runoff

[Mr Pot]

Hey guys,
I have a three plants run and a few clones, my setup is a 250W MH that'll turn into a 250W HPS in a week for flowering. I'm running a sativa and an indica in coco (I've mixed with perlite kinda 50/50) and an indica on another soiless. They're all in 5gal and 7 weeks in veg from seeds.

My question here is about watering and runoff. I've never grown in coco before (that's my first run and I mixed it with perlite) and both plants growing in coco haven't shown runoff so far, while the other indica with another type of soil showed me almost 25% of runoff in today's watering.

I'm aware that the frequency and quantity of water matters for the runoff as soil drainage does as well and I'm watering them around 1-1.5L every 2-3 days. Do you guys feel this is due a lack of drainage? Would you say I should worry about this? They look very healthy and I'll attach a week old post for you to see them and tell me how beautiful they are and that I shouldn't worry at all (lol).

The plant on the 3rd picture is showing runoff, the 1st and 2nd are not: https://forum.growweedeasy.com/forum...34280-training

Any advice will be helpful,
Mr Pot

[Mr.furley]

Mr pot,
a lot of peeps here water a little different for the runoff in coco, you should have run off from time to time to check PH out. What work beat for me is
1) water and nute mix at a rate of 1.25 to 1.50 gallon I sometimes get a little run off
2) 3-4 days later 1.5 to 2+ gallons of water till I get 20% (this is when I check run off PH)
repeat with a occasional flush and Skip of nutrients going
nutes, water, water, nutes.
Mr.F

[Mr Pot]

I didn't understand... This is in veg or flowering?
1) you water a single plant with 1.25 to 1.5 gal (5-6L) first with nutes on their right schedule and sometimes you get a runoff
2) 3-4 days later you add 1.5- 2+ gal (6-8L+) of plain ph'ed water or the sufficient quantity in order to get a 20% runoff and then check the pH?

When you say repeat with an occasional flush you mean that I should do 1-2-2-1-2-2-1... and so on?
What's your temperature and humidity in vega? It's hitting 30ºC and 65% RH in here, I tend to water with only like a 0.5 gal each plant, don't you think your amounts are out of order for my situation?

[Mr.furley]

My number is per plant the whole grow the same once I'm in a 5 gal smart pot
1 2 1 2 1 2 2 1 2 1 2
The second water will depend on how my runoff looks and if I show signs of Nute Burn, it is to clean my Coco of salt an extra nutrients( a flush) which in my book is good from time to time
I feel ( and other do it different some water daily no flush) that not watering till the whole pot is wet and just a little bit can cause an over-watering problem, cannabis likes to be wet and then dried completely out and by watering the whole pot to run off you know the whole pot is saturated. If your plant have droopy leaves you are over watering, if they're healthy no worries.
Temp for me run
21c to 30c veg
18c to 26c flower
RH for me
27 to 45 any higher and you risk mold.
Hope this clears up my mumbo jumbo.

[Mr Pot]

It does, Mr F. I'm just not sure if due to my vpd I'll try it. I mean, they're not drinking too much at this time for an abrupt increase of quantity like this one. Maybe if I increase gradually it'll do best. Some people say to water about 1/4 of the pot size and I guess that's what you're doing right now, but I'm sure you're not doing this quantity schedule since day one from seed, do you increase quantities gradually? They're almost two months old and maybe it'll do best if I finish my grow with a similar schedule.

The big question is what's better, once a day with no runoff or once in 3-4-5 days with 20-25% of it. Probably there is a lot of controversy here.

[D.A.A.S.69]

Hey Mr pot ,,,here is a good plan ,read Nebulas articles here on GWE, and you will see how a pro. waters. I ain't looked but if I can remember correctly it's pretty close to the way Mr. Furley said. Good Luck with em , maybe they will make it the whole way??

[Mr.furley]

Mr.p
it is a little controversial, some do water daily but most water to runoff. Me, I tried coco/perlite in January this year never heard of it before reading GWE.com just followed the tutorial, adjusted it a little for my setup, fell in love with it, easy to do and here I am.
Yes a little less water/nutrients but I still water to runoff and in the same format, my grow go's jiffy cube or clone ring, to a 4 inch pot, to a 1 gallon, to a 5 gal smart pot for a final home. It go through that process in a month, all that time increasing the water quantity till I get into the five gallon pot and then it's the same as I explained above. the best reasons I can give you for watering till runoff is.
it soaks the pot the plant roots fill the pot to grab every bit, seems to increase the roots ball size by chasing all available water sources, bigger healthier roots=bigger plant size for a bigger yield. then by using the pot weight lift system to find out when it's dry their no guess work of overwatering. sometimes it 2 days till dry sometimes 5 days by using this method when the plant starts demanding more water you are watering more often not more water daily and how will you know this on the daily system without a sad looking plant. Speed of feed depends on how much the plant wants/uses making SURE the plant hasn't been over/underwatered but gets the fastest feed time without over/under doing it. By watering a little everyday you don't know if it's still wet 5 inchs down at the next feeding this is bad because cannabis roots likes to dry out completely between watering, this is how it gets overwatered plus you have salt and nutrients that starts to build up and with out a flush (my 2 gl. Of ph'ed water sometimes two in a row) it becomes overwhelming to you root system giving you nutrient lockout and most importantly you can not check your run off PH which is the most important Ph number! that number tells you your root zone Ph.
So the short of it is a healthy root ball, since fine tuning the system and proper feedings I've doubled my yield each CC grow, watched the root ball fill my pots and the girth of my plants stocks increase.

Sorry for a long babble, but I feel it is important if you continue to water your same way to watch close around the 3-5 week of flowing, that is the most common time for root, PH, water, nutrients, and salt buildup problems to start showing there ugly head I would definitely read GW e.com about flushing and Coco it will save you a headache later.
Happy growing and I hope this helps Mr.Pot
p.s we all love pictures this is my last feed week 11 from seed

[Sammy]

I water daily,feed every other day,till run off... Some people feed multiple times daily.A lot of different factors,temp, humidity,air circulation,.. what ever works for you ☮️

[OzBud]

I grow in coco. Once my plants are a couple of weeks old and growing quickly I water to runoff daily with nutrients every watering.

For the first week I just give them about a cup of nutrient water every day, then next week I water to runoff every second day then usually by the third week I'm watering to runoff daily in 3.5gal black plastic pots.

I take note of how much water I give my plants, then measure the volume of runoff and check the runoff pH for each individual plant daily.
I aim for about 30% runoff, If I get about 10% runoff then next watering I'll give that particular plant another two cups worth of water and that usually gets me back up to about 30%.

[Mr Pot]

What's your average quantity per plant that's enough for such runoff? What's the difference between the number of this in early flora and the last week of the cycle?

[OzBud]

early on each plant might get about 1L/ 1 quart per day and then in heavy flower I'm mixing up about 4 gal between 3 plants daily.
I could probably just get away with watering every second day but they'd be pretty dry

[Beach_Town_Brit]

Like so many of us I started out following the excellent GWE coco tutorials to the letter. It's the best place to start.

My own approach has shifted over time a bit. I'm far lazier than OzBud
These days I water 1-2 gallons a week for 3gal coco pots in batches of 1/2 a gallon per watering. This means I tend to water 2-4 times a week depending on where the plants are in their life cycles and how my humidity is doing. I always feed nutrient solution never plain water. My waterings aren't really to run off. Certainly I make sure the nute solution drips a bit from the bottom of the pot to be sure the medium is saturated, but the whole flushing aspect hasn't been very necessary for me. I don't do particularly heavy nutes, I follow the Canna Coco light schedule, maybe this helps mediate salt issues and thus the need for regular flushing.

[Mr Pot]

Thanks for all the answers my friends, I've feed them yesterday normally one with .5 gal and the other two in coco I fed with 1 gal each to have 250mL runoff only. They're all sitting in 5.5 pH in runoff and I'm worried to get it higher a bit. I'm only watering them now when they get completely dry. Any thoughts on how to elevate my roots pH? Just water them with 6.5 pH plain water?

Thank you all for the tips

[Mr.furley]

Given 6.5 will bring it up slowly or a flush with desired ph in one go.

[Mr Pot]

What would you recommend? I think I need to take it to 6.0 and I'm worried about it. Flush?

[Mr.furley]

Mr.P
If it was my plant next watering (make sure it dry your pot is dry should be really lite) I would prep 3 gallon of 6.0 water and push 1 gallon at a time testing after you get runoff till it at 6.ph then stop. It shouldn't take much to move from 5.5 to 6. make sure you let it dry out again after your flush. Good job on find you Ph although it low it's still not that far off track, good catch.

[Mr Pot]

Mr.furley I've fed them with a gallon 5-4 days ago and I had a 250-300mL runoff only (1000 ppm). Waited them to dry out almost completely (lifted the pot and first knuckle).

I gave them a gallon of plain 6.0 pH water today and had 400-500mL runoff of 5.8 pH but they both look kinda droopy. Not too much and I'll certainly will watch them these days but what would you suggest?

I'm flipping them in about two days and I think I'm going to reduce a lot the quantities to half gal or lower (I won't have runoff also because of that). They're sitting around 700-800 ppm. Dunno if the timing of this drain to waste was properly. Any thoughts?

[Mr.furley]

It good that you have got your PH up. For me I look for 6.o-6.3 in coco. I know you will not get runoff in a 5 gallon smart pot with 1/2 gal of water, it will take a minimum of 1 to 1.5 gals, As far as drooping leaf it is probably because of changing your watering practice. Does it droop closer to water time or the whole time did you notice that they perked up after water?

[Mr Pot]

A good lesson for a second time grower (they're not droopy now, so that's probably the changing of practice). Would you say that it's better to have a runoff with 1-1.5 gal and water every 4-5 days rather than increasing my frequency to 2-3 days and 0.5gal each watering? How can I know that for sure?

I'm wondering also what are the benefits of having runoff every watering. Is this a necessity? Do I need runoff everytime and especially when I water with nutrients? Because if so, I'm doing this all wrong. I'm just worried about giving 1 or 1.5 gal of water with nutrients for them and raising my ppm to 1000+. Should I drain to waste only when I plain water them or when I feed them as well?

I'm a little confused...

[NebulaHaze]

There are a few reasons people recommend runoff. The main reason is a lot of growers provide very high levels of nutrients in their water, which starts to build up in the soil if you never get runoff out the bottom, causing nutrient burn and sometimes lockout or deficiencies. It can also cause the pH to go haywire. Additionally, if you don't give enough water at a time, the roots don't grow to the bottom, so they aren't utilizing all the space. Lastly, cannabis plants often seem to do well with wet/dry cycles, where they get a lot of water at once and then get a little time to dry out. That being said, you can try to keep a constant moisture.

The main thing to remember is that cannabis roots have very high oxygen needs. If the soil doesn't get time to dry out, or if it gets waterlogged, then the roots may likely aren't getting enough oxygen.

If you're not giving nutrients in the water (for example if you're growing in organic soil), you probably don't want to get a whole lot of extra runoff (maybe just a few drops to make sure the water got all the way to the bottom) because giving lots of extra plain water will start slowly leaching all the nutrients from your soil.

The main idea behind watering frequency, and all the different methods of providing water to your plants, is to try to make sure your roots are always getting a lot of both oxygen and water.

If the roots don't get enough air, the leaves get fat and full of water, causing the leaves to droop. Drooping from overwatering slows the plant down (which is why chronically overwatered plants stay really tiny), but unless it's really bad you usually won't get long-term damage to the leaves.

If the roots don't get enough water, the leaves wither away because they have no water to fill them, which also causes drooping though leaves appear more limp. Since they both cause drooping it can be hard to tell what's happening. To add another wrench, if a plant dries out a LOT, sometimes you can water it and it will still get droopier for the next day or two because the leaves were damaged, which can be confusing because it almost seems like giving water caused it to get worse.

Any method to accomplish a good water/oxygen ratio will work. That's how you get hydroponics where roots are sitting in the water -- they're constantly bubbling oxygen and dissolving it into the water, or in aeroponics where the roots literally hang in air, and get their nutrient water from a mist. One thing to remember is that plants are not able to drink as much when it's humid (the way the plant gets water is it evaporates water from the leaves, sucking up water from the roots like a straw, which is not effective in high humidity). They also tend to get droopier when it's hot because water can hold less oxygen at higher temperatures (that's also why it's important to control the temperature in hydroponics).

[Mr Pot]

NebulaHaze What are your thoughts about this? When I add half gallon it doesn't give me runoff at all and when I add a gallon and wait 4-5 days it'll get a bit droopy afterwards and I get some runoff. Would you say I have some kind of drainage issue? Either I'm doing something really wrong when it comes to water my plants (like only giving them half gallon every 2-3 days) or I'm having a drainage problem, I guess.
They're in 5 gal smart pots and they're in week 8 from seed (2 days from flipping).

[NebulaHaze]

Perhaps with this plant, try giving a little bit less water at a time? Maybe give just enough so that you get only the tiniest bit of runoff, and see if it likes that better. Definitely experiment. A little droopiness won't kill your plants though. Different plants like slightly different things, and the growing medium and humidity/temperature has an effect on how much water and air are available to the roots, so what works for someone else might not be ideal in your situation. Is it really hot or humid? I've found that plants often get droopy and are hard to water properly in high temperature or humidity.

[Mr Pot]

Nebula, I've watched them the past hours and that droopy came from a change of watering schedule probably (they're not droopy now). I don't know if I'm going to lower the frequency in order to have runoff everytime because I don't know how important it is to have runoff every watering (I know that's good to keep roots pH and ppm under control). On a scale from 0 to 10 how important it is to have runoff everytime?

I'm trying to correct some things that I did wrong last run (I've finished my last grow watering the same phenos with less than half a gallon) because that left me with about an ounce per plant (not good, not worthy).

If you can take a look on the comment right above this one it'll probably explain the situation.

[Mr Pot]

Also I've read some about ppm but is there and optimal range that I have to keep in mind when I'm in vega and/or flowering?
Some people say around 1000ppm it's the limit. I'm getting around 700-800ppm in my runoff.