Z
Ziggaro
Hey guys I have been reading the Ask Lucas thread over on another site and found a lot of helpful information about fertilizing over there.
I wanted to share some of his posts about watering that I found that were interesting because I don't understand how to implement the advice.
"now for an additional irrigation strategy
I once met a very successful gardener who used 7 gallon pots of Sunshine #4. It is mainly peatmoss and perlite. His secret to success, was to never water the pot enough to get runoff out the bottom, because it would take a young plant, say one that is just in the 20" height range at the beginning of 12/12, about a week of sitting in waterlogged peatmoss, before it could begin to breathe oxygen through the roots.
so what this grower did instead, was to water with only about one quart of water per day. the peat moss was slightly moist, I would call it about 20-30% wet, making the pot only about 1/3 as heavy, or less, as it would be if the peat moss was soggy.
their secret to determining how much water a plant would use up in one day, was to imagine stuffing the entire plant into a pitcher... in the case of a 20" tall plant, it would seem that if all the leaves were crammed into the pitcher, Im thinking of a 2 quart pitcher, then the plant would only fill the pitcher half way.
so the grower only used half a pitcher of water
the goal was to keep the roots fluffy, white and thriving, the way they get in Rockwool that is allowed to "dry out"
now, for people that dont "get it", the part about letting peat operate at non waterlogged levels, I recommend they add perlite as much as 50%, so there is less soggy wet peat..
its interactive, the more the grower waters, the more I tell them to use material that wont hold water.
peatmoss and perlite are not going to breathe as easily as a pot of rox on an ebb flow table that is wattered several times daily by a timer.
humans have trouble doing that, so they use more water holding material, like peat, if they like to hand water..
I could go on if you like have more questions, dont hesitate to ask. Just one last thought, no matter what medium density one uses, if it stays soggy wet for more than 24 hours, its a bad thing..
irrigation is not supposed to suffocate the roots, so too much irrigation is bad because it interferes with oxygen delivery to the roots.. the ideal root environ is oxygen rich, and moist misty vapor is what they thrive in.
a pot of medium that is warming up and vaporizing the water so it becomes fog in the pores, will produce very happy fluffy, fuzzy, multi branched roots...
"
Right now I water until runoff and wait until they are dry to water again. I use about a gallon per plant and it takes 3-4 days to dry out completely, but according to Lucas this is wrong.
Should I be using a quart every day instead of a gallon every 4?
How do I ensure that the bottom is not all dried out while I'm watering if I only give it a quart?
In the grow books I have they talk about making sure you have runoff so there are no dry pockets in the soil, so I'm a little confused by the conflicting info on the subject...
Yes, cm, another watering thread. No I'm not going to hang it up lol...punk
I wanted to share some of his posts about watering that I found that were interesting because I don't understand how to implement the advice.
"now for an additional irrigation strategy
I once met a very successful gardener who used 7 gallon pots of Sunshine #4. It is mainly peatmoss and perlite. His secret to success, was to never water the pot enough to get runoff out the bottom, because it would take a young plant, say one that is just in the 20" height range at the beginning of 12/12, about a week of sitting in waterlogged peatmoss, before it could begin to breathe oxygen through the roots.
so what this grower did instead, was to water with only about one quart of water per day. the peat moss was slightly moist, I would call it about 20-30% wet, making the pot only about 1/3 as heavy, or less, as it would be if the peat moss was soggy.
their secret to determining how much water a plant would use up in one day, was to imagine stuffing the entire plant into a pitcher... in the case of a 20" tall plant, it would seem that if all the leaves were crammed into the pitcher, Im thinking of a 2 quart pitcher, then the plant would only fill the pitcher half way.
so the grower only used half a pitcher of water
the goal was to keep the roots fluffy, white and thriving, the way they get in Rockwool that is allowed to "dry out"
now, for people that dont "get it", the part about letting peat operate at non waterlogged levels, I recommend they add perlite as much as 50%, so there is less soggy wet peat..
its interactive, the more the grower waters, the more I tell them to use material that wont hold water.
peatmoss and perlite are not going to breathe as easily as a pot of rox on an ebb flow table that is wattered several times daily by a timer.
humans have trouble doing that, so they use more water holding material, like peat, if they like to hand water..
I could go on if you like have more questions, dont hesitate to ask. Just one last thought, no matter what medium density one uses, if it stays soggy wet for more than 24 hours, its a bad thing..
irrigation is not supposed to suffocate the roots, so too much irrigation is bad because it interferes with oxygen delivery to the roots.. the ideal root environ is oxygen rich, and moist misty vapor is what they thrive in.
a pot of medium that is warming up and vaporizing the water so it becomes fog in the pores, will produce very happy fluffy, fuzzy, multi branched roots...
"
Right now I water until runoff and wait until they are dry to water again. I use about a gallon per plant and it takes 3-4 days to dry out completely, but according to Lucas this is wrong.
Should I be using a quart every day instead of a gallon every 4?
How do I ensure that the bottom is not all dried out while I'm watering if I only give it a quart?
In the grow books I have they talk about making sure you have runoff so there are no dry pockets in the soil, so I'm a little confused by the conflicting info on the subject...
Yes, cm, another watering thread. No I'm not going to hang it up lol...punk
