Bah…sorry to butt in again…so I’ve got your soil mix, nute ratios, I know you water until 20% runoff, never let the pots get bone dry, and feed with every watering…
Here’s the question…how do you know how strong to make your feeding water? I think I’ve heard you say EC a few times…is that how you measure the strength? If so, any idea what ppms would be ideal for your growing forward method?
Have you ever done hydro? How do you find growing forward compared to hydro?
So EC (Electrical Conductivity) is what the instrument actually measures. I prefer this metric. PPM is usually just this number with a multiplier applied. That multiplier is usually 500 or 700. So multiply his EC numbers by 500 (to be safe) and you get your PPM.
Thanks much for the breakdown!! I feel foolish now…I probably could have googled that…but you made it easy to understand right off the hop.
He is running 1 teaspoon per gallon of his nutes
…like 500 ppm or so .
If your pots are small be careful or you can burn them . In 2 gallons and up it is fine…in small pots 1 tea per every water is too much
Perfect like that to go into Dixie Cup…Sweet, NOW you have Orange Goji(my Razor)
Cool, do not drown them, good water, let them go pretty light before next, get roots to "hunt a bit. Not till zero wetness, but till a good light cup dry, you will fine tune.
You can learn if you watch the plant while growing her, mean actually watch her. Not for this watering, your 1st with them throwing roots…they will take 2- 3 days to look happy and normal, while they throw long roots in the cup. But from then on just watch them.
If you let cup get too dry, leafs will be lower than horizon and tips down. Then droop. Too dry. We wanted the day or so before that, lol.
Let cups get pretty light, but never to droop or even close to that. They would need a good day past dry to droop, so there should be no need to venture there. When light, a good watering till runoff , then LITFA
When you water next, watch them. If you get it correct, you will see leafs typically droop a minute when watered, then , if done well, leafs will come back up and look perky or pray within minutes to a few hours . IF they stay drooped for a day when you water them, soil still had plenty of water in it, and you watered too early or too much .
For OUR SOIL mix, if you did the ratios correct, forget all the hoopla on watering speed and patterns, lol. IF you got it correct, and once the soil is conditioned and had a few wettings (if got it right, was hard to get wet 1st time, like getting a Duck wet) it will absorb water well and wick it right through the cup/pot/sleeve/whatever quickly and drain well.
If i was watering those Dixies, would use my small lil container and fill the cup to it’s top level quickly, go to next, fill it to top, do to 3rd and 4th. Then go right back to 1 and do again…maybe 3 fill ups like that…not so much with a young plant, but when it has established roots. Dixie should drain pretty quickly, with the water running down through the soil mix. It should not pool or just stand there for any length of time, but pretty much be sucked down in by the time your finished watering the one next to it…if you get what I, saying.
It pulls lots of air in , mini flushes the Dixie, and wets consistently through the cup, w/o having a soaked bottom or standing water in there . Also tends to make roots want to go down too.
The cup should drain pretty quickly, and start to run off pretty quickly , like during 2nd filling of cup maybe. My Dixies have a bunch of little holes in the bottom and sides to drain from.
In pic above, I would start bottom left plant, fill it up, go right to 2nd, fill it up, then to 3rd have to go slower cause soil level is higher, but quick suck as fast as dirt would take it, go to last one.
Right back to 1st one, then to 2nd…about this time might see the cup already running off on 1st plant…finish the other 2. I would prolly go maybe 3 times round like that. Letting water be sucked down through it .
Drain should be quick, I let mine sit for 10 minutes, then remove from tray, not leave in standing water, a no no in my book.
So if mix is right, should work just like that. Pick cups up, shake up n down a quick second to remove last little standing water, put back to LITFA
Great advice jet! Pretty much exactly how I water my dixie cups. I always remove the tray and drain the runoff too like you said. I did not water the rooting cuts to runoff on the first feed in the dixie cups. You think that was a mistake?
NO…same as I would have done…good water but not til run off. Want to water again in 2 days if I could.
Roots will GROW FAST as shit in this soil…3 good days of root growing they can fill those cups if you do your part right
Cool
Now as to your bigger soft pots we need help/advise. If it is over 1 gallon in my house, IT IS IN AN OCTOPOT!
Period.
So not great at watering larger pots by hand. When I run the 1 gallon pots, I watered the same way as with the Dixies, but with larger amounts of water. They could take 3/4 of a gallon each pot in deep flower…HAD to water every day or every other day at the very latest.
You soft pots are much larger. We do not want the roots in wet media all the time. The soil mix, if you mixed it right, should prevent the pots from staying too wet, I would hope.
BUT WE NEED HELP advise from someone who routinely hand waters larger soil pots…
OR…you play it by ear, as I would do here if I had those pots. I would water till good run off 1st time, LITFA, see how plant reacts. Not happy within 2 days, wrong approach…let pot dry…see plant happy, feel weight of pot…get idea WHERE SHE LIKES IT…A.H. will NOT tolerate a continuous wet soil, or many over watering s, OG coul care less, just give her sunshine.
The above plant is SAD, but went into that state healthy, can see that. It is either root shocked, or very over watered for her root mass. Gotta play wait n see 3 days to find out. Give her good light and good airflow for a few days…she should tell you whats her malfunction .
I’m using 5 gal fabric pots that are 70/30 coco/pro-mix and I hand water. On my first watering, I watered until I had a small amount of run through, which was just over a half gallon. Each watering after, I just watered with 1/2 gallon. I’m a newbie, so I use a moisture meter, taking measurements in multiple spots and multiple depths. After a few watering, I could tell by the pot weight when they needed it again. Just started flowering and they drink 1/2 gallon per pot every other day.
IMy suggestion is if you can fill a pot with dry soil and compare weight with your problem plant you’ll know what weight in water you’ve got her drinking or trying to drink it is very easy to over water!
How many gals of soil are they ? 7 gal hard sided pots in veg for me would drink 1.5/2 gals every 3 days , flower same amount doubled morning and night every 3 days easiest I can tell you is lift the pots before and during watering to determine amounts l
When I grew in recycle store bags they were around 5 gal and full on veg going into flower I’d water daily a couple gals your growing with led so less heat less water I’d say
Not a lot of help I know environment plays a huge role in what they’ll drink so don’t hold me to my figures
You also can bottom feed the grow bag I’ve done in the past bring the moisture level up say 4 inches from the bottom having the sides of the bag damp to touch leaving the top dry if that makes sense when she droops and looks thirsty repeat