Water and watering

A post for newbies to read and experienced growers to write.

The most common cause of plant deaths regardless of plant type indoors or out is overwatering. This is a proven fact and I did not invent it. Besides outright drowning overwatering can help lead to root issues and then you're fucked. Damp medium encourages fungal growth and experienced mushroom growers will inform you light is needed for shrooms and not dark like the joke. Not all funguses are as friendly as mushrooms or as easily seen.

Frequent watering , especially with small amounts , is strongly discouraged for every reason. The topmost sections of the root mass is most responsible for air. They actually get air through the roots and exchange it. Keeping it wet is like waterboarding the plant.

Further it doesn't encourage or allow the root mass to expand the way it should as the growing plant in nature would be seeking more water and nutrients .

Fill your planters with your medium . Don't have seeds and nutes standing by. Just do this. Feel it. Repeatedly. Dry. Then thoroughly wet it and feel it. Repeatedly.

These are your goals within reason with a plant aboard.

Experienced please add in or share. I'm not the doctor here.

Tried getting the old lady into gardening. She's managed to kill 2 seedlings by under watering.
I guess she listened to my over watering spiel. A little too much I'd say.

Personally I wait till just before the soil starts to separate around the edges of the pot, then I do the weight test. Then I water till the bottom of the pot is moist. I'll get a few drops of run off, but I try not to saturate it that much.
Haven't had root rot or overwatering problems but I feel like I'm under watering sometimes.

Great advice on a very common problem.

I use fabric pots with soil&perlite. I water now when I'm suprised at how light the pots are. Don't even try to keep a "water on these days" schedule and it's been working a charm.

I water till I get a bit of run off. I hear most commonly you want to water enough that you get about 20% of it as run off.

First thing I am far from an expert. I am here to learn. Now first indoor grow I decided it would be a brilliant idea to use Miracle Grow as my medium. So far week 9 of bloom a few issue's none medium related... I think. My impute is with a medium like Miracle Grow I don't know how to get 10% let alone 20% runoff. I literally would have to flood it due to the insane absorption rate. It will not let water go. Part of this I feel might be my watering schedule. 2 gal. pots 72 oz. water every 5-6 days I went by weight of pot to establish this cycle. I feel I may be waiting a little too long to water and maybe that's why it won't let it go. I think with MG it's best to let it dry out as to not over fertilize as it does so every time you water. So everything stated above is correct and I'm not disagreeing what so ever I just don't know and wanted impute. How important when not adding fertilizers (already present) is the 10 to 20% rule of thumb. My Fox Farm Ocean Forest medium on 2nd round has no issue's with 10-35% runoff. Nothing sticks it's like a sieve.

Watering until runoff allows old unused salts in the medium to wash away. And don’t let it sit in the runoff for that reason. I’m not an expert either but that is what I’ve read from the PhDs and it makes sense.
This is also not necessary in “super soil” and counterintuitive