Nursery pot sizes

[miamicuse]

I have an exceedingly stupid question but it's a bit embarrassing to be asking.

I buy 1 gallon water bottles and clearly a one gallon bottle is bigger than a 1 gallon nursery pot.  I buy 5 gallon paint that comes in a bucket that is clearly bigger than a 5 gallon nursery pot.  Why is that?  Is there a reason?

May be there are different gallons kind of like imperial tons and metric tons?

[JacoPalmsCo]

I think its because paint and water is more per gallon then soil, but i also never noticed that.

[aabell]

It's a good question - I've always wondered the same and just assumed it was a marketing scheme/scam pulled by someone in the nursery container industry long ago, and the standard has stuck around. According to this website, 1 gal is the "loose soil" volume needed to fill the pot. Not sure if that is true or not. 

"NOTE: 1 gallon of loose soil will fit in this pot when compacted. Actual liquid volume is 2.9 quarts."

https://growgreenmi.com/hydrofarm-premium-nursery-pot-1-gal

 

[Silas_Sancona]

1 hour ago, JacoPalmsCo said:

I think its because paint and water is more per gallon then soil, but i also never noticed that.

 

2 hours ago, miamicuse said:

I have an exceedingly stupid question but it's a bit embarrassing to be asking.

I buy 1 gallon water bottles and clearly a one gallon bottle is bigger than a 1 gallon nursery pot.  I buy 5 gallon paint that comes in a bucket that is clearly bigger than a 5 gallon nursery pot.  Why is that?  Is there a reason?

May be there are different gallons kind of like imperial tons and metric tons?

Not a stupid or embarrassing question to ask  -at -all..  Is one i've wondered about many times.. 

As far as the " dry vs. wet " aspect, i can fill a 1 gal milk jug with sand / grit / ..something like Turface MVP, ...or water  and it is still more than what will fit in a 1gal pot. 

Skeptical brain says it is more a manufacturing gimmick.  Yes, larger grained dry material will have spaces between the grains that = empty /wasted space, compared to a liquid in the same 1gal milk jug, but ..i really think it's a gimmick, lol rather than having a logical reason for the differences.

If i had a way to do it, i'd melt down / mould milk jugs to see what the equivalent would be pot-size wise..


Here's a visual comparison using dry, recycled Turface MVP, Grit, and Pumice of the same size ( i sift all my inorganic soil mix materials to various sizes ) and a typical 1gal pot.









You can see there is only ..what could be considered 1/2gal of the dry material in the 1gal milk jug, yet it fills the 1gal pot  -to the brim.  You wouldn't fill a pot w/ soil all the way to the brim.

Hrmmm 🤔

Edited May 25 by Silas_Sancona
edit

[miamicuse]

so I did some internet searches, I did before but this time I looked harder and may have found something useful to share.

basically, it is a mistake to call a pot 1 gallon, 3 gallon, 5 gallon sizes, they should be referred to as #1, #3, #5 respectively, but dating back to the old days when people used 1 gallon milk jugs as pots, it got confused.

full article: https://kb.jniplants.com/understanding-nursery-stock-sizes/

[Silas_Sancona]

2 minutes ago, miamicuse said:

so I did some internet searches, I did before but this time I looked harder and may have found something useful to share.

basically, it is a mistake to call a pot 1 gallon, 3 gallon, 5 gallon sizes, they should be referred to as #1, #3, #5 respectively, but dating back to the old days when people used 1 gallon milk jugs as pots, it got confused.

full article: https://kb.jniplants.com/understanding-nursery-stock-sizes/

Some nurseries will use this " set of terms " for describing the above pictured container sizes, but many don't.. Some will also list the smaller of the container sizes as 2", 4 or 5", 6, and 8" -size pots rather than a half / whole pint or litre.   This nursery also forgot #15, which = 15gal ( Still likely not equivalent to the volume of 3 5gal paint buckets / 15 1gal milk jugs.  )