Watering soil... What works for you?

Do you drench your soil and wait for it to dry out, boom and bust cycle, one extreme to the other?

Or do you try and maintain a constant moisture level trying to avoid excessive run off?

I drench the soil and wait for it to dry out. If I water on Monday, I usually have to water again on Wednesday or Thursday. I always use a gallon of water/nutes to water a 3 gallon container. Always gives me decent run off.

I tend to water until i have some runoff. Outside I am watering each plant 1 time every 2 days in 20 gallon pots. I try not to let the entire top medium get dry let alone the entire plant's medium.

I always wait until completely dry. The plant will tell ya when needs more water. Over water is wayyy worse then under watering.

I do not ever let my soil dry out totally ..runoff =waste ..organic yeehaw

Agreed, stoned-trout!

Soil is amply watered but not water logged. Allow 1"-2" on top to dry before watering again. As plants mature, more water due to transpiration.

moses wellfleet said:

Do you drench your soil and wait for it to dry out, boom and bust cycle?

Or do you try and maintain a constant moisture level trying to avoid excessive run off?

Click to expand...

Funny timing you have Moses. I just made an update in my grow thread a few days ago how to grow rootballs like the one pictured below. It has nothing to do with letting the media dry out..If I go for the first method you mention, I do not get roots like this.

Day 29 Durban Poison From Seed




Day 19 GN Thai Stick From Seed

Dave Coulier said:

Funny timing you have Moses. I just made an update in my grow thread a few days ago how to grow rootballs like the one pictured below. It has nothing to do with letting the media dry out..If I go for the first method you mention, I do not get roots like this.

Day 29 Durban Poison From Seed
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Day 19 GN Thai Stick From Seed

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Click to expand...

Wow man thanx for the post!!!

BUMP.

seems like most of the older cats keep the soil moist instead of the old 15% run off, wait until dry, run off again.

i am just getting into organics but currently run coco moist and i never let it dry out. certainly get better growth when watering daily. i aim for ZERO run off..

i believe that is another myth perpetuated by the hydro companies

I would slowly water until there's runoff, let that soak for a few minutes then add a little more until runoff again. Just to ensure saturation. I let The soil become dry to a cpl inches deep then water again.
I did use a lot of perlite in my mixes, so the wet-dry cycle would usually be a cpl days depending on the plant, cycle, pot size etc..
Outdoor in-ground is obviously a different story.
Really it's best to screw around a bit and learn what works best for you.
Later folks. Bub.

I use fabric pots with soil, and they need more frequent watering due to drying out quicker. Once they are nearly fully sized they'll need daily watering. I always water each plant accordingly, an I feel the best way is to pick each pot up and gage it's requirements. Once the pot is heavy enough, this comes with experience knowing how heavy, I've fed enough for their daily needs. I don't water till I get a run off, I feel this is a waste. I just thouroghly flush them every 3-5 weeks depending. I've come to notice that when flushing fabric pots, you need to use more water than x3 the pot size. My thinking and observations regarding this is, fabric pots let the water run through much faster than standard pots, and the water doesn't seem to leach out the soil as quick as it does in plastic 1s. I've seen it takes much more water until you start to see the water coming out darker. I'm not sure if this is because I'm using organic feed, which binds to the molecular structure more than synthetics.
I also only feed nutrients every 2-3 days, and ph adjusted water in between. I aim for a ph of 6.8, this seems to work fine and my girls are healthy and lush throughout.
Amending the soil is worthwhile to for a healthy medium from start to finish.

I water every other day, except right after transplanting. Consistency is essential. Right after transplanting you may need to water every day until the roots have had time to spread. That could take a week. I do not water to run-off. That's fine for rock wool or coco, but not soil. If you water soil to run-off, you risk water-logging the bottom 4 inches of the pot with a perched water table and killing the roots. Slow watering is best. I water some, then water more in an hour or two after the water has had time to spread in the pot. If that seems too time-consuming, mulch the pots with bird's nest coco. That will prevent pooling at the soil surface and help the soil absorb the water more slowly.

I have never grown in large pots.
I am a dunker. I go by the feel of the weight of the pot.

That would be hard to pull off if you start getting over a gallon size pot.

Watering seems to be a pretty big issue for newbies, over watering and fertilizing because you feel your seedlings need it is ridiculous.
You have to get a few grows under your belt to really dial in how to water. It isn't needed as much as you might think, use the lift method of pots and a simple scratch the top 2" of soil to judge when to water. Also look at your plant, is it vigorous and healthy, if so, don't water. And when watering do it slowly, scruff up the top layer of soil to loosen the dry compact parts and to fill the outer ring that may have pulled away from container. Add minimal amounts of liquid to just moisten and settle the top layer, then add appropriate amounts of liquid to moisten and fatten the rest of the substrate. Runoff is good to remove salt buildup if using salty food, but otherwise just water to make your container moist and happy

K.I.S.S.

also with container growing, get to understanding how roots work and using proper transplant upgrading. Roots shoot out and down, so if in a large container quite a bit of substrate will be wasted if transplanted from a much smaller container to larger. do it in steps to allow a strong root structure so overwatering won't be an issue as less substrate is wasted if stepping up properly

Vanilla Phoenix said:

I drench the soil and wait for it to dry out. If I water on Monday, I usually have to water again on Wednesday or Thursday. I always use a gallon of water/nutes to water a 3 gallon container. Always gives me decent run off.

Click to expand...

Same here

Dave Coulier said:

Funny timing you have Moses. I just made an update in my grow thread a few days ago how to grow rootballs like the one pictured below. It has nothing to do with letting the media dry out..If I go for the first method you mention, I do not get roots like this.

Day 29 Durban Poison From Seed
View Image

View Image

Day 19 GN Thai Stick From Seed

View Image

View Image

Click to expand...

I try to do much the same when seedlings are small. Once they're in 1 gal pots or larger I've had astounding improvements using blumats & the soil mix I posted earlier in the thread.

I never realized what a huge difference they'd make until I used 'em once. Wow. Next batch I think I'll sow fems directly into 5 gal fabric pots, plant the seed right between the dripper & the carrot, see what happens.

Watering can be such a subjective thing.
Depending on the mix.
Some pots can cause quicker evaporation rates.
I do believe if letting the mix dry down to much can be the death to much bacterial life.
I never worried about the beasties dying off so much for all new watering was a fresher influx of more beasties.
I always feel that the new herd of beasties would use the ones that died as food.
The way I water seedlings is a lot different then the way I water a bigger plant.
I am aware of the perch water table and how that plays into things.
I use to say to look at the mixes containers as three layers.
Divide it into a top. a middle and the bottom.
Using a water meter I would wait until the bottoms were just coming off of wet going into the moist. Sometimes this would take weeks.
Especially after transplants.
By the way my mix is very light and loamy.
By the time that the bottoms were just beginning to lose some moisture the tops 1/3 of the containers would be completely dry, the middle 1/3 still held some moisture.
As young plants grew into their bigger containers this time between watering's would get shorter.
I always will water twice about a hour apart both times till run off.
This last run I change that up some to only letting the top 1/3 of the mix to dry down , not worrying about how wet the bottom of the pots were.
I only use rain water with a touch of a surfactant in it, yucca is my choice.
I only take ten ladies to finish every run so I can do this with little more work.
I mulch the tops of all my pots always.
I mostly water with a microbial tea AACT every watering,
Concentrating on a bacterial influx during the vegetating and once the stretch is over my teas will lean more on the fungal side. Very little fertilizer or nutrients are in my teas.
When growing inside so many environmental aspects come into play.
How much light, what kind of light, spectrum and intensity.
Ambient temperature and humidity.
How much air your moving, how big a space.
These things and others are why it can be so subjective.
I do my best to read my plants and let them tell me when they are the happiest.
They do this by standing on their tippy toes and reaching for the sky like they cant grow fast enough. The word is TURGIDITY!
I did keep the pots a touch wetter this last time and they seem to like it big!
Ratz

Jhhnn said:

I try to do much the same when seedlings are small. Once they're in 1 gal pots or larger I've had astounding improvements using blumats & the soil mix I posted earlier in the thread.

I never realized what a huge difference they'd make until I used 'em once. Wow. Next batch I think I'll sow fems directly into 5 gal fabric pots, plant the seed right between the dripper & the carrot, see what happens.

Click to expand...

I definitely use Blumats too in my garden. I put the plants on blumats once they get into the flowering room, but I really need it in my veg room for plants in 1gallon+ like you do.

Ever considered sowing directly into beds with blumats? Ive been wanting to try that, and I know a few people are doing blumats/ grow beds, but I dont know if they're sowing seeds. Either way, Its something Id like to try out.