Watering Your Plants Correctly - What is your strategy? What is the best strategy?

Hello hello hello,

So I was watering my plants and everything, and by the end and I harvested, most of all the roots stayed near the bottom, looked root bounded.

Now I do understand why this happens, simple drainage and gravity, water naturally goes go, but I see people with totally opposite results.

They will water a certain amount, then do the same amount maybe 45 min later. They might water little bits every day, ect. The results though is all the soil mass is just solid roots, meaning it is using a lot more of the avliable room. Which ALSO means you must be able to get away with bigger plants in smaller pots.

My question is what do you do, or what can you suggest? I want to get on a nice routine watering, then just watering whenever I think they need it, and make sure they use the space they have. Smaller pots with the same size plant will allow me to fit more plants.

The thing that would help me most is just telling me what you do and how good your results are, thats how I learn the best, the how and not the why

Thanks so much,
AllDay

Hi man!

Im currently in canna coco at the min, under two 400W HPS and in the 3rd week of veg from rooted clone. My girls are really small like 10 inches (i think this is small for 3 weeks) basically i blame it on my watering sched, this is my first time in coco! Until about 3 feedings ago i was on a sched of water,feed,water,feed and this was every 4 days when the coco would dry...i have recently found out that this is not good! Ive been treating the coco like soil and letting it dry out inbetween waterings. I was using a PH of 6.5 also but anyway...NOW im on a sched of feed,feed,feed,feed,feed,feed,feed,water...and this is around every other day...there in 11L pots and are now getting around 1300ml each with a run off of around 20% and PH at 5.8, they are now growing an inch a day! Cant believe it....im new to this so its all trial and error for me but time is money in my situation so i dont really need this! Once they are around 2ft i will then switch! Hope this helps bro!

deejay123 said:

Hi man!

Im currently in canna coco at the min, under two 400W HPS and in the 3rd week of veg from rooted clone. My girls are really small like 10 inches (i think this is small for 3 weeks) basically i blame it on my watering sched, this is my first time in coco! Until about 3 feedings ago i was on a sched of water,feed,water,feed and this was every 4 days when the coco would dry...i have recently found out that this is not good! Ive been treating the coco like soil and letting it dry out inbetween waterings. I was using a PH of 6.5 also but anyway...NOW im on a sched of feed,feed,feed,feed,feed,feed,feed,water...and this is around every other day...there in 11L pots and are now getting around 1300ml each with a run off of around 20% and PH at 5.8, they are now growing an inch a day! Cant believe it....im new to this so its all trial and error for me but time is money in my situation so i dont really need this! Once they are around 2ft i will then switch! Hope this helps bro!

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So pretty much water till soil is throughly soaked, let it do its thing until it's completely dry, then water when it looks like my plant is just begging for water?

Also do you increase your water as the plant grows by certain measurements? Liters, gallons, ect. or do you just kind of go with the flow? You plan on keeping them in your 11l pots when you switch to flower?

AllDayToker said:

So pretty much water till soil is throughly soaked, let it do its thing until it's completely dry, then water when it looks like my plant is just begging for water?

Also do you increase your water as the plant grows by certain measurements? Liters, gallons, ect. or do you just kind of go with the flow? You plan on keeping them in your 11l pots when you switch to flower?

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With the wet/dry cycle i was doing it wasnt working for my coco! It works great in soil but coco isnt supposed to go through wet/dry cycles ive been told. Hence thats why they wasnt growing at there full potential. Im going to leave them in the 11L yes because this is my first grow, will probably get 13's on my next one if the girls get rootbound...

As the girls get older i will increase the water dosages, if theres not much run off i will increase until i get around the 20% mark. From now on im feeding little and often. Ive jumped straight into the deep end with coco really for my 1st time but i just hope its worth it!!

Water when the top inch or so of your soil is dry to the touch and water until there is some runoff. If you use a smaller pot then as it gets later into flowering you end up needing to water every day and your plant will have some consistency so I just water right before I know it will need it but also check the soil. And since it's soil I feed every other or every third watering. I'm leaning more towards every third now though because I was getting some n toxicity in flowering. I use 3 gal pots and water about 8-900ml every few days in veg to every day in flowering and my root ball usually fills the whole pot come harvest. I've gotten 2-3oz dry off those, lst'd but about 1.5 feet tall

There is no right way to water plants you have to consider lots of things. pot size, growth rate, temp, humidity and so on. I stick to checking when my soil is dry. small pots I feel weight of the pot when they get light I water. I water slow to let the soil pick up as much moisture as possible. Say I have a one gallon pot I use about 3/4 of a gallon of water. It takes a good 5 min. to see run off in the end you should get about two cups of run off. in my set up I water every other day when they are growing good every thre days when they slow. If you stay in small pots when the plant gets big you might have to water every day sometimes twice a day.

I think it starts with a full, healthy root ball. this is achived by transplanting. I start a plant in a 2" after it fills that It goes to a 6" after it fills that it goes to an 8 " at which time I start flowering but you could go up to a 12 if you want bigger. but that will give you a pot full of roots. water when needed and water heavily. you want to soak all the soil evenly and then waitfor it to dry out before watering it again. if you start a seed in a 12" pot your roots will not fill the container they will grow out and down pooling up at the bottom your plant will not be able to take up as much water and grow big and healthy

Say I have a one gallon pot I use about 3/4 of a gallon of water.

3/4 gallon of water into a 1 gallon pot? You sure about that?

In veg I allow my pots to dry almost completely, from healthy seedling at around 7 days to the last week of veg so the roots have to search for water. In flower I will do the same until about week 2 where the roots haven't quit growing but they are fully established, then I tend to keep my pots moist/wet until harvest, never allowing them to come close to wilting.
As for amounts by week 3 I'm in my final pots which are either 4 or 5 gallons and from then on I'm feeding about 1-1 1/2 gallons of water/fed which gives me about 25% runoff. In early veg in my 5" squares or in my 4-5 gallons I can go up to 5-7 days without watering, but by week 3 of flower most strains are asking for water every 2-3 days.

When I water I drench them at a medium pace with a battery hand pump, no shot of water then waiting then watering again, all at once so it gets a good runoff going. I collect runoff with another pump and I will hand drain my saucers with a large turkey baster so there isn't much runoff collecting to hurt the roots.

I have mastered knowing when my plants are almost fully dry by lifting them, I don't stick my finger in, I don't use a moisture meter, just lift.

T.H.Cammo said:

Say I have a one gallon pot I use about 3/4 of a gallon of water.

3/4 gallon of water into a 1 gallon pot? You sure about that?

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yes I think that's about right. You should get about a 10% run off with that. If you don't get a 10% run off adjust up or down until you do. The amount will change with the size of the root ball. I try to water slow enough to get all the water in the pot before the runoff starts.

T.H.Cammo said:

Say I have a one gallon pot I use about 3/4 of a gallon of water.

3/4 gallon of water into a 1 gallon pot? You sure about that?

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he means three quarters of a gallon, not 3 to 4 gallons!

Well since in my big order I just placed online included this very cheap couple buck little meter that tells light intensity, pH, and water moisture in soil, so I can use that for now haha.