Watering

[Closet Farmer]

why is it recommended to water so that you have about 20% run off? Is it just for good saturation or something else.

 

[Royal Nugs]

I believe it's to ensure complete saturation and to flush out excess fertilizer that may have built up in the media.

 

[Closet Farmer]

I'm doing a super soil grow (Kind Soil) no nutes. Is it still important to flush with excess water?

 

[Gordo41]

If the nutes are in the soil,, watering to runoff would depleat the nutes in the soil in a hurry, but they wouldn't last the entire grow anyway. At some point you will have to start adding nutes to the soil especially during flowering. As far as i know, there are no soil mixes that provide all the nutes nessary during vegging and flowering.

 

[kingfish]

<If the nutes are in the soil,, watering to runoff would depleat the nutes in the soil in a hurry, but they wouldn't last the entire grow anyway. At some point you will have to start adding nutes to the soil especially during flowering. As far as i know, there are no soil mixes that provide all the nutes nessary during vegging and flowering>

Well said Gordo. About the 20% runoff. I never do that. I water all around the pot. As soon as I see water coming out of the bottom, I stop watering. I also alternate water and nutes.

 

[Gordo41]

That being said,, i dont like using soil or soil mixes just because the nutes ARE in there, and i cant do a proper run off check. I want to know what's going on in the root ball every 4 days. I do a water to run off every 4 or 5 days so i know if the plant is getting too much or too little nutes. I do a ppm and PH check at this time and adjust the PH and PPM of the water im adding at the time and by what my last readings were. So if my last reading was 1200 PPM and 6.5 PH i know to add less nutes and a lower PH to the water this time. And check the runoff to see if it changed to where i like it. I keep a log of the results every time i do this. So plant like more nutes and some less so if im not doing the runoff check i can't know if its the right amount for that plant. Of course i could just watch the plant for signs of over or under feeding but i dont like to wait to that point and stress the plant in any way. This by the way works best if growing in coco, where its soooo easy to change the level of nutes in the pot/root ball.

 

[kingfish]

You are a Artist my friend.

 

[Gordo41]

Thanks you my friend. Im very retired so this gives my something to do. And i like messing with the plants.
Today i did some de-foliating on all of them.