Yep,can pm me if you want,so we don’t hijack the thread
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Feel free to keep going here also. No worries with me. Ifish and Eskobar both have some great threads here on OG which focus on growing in Mapito.
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Watering every 2-3 days gets tiring for me. Good on you for your dedication 
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Every 2-3 days and I’d probably forget sometime and they’d dry out too much 
Every day keeps me on a schedule at least. At the beginning of the week I usually make up a 5 gallon bucket of what I’ll need for all the mom’s and vegging plants. Then it’s just 1 ~500ml scoop per bin once a day or so. I might spend 5 minutes working in there a day at most on average so its not too bad. I can fill up extra and be gone for a few days and not have to worry, but i don’t like to keep the plants in that much water at a time if I’m gonna be there.
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This is what was driving my question on frequency. Seems like if you consistently let them sit in a pool of water you’d be opening yourself up to root rot or some other kind of issue.
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a traditional pot, with most choices of media, will support a perched water table after watering.
this is a layer of water in the bottom of the pot held in place against gravity by the forces of cohesion and adhesion.
cohesion is waters attraction to itself and adhesion is waters attraction to other materials.
this layer of water can only be removed by plant transpiration and evaporation.
this is why you don’t water a pot until it nearly dries down.
it is not good for the plant to sit in standing water for long periods.
if the water becomes depleted of oxygen the plant could get root rot.
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With Mapito flood and drain my crates are raised slightly above the tray for best even flooding and draining plus they don’t sit in runoff
I would say @HolyAngel is watering the tray with apropreate volume each time so none is left on tray after absorption
His water volume only lasts a day and not 2-3 so must be less and without danger of over wet feet or sitting in runoff
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@greyfader its because of them two forces at play it is better to bottom feed than top feed as bottom feed gives better gradient from wet to dry within pot as long as they not sitting in runoff
Pot can only absorb to certain hieght kind off then it tapers of , whereas top feeding and gravity saturates all of pot removing all air if not carefull plus pushing down creating positive pressure within pot ( creating bumpy leafs and witch fingers ) whereas bottom feeding creates negative pressure as it’s pulling away drawing in air with that and good wet to dry gradient it’s a lot harder to over water
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Same theory for starting seeds
I place mine in wet medium , paper towels or soil etc wet but not shiney wet and let scuffed seeds absorb gradually what they want ( more control )
Not into shot glass and forced to absorb to max capacity , with way more risk of drowning and turning to mush or bloating till tail tip pokes out but doing nothing else
: )
sittin here rambling lol I’ll put the joint down haha bombed
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Never liked the paper towel method. I’ve screwed up more seeds that way than soaking or dropping straight to soil. Gotta go with what works best for you though. More than one way to skin a cat!
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wouldn’t it be better to water from both the top and the bottom eliminating any salt accumulation whatsoever?
i have found that 24/7 sub-irrigation combined with timed, quantified, top feeding not only prevents salts from building up in the medium but also presents nutrients and water to the plant at all times.
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If you search for this topic and Autopots, you will find a lot of relevant information. I bottom feed exclusively and the answer is “it depends on the nutrient solution.” High salt nutrients are pretty hard to get a full uptake on and it results in some of the extra salts being left in the bottom and eventually lockout. If you find something that works well with Autopots, you won’t have this worry. I use Canna Coco for this reason.
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Welcome to the forum @CerebralMeds : )
When I rinse my crates at the end of a grow to flush away the tide line from bottom feeding and I check the ph it is very high
So salt build up people talk about is either potassium or calcium bicarbonate ( the latter is probably the cause ) so maybe not food ie npk
Is this in line with what the auto pot guys are thinkin ?
People say salt build up but that is very vague maybe misleading terminology
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If your building up that much salt, to me, it means running more plain water or teas, between feeding cycles.
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But what is this salt your building up ? @webeblzr what does it consist off ?
If you have a build up of ppm/ec in pot from excess food then clawing occurs on leafs and ph In turn can swing usually down
If you have salt build up , this thro s ph of too high and causes lock out
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My understanding is that if you use a balanced nutrient with a stable environment there’s no reason for build up/lock out to occur because the plants using a balanced amounts of water and minerals.
Build up occurs when the nutrient is too strong or the environment is causing too much transpiration concentrating nutrients in the medium.
My ec is linked to my environment and the time of year, hotter drier weather needs some allowance.
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you could just use the term nutrient build-up rather than “salt” build-up. products like jack’s 5-12-26 are mineral salts and it’s not specific to either sodium or potassium.
non-organic sources of nutrients are “mineral salts”.
what happens when you take a glass of water and stir as much table salt into it as possible?
then leave it to evaporate.
the water will evaporate and the salt will be left behind in the glass.
this is what happens in a medium being fed mineral salt fertilizers.
when you water a plant from one direction only, either top or bottom, mineral fertilizer salts will accumulate due to the drying of the medium.
if you are watering from the bottom you should still water from the top once or twice a week to keep drying mineral salts from accumulating in the top of the medium.
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