the nightmare of watering in the 12 12 room

[Greenpassion]

I have posted about this before. I don't know why and it is actually driving me insane, watering the plants in room 2, the flowering room each plant takes over 1 hour to get watered. Each plant gets about a gallon and a quarter of water and I have to pour tiny bits of water in and wait and wait and wait as it sits on top of the soil surface and finally sinks in. Then I give it a little tiny bit more and wait and wait and wait and it finally sinks in then I give it a little bit more and wait and wait and wait till it finally sinks in. I do this for over an hour every time these 4 plants need water. So today I have two hours before I have to go to work, and I'm going to spend one hour sitting and waiting for water to slowly slowly seep down into the mix. These are in cloth pots and Pro mix. 5-gallon grow bag cloth pots. Watering in the 18-6 room take mere minutes. It is absolutely nothing in comparison to this nightmare. Once the plants go into this 12/12 room the soil will not absorb the water normally. Why? I've never heard of anyone else having this problem. It's so bad that I'm reconsidering growing altogether.

[HappyDaze]

Sunshine #4 has a wetting agent in it, that might have been a better choice. I've got a bucket with some leftover ProMix organic herb and veg, mixed with compost. It's a little heavy but takes and holds water fine. You might think about top dressing your bucket with something, that peat mix you have is kinda floaty.

[Rwise]

What is the soil?
It's the same soil and you just move it and get this result?
I dig motes around them to hold water when I add it, but it kinda reads you have something like that going on as well,,,
One more question, how deep is the soil dry when you add water?

[Scarletwhitewidow]

And flower lights are lower temperature 3000 kelvin and don't dry soil as swift as in veg. Maybe loads water in bottom and center

[Greenpassion]

These are in 5-gallon cloth pots. The soil mix is promix. It's supposed to be light. It's very strange I don't have any kind of an issue with this in the 18:6 room, but when I move them into the flowering room within a week or two it does the slow draining. Another more important issue is that every plant so far for the last few months has gotten very weak floppy stems. Beginning around the 4th week of flower. The top buds look burnt but they're not. The lights are far away. They look burnt but they're not crispy. And all the other plants that are in various stages of flowering in the 12/12 room are also developing weak floppy stems. I don't know what I'm doing wrong. The particular plant that I am watering now Is a Wonder Woman and she's in her sixth week of flower. I did a complete soil flush a few days ago and hopes that I could get this burnt look to stop. This plant is so flopped over that every single branch has to be yo-yoed up. I tested the runoff pH and it was perfect that 6.5. I poured 15 gallons of pH water through the pot. With the slow draining problem it took me over four hours to do that. Now I don't know that this plant can be saved. I can't disconnect it from all the yo-yos but I will try to post a pic.

[HappyDaze]

I hope you can get them to recover, since you've come so far. All the nute manufacturers have the same recommendations about drain to waste watering practices, you have to let a lot flow through your pots to keep the salt buildup under control. I experimented with some flood / drain in rockwool years ago and it was a disaster. I stick to DWC and semi-organic soil now because I can't really pull off what I'm preaching.

Best of luck!

[Greenpassion]

Thanks HappyDaze. and I have always let water drip quite a bit out of the bottoms of these cloth pots whenever I water. Hate to bug you with more questions but do you think I should do a complete soil flush with the other three plants that are in the 12 12 room? The plant that is so bad right now is Wonder Woman three, next in line is Wonder Woman 2, and then I have two pure power plants that have been in the 12 12 room around three weeks. I can see that the two pure power plants have dried tips on the fan leaves. I also have red stems on most of them. What it do them good if I ran 15 gallons of pH pure water through each of these pots? And then started them with a very weak nutrients solution once they've dried out? I'm wondering if I haven't overfed them in the veg room, and then continue to do so in the 12 12 room.

[HappyDaze]

It could help to flush, and lower nutes, I'm not familiar with your strains so I don't know how resilient they are. Don't be discouraged just because your grow isn't picture perfect, you still have some pretty good looking flowers, so carry on and have fun!

[Spidermite]

Wonder Woman is one of the easiest and most forgiving strains I've grown. At least Nirvanas Wonder Woman. Did you add 30% or more of perlite to the soil? If not that could be the issue. You can try adding some earthworms to the soil and see if that helps. They burrow and loosen the soil.

[Greenpassion]

Would earthworms do ok in a soilless mix? The plants that are in trouble are in pro mix.

[HappyDaze]

I haven't poured chemical nutrients over earthworms before, but I'm guessing they wouldn't like it. They might live in a bucket of super soil, but they're going to be very unhappy in a pail of peat and perlite.

[Greenpassion]

Are any of you guys familiar with the Botanicare nutrient line? They tell me that they are organic but just not Omri listed yet there main nutrient or base nutrient is comprised a fish meal composted seabird guano kelp Rock phosphate potassium carbonate magnesium carbonate and calcium carbonate. also most of my newer plants in the veg room are predominately potted in coast of Maine organic potting soil. That in the promix appears to have perlite in it already. So you're saying I should add more? And could earthworms live in the coast of Maine mix?

[Spidermite]

Earthworms live fine in Fox Farms Ocean Forest soil with the fox farms trio. It is supposedly organic but isnt certified organic. I dont know if they would live or not with that soil and nutrients but if they do die they themselves become fertilizer.

[Greenpassion]

And I think I might try that on my next grow using coast of Maine.