I've not tried that... are you sure the design would work well enough that the roots would not stay too wet?

Vladimir, I haven't tried them either because like Laura I am afraid of root rot, especially during the period when the tree's roots transition to the new growing media and cultural conditions. I grew orchids semi-hydroponically for several years because I travelled a lot and I hoped it would extend the period between required waterings when I was away from home and my greenhouse. Although most of my orchids did ok, I have since gone back to bark mixes as I don't travel so often now. What I found was there is a transition period during which the plants regrow new roots that adapt to the semi-hydro conditions. The transition timing is important as the plants need to grow the new roots and will sulk and lanquish if the transition is made too far into the years growth period and there are not enough new roots to support the plant above ground parts. If there is not enough roots generated during the growth period the plant will not have a way to get enough food and energy to support the top of the plant/tree. I also found I had to keep the greenhouse much warmer as the medium cools quickly as the air moves through the medium and pot. Even though I flushed the pots often, fertilizer salts seemed to build up and burn the roots if I was not careful and the reservoir dryed out between waterings. I think my high pH water and fertilizer would cause wide fluctuations in the growing medium that was not good for the plants if I was not careful. I also got a lot of algae growth in the transparent pots I used which was not very nice to look at and also seemed to clog up the air spaces that are part of the system. But overall I mostly was able to grow and bloom plants under the method, but I was not overall satisfied with plant long term growth. I think the SIPS pots may also have many of the same disadvantages for citrus that I had with my orchid's in semi-hydro culture. It served it's purpose for my needs for a while, and I think plants can be grown in most any medium if you watch carefully and make adjustments to help your plant and trees adapt to the different growing conditions, but I didn't feel I was giving my plants optimum growing conditions.

Cory

There have been previous write ups on this. I would mot use one of these.

6b Steve

Cory, thanks for sharing your observations.

The setups that I have seen on the fig forums use two 5 gallon buckets as shown below. The the small container has soil in it, which is in contact with the soil above, and serves as a wick drawing water from below. The pipe is for adding water to the reservoir. The soil mixes I have seen used for figs are quite water retentive containing various amount of peat. These SIPs are very popular with the fig growers and root rot does not seem to be a problem with them. Could citrus be that much more sensitive to root rot than figs?

I have searched but could find nothing about whether anyone had any problems growing citrus in self watering containers.

Hi Mike. Glad to see you back.

You make a good point about salt build up and yes, you would have to use peat which is pretty scary if you are growing citrus. But how do the figs manage to survive? I have gone to the two fig forums (https://www.ourfigs.com/ and http://figs4funforum.websitetoolbox.com/) and no one says anything bad about the sub irrigation systems and in fact there are quite a few discussions about the soils to use, improvements on the setups, etc.

Hey Vladimir. Thank you. Good to be back. I grow dozens of fig trees and use straight bagged mixes loaded with peat because figs take up lots of water and outgrow their pots quicker than a bomb! I can't keep up with watering them in one season. Just like banana trees. They are hard to kill with root rot verses citrus. Citrus remind me of gardenia. They look like crap when only watered with tap and dissolved salts over a short time.

Banana trees leaves die back very quickly with salts.

Figs don't mind tap water only or peat moist mixes it salt deposits like anything I have ever seen.

Nite

All my trees go into a heavy mix like Mike's do. I use the vacuum method to draw fresh air through the roots each day. In the summer the trees go into the ground permanently. Unless you are going to draw air through the tree's roots I would stick with a 5-1-1 suitable for your climate and stay away from self watering pots.

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6b Steve

I'm glad that I at least can grow my figs in the ground. They are growing like weeds....going to be a good fig harvest this year knock on wood...;-). I think the points Mike makes are good and I had not even thought of the fact that the 5-1-1 would not work in them.