As promised:

http://upmyphoto.com/image/68697/8335e56
http://upmyphoto.com/image/68696/65dae73

Look better?

That tree needs a bigger contain for the size.

Hi Laax, even if the roots only fill half of the pot?

Cheers

Yes, you need some place for the roots to grow. What you have now has very little room for the roots to grow.

The trees I have of a similar size are in 15-30 gallon containers.

OK, thanks, what do you think to the medium?

The medium looks good now.

As long as you control watering you can use as large of a container as you wish.

I go by what works for me & always use large containers. Everyone says you can't do that, well then prove me wrong. I haven't had a single problem doing it & the plants grow faster this way for me.

Sungold Lemon in 30 gal. container



Blood Orange in 30 gal. container



Clementine in 15 gal. container



Chinotto, lemon & Ginger lime in 15 gal. containers

Can't argue with your results Laaz. How do you treat your seedlings?


I wish Rootmaker made premolded containers in the 10, 15 and 30 gal size. I know they have kits, but I like the sturdy premolded containers.

Laaz, are you sure those containers are 30-gallons? I have plenty of 30-gallon containers and they look much taller and perhaps wider than the ones in the pictures. My 30-Gal. containers are 18-inches wide and 31-inches tall. BTW my largest container is a 90 gallon Root Maker Air Root Pruning container with a Chandler Pummelo growing in it. - Millet (566-)

I've struggled with this a little myself. According to conversions there are 2 different gallons to cubic inches - dry and liquid. There are 268 cubic inches per liquid gallon and 231 cubic inches per dry gallon.

So, as Millet says an 18" wide and 31" tall container is:

pi * r squared * height = 3.141592654 * (9 squared) * 31 = 7888 cubic inches

divide 7888 cubic inches by 268 = 29.43 liquid gallons

so Millet is correct for liquid gallons for that container.

Question what is difference between liquid and dry gallons? Where I've struggled is calculating the gallons of a container that has width that varies from top to bottom. It seems some vendors use liquid gallons and some dry gallons . . .

30 Gal per nursery that they can from. The one the Sungold is in is 24" wide.

Same as these. http://www.olivetreegrowers.com/blog.php?view=detail&id=14

The nursery can call them a 30-gallon container, but there is no way that the container shown in the Olive Growers picture would come close to holding 30 gallons. I doubt it would hold 10 gallons. Stoddo brings up a VERY interesting point. On what grounds, or by what reasoning, does the nursery industry give size measurements to containers that are not their actual (real) size ? In other words, how can a 5-gallon container magically become a 25-gallon container? - Millet (665-)

Good question, but these are industry standard 30 containers here. They take almost 3 2 cubic ft bags of soil to fill them.

Perhaps we're running into a case where the marketers are embellishing some to up sell pots? Looking up a gallon I find there there are 3 common types of gallons in usage today (liquid, dry, and imperial (British)). I still don't know which a nursery uses to measure pots, liquid gallon or dry . . .


a dry gallon is 268 cubic inches or 4.4 Liters
liquid gallon is 231 cubic inches 3.78 Liters

(imperial gallon is 4.55 Liters)

this means there is a 14% difference in dry vs liquid gallons. The only thing I can find is that fuel is legally measured in liquid gallons.

Now Laaz's pot being 24" wide would mean that its about 17" in height for it to be 30 dry gallons. I think since it's cubic measurement it's really deceptive - a few extra inches in width makes a lot more volume. Perhaps some pots are coming from Chinese factories that have some gallon # stamped on them and everyone just takes their word for it.

Here's some more evidence that deceptive marketing is taking place:

Rootmaker pot website they sell:

172 cubic inch 1 gallon square . . . .
190 cubic inch 1 gallon round . . . .

Sorry Rootmaker, not even close since I'm seeing 268 cubic inches equals 1 dry gallon (172 cubic inches is only 64% of a dry gallon). And it gets odder as it sizes up.

600 cubic inches 3 gallon round . . .
1125 cubic inches 5 gallon round . . .

268 cubic inches X 3 = 804 cubic inches so Rootmaker pot is closer to 2 gallons than 3 and 1125 cubic inches is 4.2 gallons.

Now, I'm not accusing Rootmaker of false advertising as maybe there is an explanation but I do find it suspicious how every cubic measure is rounded way up to a higher gallon size. Although I do commend Rootmaker for honestly listing the cubic inches. . .

I'm wondering how deep this lack of clear measurements go. And if its more than just a simple difference of liquid vs dry gallons (which is a 14% difference).

Does anyone have any info that can spread some light on this? I think we can try to educate ourselves by taking the measurements of the pots but if the pot has a tapered height its far more difficult to calculate. I'm going to check some pots for sale on Amazon and see if they give the calculations . . .

This mystery just deepens . . .

I see for sale on Amazon:

"Plastic nursery 1 gallon trade pot ~ holds 0.66 gallons"

"# Known as a 1 gallon trade pot and they are used by nurseries.
# These pots actually hold 0.664 gallons and not 1 full gallon"

Anyone ever heard of a trade gallon? Looks like this advertiser is trying hard to be honest.