I am guessing that you have already used rootmakers from lacebark industries out of OK. Overall how would you compare the two price-wise and ability to do what you asked of them?
I used rootmakers back in the early nineties and found them quite useful once you adapted to the differences water and media used. Biggest thing I found is don't let them stay in the rooting size pots too long or you defeat most of their gain in root mass. Are you using airpots to grow out for sale or plant out for yourself or to grow into bigger containers for sale or yourself?
I will have to look into them and check out how they compare to rootmakers as I will be at the growing end of some woody perennials and trees later this year and will be investing in some style of air pruning containers.
Thanks for sharing your experiences with airpots as this tells me they work as good as my experiences with rootmakers.
Happy Growing David

David,

I did not compare the Airpots to Rootmakers nor did I compare them to the Accelerator containers. A local nursery grows some of their trees in 40 gallon Accelerators. However, they do not sell their empties. I was trying to find a source for them when I found the Air-Pots.

I was unaware of the Rootmakers before you mentioned them. However, one of the drawbacks (for me anyway) is the limited sizes. I am growing for my personal use and plan on growing the trees to maturity in containers, so the having containers larger than 5 gallons is important. It appears that the Rootmakers are a bit cheaper.

I might pick up 10 of the five gallon Rootmakers (#40414) and compare it with the 3.4 gallon Airpots. They are more comparable in area than the 3 gallon Rootmaker.

~james

James, it's indeed a very interesting idea. Since I am working for a nursery, I am growing tropicla woody shrubs in containers just for my hobby. Most of my plants are somehow pot bound, the roots are circling around.

I do have concerns though. Does the soil in the container will leak out from so many holes? Is it easy for the watering? Or the water will run out of the holes?

James,
You might find cedarvalleyliner.com interesting. It is a commercial growing operation using various sized rootmaker pots and liners. I see they are using white on the fabric liners to beat the heat. We used latex paint diluted 50/50 with water for our black plastic grow bags we used in our fruit tree nursery in Hawaii (over ten years agao now). Really helped even if it is not as intense of heat we really saw the difference on the outside row of containers root growth after we started painting them. Looks ugly but worked well for our purpose.
The root makers do step down in size from top to bottom regardless of size of container you use. I have only used the 2 1/4" and gallon square. Back then I don't think they had any other sizes. But they were trialing the fabric. I am guessing (never seen or used personally) the fabric is somewhat like a weedmat material that would be air pruned but would be grown in a pot in the ground to stabilze the tree and lessen heat(sun) or cold on the rootball. I still want to look into this style as well.
As far as soil leaching I never saw that as a problem. Because of the extra air holes you do need to water more often. Not always a bad thing (specially if you think about some of the things Al has talked about in root growth discussions.
Anyway happy growing David.
P.S. I love the discussions on this forum, very informative and good nuts and bolts discussion on container and growing in general. Thank you all for letting be a part of it.

yellowthumb,

I did not have significant issues with either the growing medium or water running out of the holes. I used a mix of 2 parts Perlite and 1 part Vermiculite. The loss, while definitely not zero, was modest. I watered from top as usual. Most of the water drained from the bottom as if in a more conventional container.

David,

I was looking up information at rootmaker.com earlier. I have the same problem with the link you provided. The pictures are too small for me to see very well. I read that the Rootmaker containers actively direct roots towards the holes, but its hard to see how.

I travel frequently, so I had to come up with a way of protecting the cuttings from the heat while I was gone, especially since my friends are not the most reliable waterers (is that a word? LOL). I had all of my containers in a box I built, and I filled the box with mulch. When the cuttings (which were well rooted at this point) were waterd, the mulch was soaked as well. The mulch not only helped regulate the temperature, but it also provided moisture for the cuttings (the roots grew through the holes and into the mulch.)

{{gwi:4272}}

It seems to me, the same thing can be accomplished with the pot in pot method. The space between the two containers could be filled with mulch. Periodically, the inner container would need to be removed and the roots manually cut in order to maximize the benefit of the container.

~james

I haven't looked up the root maker web site but by googling rootmaker came across the cedar valley liners. There were a few shots that I thought might help but there are close up shots like your airpot shots. Rootmakers start out wide at the top of the pot and then step in a half and inch for every inch or two down getting fairly small at the bottom of the pots. This does lead to support problems and a need to prevent tipping over of plants as they get larger especially in wind-prone area. Here is a case where the turface or other expanded shale product by weight might be better than perlite for weight if no other consideration was helpful which would seem the case as reading form several folks here seems to confirm the usefulness of these materials. I am thinking of contacting cedar valley for some contract growing of a few trees hard to come by in the hill country like Lacey oaks. I would love to have a quality reliable source for Madrone as well. If I come up with anything else I will email or add to this thread.
Happy Growing David

I've used Rootmakers for about 10 years and love them. Mainly the 1, 3, and 5 gallon sizes.

randy