How does drip feeding or soaker hose feeding work?

[growdc]

Morning fellow growers..... damn, it's 2 pm already. LOL.

I had a question that was kinda bugging me. All started when I started coco contemplating the idea between hand watering, automated irrigation type spray system or automated drip/soaker hose type feeding.

Here are some general assumptions I think I've gathered after reading and scouring the intrawebs and spying on forum arguments and bashery. I'll simply state them and someone please correct or redirect me to proper method and understanding.

Hand Watering
This is basically watering from a watering can with pre-made nutrient solution or plain water in its simplest form. I understand that for hand watering, you water with nutrient solution once a day till 10 - 15% waste. The reason is to flush out old nutes and bring new nutes with fresh oxygen into the root zone. Then you'd skip a day or 2 of feeding a nutrient solution but still feed every day with plain water or plain water with a cal mag supplement. Yes? No?

Automated Irrigation
Almost the same as Hand Watering, except it's more for a 30 - 40 plant grow. A more commercial grow. Basically a reservoir mixed up with nutrient solution. Then a pump that's in it. And clever routing of tubing to each plant and watering happens all at once, until drain to waste also. Might have 2 reservoirs, 1 with nutrient solution and the other with plain water with calmag done on alternate days all automated. Yes? No?

Drip/Soaker Hose type Irrigation
This i the one that baffles me. First of, how it works. I've seen pictures like the one below, where you would get a kit from Home Depot or Lowe's Hardware store and run tubing held on my a single stake into the pot. How does this work? Is it turned on ALL THE TIME and it's just drip, drip, drip, drip very slowly? If that's the case, how do the rest of the roots or anywhere else in the pot get the water or solution? I mean, it looks like whoever was using that in the picture is having great plants, but look how dry his coco is. How is he doing that?

Or do you move the stake to a different location every day?

Or do you put like 6 stakes all around the plant?

I always thought when you watered a plant, you want to water it kinda hard and fast so the pot fills up and you can see all the water uniformly drain in the the pot then you're 100% sure the whole plant got some. Or at least that's how my mother made me water plants when I was a kid with a hose. Old wife's tale?

Is watering yet another intriguing scientific process?

[9fingerleafs]

Yeah it is going to depend a lot on the light. The temps. The humidity. But one thing is for sure. If you are hand watering every day that plant is asking for a transplant ASAP. About the dripping. I've never used it but it is to my understanding one or two stakes will do the job just fine. You don't move them around. The water drips so slowly that the medium absorbs it (capillarity and that stuff) and its going to be constantly providing fresh water with oxygen so it never needs to dry completely

[9fingerleafs]

And yes drippers drip all the time

[growdc]

Thank you 9fingerleafs. I wish I could see this capillary action. Cuz it's amazing how diet hints happen and we, or I don't even know.

[growdc]

So...... funny story. I meddled with trying to make my own dripper thing. Since I don't understand the capillary thing where you just drip at one spot, I went to Lowe's hardware,and bought 1/4"irrigation tubing etc. I took a length of tubing, connected both ends into a t-joint turning it into a closed ring. Then I took a needle and poked lots of holes all around the ring. Then I connected another piece of tubing from the t joint that's open to a 1/2 inch tube connected to a water pump sitting in the reservoir.

I turned it on, and was.... "is this even working??" Then I felt wetness, so great, its dripping very slowly. So slowly that I fell asleep and went to bed. I was prepared for a flood in the morning, but to my surprise, the pump stopped, because the entire 16 liter reservoir was empty, that one plant's saucer overflowed just a tad bit into the bottom of the tank and the plant looked like a jungle!!

before dripping


After dripping


Is this even possible? I checked the run off ppm, that's all over the floor of the tent and the saucer, and it's not even as high as ppms going in. It's like100 ppms lower.

What does this mean? Coco wants to be damp all the time and plants thrive from a drip type feed. But I'll make sure she won't get dripped nutrient solution for 9 hours!

Anyone have any thoughts why this freak accident turned out good and how to monopolize this?