Automated watering is key

[ShroomDr]

I forgot the growth rate you get from automatic feeding. I hand watered for 4-5 months, and im kicking myself for not setting up the drip system sooner.

My question is regarding how often to water. would watering 5-6x per day be any better than 4x a day?
I could see how multiple times a day would be better than just once, but where is the cut off?

4x a day would be once every 3 hours (in flowering)
6x would be once every 2 hours.

Is that a marginal difference? I guess as long as your container wasnt super small, the container wouldnt get much drier, but how much of a benefit is the 'air exchange' caused by the flooding

Im using Sunleaves piece coir, (super chunky). i dont think its possible to over water this medium.


I might be over thinking everything, and most of my questions might not have any definitive answers, but i thought i would throw them out there.

has anyone ever experimented with 3 vs. 4 watering's per day period?

I think i got some pictures of my pump and dripper manifold somewhere, ill try to post them up.





this last one is the dripper manifold. its just T and elbows of 1/2" tubing, with tiny holes punched for the 1/4" T's take 1/4" lines off the 1/4" T and your done.

 

[raygun]

I think its dependant on the growth and size of containers. I water 3 times:
Once 2 hours after lights on for 5 mins then
4 hours later for another 3-5 mins then
4 hours later for 2-3 min which is 2 hours before lights out.

I change the longevity of times depending on how damp the coco is and how much run off is produced. Of course this means that like once a week you must check in on then durring the watering times to inspect run off ect unless you collect it in a separate container.
I am in a recirc closet so i really don't do that.

Hope this helps

 

[ShroomDr]

thanks for the post.

I guess no one is going to try to pimp 5+ waterings a day. Law of diminishing returns i guess.

 

[memetic]

i think the forum moderator gauismarius has experimented using many diff feed rates as much as 10 per day if memeory serves correctly. . . he noted that the results were marginally different but not enough to have as many as 10. . . have a look into his sticky threads and i am sure you will find the info there.

another thing to note is that most coco manufacturers (canna, bcuzz et-al) all recommend that you get at least 15% run off after each watering (20% preferable) a constant flush if you will. . .

 

[Sauron The Blue]

ive got e/f coco, lil diff than drippers, and i ran it in smaller containers and irrigated every hour on the hour, i run 11 hour light on cycle for my sats so that was 11 feedings per 5.5" pot per lights-on cycle. I found it to be more maintenance than i was looking to do and the yield wasnt any greater than if I used 4 feedings. I think some containers use up the nutes faster than others based on lots of things, and if you replace the nutes in the container as they are used, the growth rate should be pretty good, but if ya let them go a while without the nutes they need the growth rate will decline.

-stb

edit:

btw i read all this stuff about people producing run-off and calling it flushing....just because there is run-off doesnt mean you flushed anything out of the medium. If you filled a gallon up with dirty stagnant creek water, then poured a 10th of a gallon fresh water into that gallon, overflowing 10% or so out of it, would you consider that properly cleaned and ready for drinking? of course not. Run-off is good, and flushing weekly is good too, hopefully when you flush you get at least the volume of the container in run off, i try to get twice the volume of the container in run-off water.

 

[memetic]

btw i read all this stuff about people producing run-off and calling it flushing....just because there is run-off doesnt mean you flushed anything out of the medium.

agreed, it's not a flush but it helps to keep accumalted salt build up to a minimum.

 

[bluewonder999]

coco has a good ionic exchange so it makes for less flushin