by Nebula Haze
Have you heard about the “Kratky Method” of hydroponic growing? Is the Kratky Method good for growing cannabis at home? At its most basic level, Kratky hydroponics is a form of the oldest kind of hydroponic growing: plants growing with roots sitting in water. Specifically, the Kratky hydroponic method of growing is designed for easy care plants with hardy roots and short life spans like lettuce. In this grow method, baby plants get set up with a container of nutrient water and slowly drink the water down until they’re ready to harvest. This is closely related to DWC (deep water culture) except unlike DWC, the Kratky method doesn’t use any pump to aerate the water reservoir. You put your water in a container, seal it up, add plants, and don’t touch the water again until harvest.
The Kratky method is a “set and forget” hydroponic system that’s amazing at growing lettuce. This buttercrunch lettuce was grown via the Kratky method by Owen and Aki. Unlike some other types of plants, lettuce roots are forgiving and will thrive even in unmoving water.
But can Kratky hydroponics work for cannabis? In a word… no.
The cannabis plant has a months-long lifespan with variable nutrient needs that change when buds start forming. On top of that, cannabis roots in hydroponics are prone to disease and root rot unless the water is being aerated (typically with an air pump that bubbles air through the water, which dissolved oxygen in the water). Lastly, cannabis plants get big and are easy to tip over if they don’t have a heavy base.
But can you create a “set and forget” cannabis growing system? Not to the level of the Kratky method, but there is a way to get some of the benefits and still produce amazing cannabis…
Hempy buckets!
A “hempy bucket” is a proven cannabis-growing variation that shares some of the principles of the Kratky Method. Basically, it sets up a reservoir of water that your plants can drink from as they grow. As a result, you need to water your plants less often. Growers may be able to go a week or more between waterings. But since roots are anchored in a bed of soil, and the water reservoir is located in a bed of perlite or hydroton, plants are much less likely to develop root rot than if grown with the Kratky Method. And since you’re still watering plants every week or two, that gives you the ability to control what nutrients your plants are getting so you can give nutrients in the flowering stage to increase overall bud size.
The blue arrows in this picture point to holes in the bucket on the sides near the bottom of this hempy bucket by Nyce. These holes are key to the hempy bucket method. Water can only drain out through these holes. That means if you’re seeing runoff, you know the space underneath the holes is filled with a reservoir of water.
You can make a hempy bucket for growing cannabis just by drilling holes about 2″ above the bottom of the bucket around the sides. Fill with expanded clay pebbles up to the holes, then fill the rest of the way with your regular soil or coco coir. Whenever you water your plants, you will be giving them reservoir of water to draw from at the bottom of the hempy bucket.
Here’s an example of a modified 5 gallon Hempy bucket sent in by one of our readers with this note: 3″ modified hempy bucket reservoir with clay pebbles, 4-1 ratio of Perlite to Coco, 2″ PVC fill tube.
