form a baseline of performance with as few variables as I can, and these damn things work and work like mad. The roots grow so insane in just a couple weeks that I am forced to modify the dang net cups just to get the transplants out as you see in this video.
So it isn’t that rock wool isn’t lower in cost, it is that in side by side comparisons I have seen rapid rooter just do better for more people. It isn’t that LECA isn’t reusable and better long term, it is that in side by side comparisons I have seen rapid rooter just do better for more people, especially new people to the hobby. See where I am going here? It appears (to me anyway) that rapid rooters allow for less accurate PH and fertilizer calculations. Sure when you get everything absolutely perfect all of it works, and I am not saying you can just dump things with no testing and have these work, I am saying these will perform better than most other options even if you are not perfect.
I am simply using Texas Tomato Food, rain water and getting my PPM to about 650 for starts. Letting it go as high as 1100 as evaporation happens and that is it. As I am using rain water I didn’t even test PH which everyone screams you must do. Our spa PH kit says the PH is under 7, how much though I don’t know it only goes down to 7. I am going to get a PH test solution in place and get more accurate but as you can see, this all works and works beautifully!
If you want to see a full play list of the project so far, you can find it here. Also hold on tight because the new indoor farm is getting built this week as soon as Lowes gets my damn shelf in. Also tune in today, big announcement coming where some of you can come see the new indoor hydro farm hands on next month.
Otherwise though if you plan to start playing with Hydro, try General Hydroponics Rapid Rooter Grow Plugs. Let them form your baseline and if you can find a lower cost or reusable media long term, go for it. But if you are new to anything make your life as easy as possible. Frankly at 15 bucks for a 50 pack, I consider this a very affordable way to do just that.
Remember you can always find all of our reviews at TspAz.com
P.S. – This is one of those items where multi packs have STUPID, I repeat STUPID pricing. Buying a two pack is way more expensive than buying “quantity two”. Just be aware of that. Here is a full play list of the Kratky Seed System so far.
What brand net cups/pots did you prefer. Also do you use Texas Tomato food or the trio you highlighted from amazon as your fluid? Thanks
I use CZ net cups as they are the best I have found https://amzn.to/2xvfCpu
On fertilizer I use both Master Blend https://amzn.to/2WKbyfO and Texas Tomato Food https://amzn.to/2UDolxZ
Neither has worked really better but the Texas Tomato Food may be better for long term use (tomatoes, peppers, etc) especially in large kratky containes, but that is just a guess. The Texas Tomato Food is easier to mix, the good news is I am going to cover it all in depth on todays show.
I might have missed it, but are the Rapid Rooter Grow Plugs reusable, or are they a “one and done” item?
Officially one and done but I reuse them and discussed it on Friday’s show.
I use plain old drugstore hydrogen peroxide at about 30% with water to soak and reuse.
I reuse some with smaller root systems and I always reuse the ones that fail to germinate. Some I have used a third time they get weak by then. If they have big roots in them I use them once and compost.
I’m about 3 weeks into my first try at hydroponics using Jack’s method of Rapid Rooter plugs, net pots, aster blend mix, aluminum chaffing trays and the little indoor green house and I really love it. I’ve started a bunch of seed and am transplanting out into pots since I don’t have a way to do grow lights (no electricity yet). The only problem I’m having is that I can’t get amazon to ship the Rapid Rooter plugs to me anymore. Last month I got two packages but this month it won’t ship to my residence address anymore. Do you have a second best type of starting medium you could recommend? Thanks!
Finally able to order more Rapid Rooter plugs. Yeah!
In case it ever happens again though or I want to shift to something less expensive or more reusable. Do you have a second best recommendation?
Thanks again.
Did you decide on a better pan and a better board? You mentioned that you would talk about that later but I have watched all the videos in the Kratky series and nothing else was recommended. You mentioned both an 18 hour light cycle and a 14 hour cycle. Have you noticed any difference? Jack, thank you so much for recommending this setup. I have grown tomatos, various herbs, beans, corn, sunflowers and zucchini and transplanted into the garden with wonderful results. I do not even plant the lettuces and other greens in the garden but harvest from this system as they grow so fast. I use the fertilizer you recommend – Urban Farms Texas Tomato Food and Vegetable Fertilizer.
I am looking to buy a couple of these for seed starting early next year. Since they are moist should I freeze them or dry them out until I am ready to use? Just looking to prevent mold.
No need to do all that and if they dry you just wet them again so no worries on that. Unopened they seem unlikely to mold, I mean may be keep them in the dark. I have them sit around for months though and never had an issue.