Frequency of watering

My plants sprouted on 8/26. One is in preflower, the other should be there soon. Do you find that throughout the different life stages, that you have to water more or less frequently?

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@dmykins

As the plant grows it will drink water at different rates. Best way to tell when watering is needed is by lifting the pot. You should do it once after you water so you know what it feels like- and when the pot is light then it is time to water again.
You can also stick your finger down into the soil to see how moist the soil is. If it’s dry to your knuckle then you’ll probably need to water.

Hope this helps.

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@Ray4x It does. Digging my finger in the soil won’t harm the roots? Also, I have them in 3 gallon smart pots, is there a rule of thumb that is used as to how much water I should be given them based on the size of the pot?

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@dmykins

You should be fine putting your finger into the soil and won’t harm the roots.

I’m sure there is a formula or something out there about how much water is needed. But I believe the rule of thumb is just water until you get about 10-20% of runoff out the bottom of the pot.

Are you growing autos?

@Ray4x yes they are Blueberry autos. So when you say 10-20% runoff, does that mean if I water it with a gallon of water, 10-20% of that gallon should run off?

@dmykins

Yes that is correct. So you should end up with a tenth of a gallon in runoff.

Again this is just a rule of thumb- sometimes I end up watering more and sometimes less. But this is the best way to make sure you continue to flush the salt build up from nutrients out of the soil.

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Perfect, I just received my PH meter and will actually adjust the PH of my water in to 6.5. Can I make a large batch of 6.5 ph’d water ahead of time, or should I only mix what I will use?

@dmykins

I think the ph will begin to drift. So you are probably best to just mix what you need.

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@dmykins I’m my experience you’ll need to water and feed more as they flower and grow
They will definitely drink more :+1:
Happy growing

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So I was figuring they would need to be watered because I keep hearing do not over water (so I am not trying to over do it when I do water). When I got home from work today the lower leaves where drooping compared to the upper leaves which may have a slight droop, is it safe to assume it was due to them being thirsty? :frowning:

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The “run-off” percentage is a goal, but I think the important part is that once they are large enough you want to completely soak the soil. Having run-off ensures you haven’t missed anything. It also allows you to check the ppm and pH of the water coming out compared to what you put in, to see if you need to make any adjustments to help the plant.

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That’s the cool thing about cloth pots: It’s almost impossible to overwater because the excess runs out and they breath so well. What you want to avoid is watering every day, but small pots and hot weather may require it. Drying out a bit is good because it inhibits root rot. You want to water again when the pot is light, when your finger in the dirt is dry, or just before the leaves wilt. You can see the stems drooping a bit as the plant runs out of water. Upward pointing stems is called “turgor” and is a good thing.

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Yea they were a bit thirsty, I watered them, went down about an hour later and they were all up and perky!

@dmykins, allowing your plants to fully cycle wet to dry forces the plant to push more roots which means more buds later. As the plant gets larger, the more leaf surface develops which means more respiration and more water transpired. Big plants use a lot more water. Watering to runoff assures saturation and drains the soil of some buildup of excess salts harmful to plant health.

If you don’t have a journal,start one now. It’s a valuable tool and gains value the more experienced you get. Not least is using it to develop a good feeding schedule. In soil you don’t add nutes every time. In coco it’s the same. Soil and coco both recommend flushes at certain points in the life cycle and it’s easy to pre load that in to your journal.

Also, you really can’t ph water and store it for any length of time.

Hope this helps.

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Not trying ti hijack the thread - but using a supersoil mix, how do you check run-off (since it is just pH water going in)? What do you check for?

Both ph out and solids can tell you a lot about the condition of your soil.

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I may get back to you in my thread to help interpret results the first time or two if that’s OK. I’m still a few weeks out from soaking her.

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Sure, but I am not the final authority. There are others that we can call in to tell you precisely what is happening. :blush:

I’ll learn something out of it too! There’s a complex inter relationship between all of these components that takes somebody smarter than me to figure out haha.

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I use a “zero-water” filter, so my ppm start out pretty much 0 before I pH. Haven’t bothered checking the ppm until I actually soak the pots and have runoff. Not adding nutes til flower, then probably a tea.

That works good but you can’t filter gallons of water easily it takes hours

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