Old Guy Teaches
Well-Known Member
I use 6.1 water and use 4 GAL per 20 Gal Felt Pots every 4/5 Days. Im in So Cal and It's very Hot here. Im well over 12 ft Now and a Month to go. Last year over 20 FT.6 Pots. heres wife trimming. So Cal.
The Proper Way To Water A Potted Plant
- Thread starter Emilya Green
- Start date
We learn something new everyday if we are open to new information.
I recently went to the big box store for a 2nd 2gallon watering can. Turns out they were sold out and only had little wee ones. Guess who didn’t pick one up at the time?
Another lesson learned for next grow. Thank you so much for your original post @Emilya and all the time you’ve taken since then to get everyone up to speed.
Hi @SCD, if I may, I watch @Emilya religiously so I saw this...I use the free method of buying watering cans. I save my half gallon milk containers and gallon milk containers. They are my base watering cans for half and full gallons, and with them I do exactly what she is saying, I can keep track and know what's up cuz I'm always using the same gradations containers. When I was using Canna nutes, set up for liters, I used 2 liter empty Coke bottles so I'd have an exact 2 liter reference. After buying watering can after watering can that never had the nozzle or capacity or markings or whatever, I realized Emilya's method of repurposing stuff (like marking up her own cup lines and such) makes more sense than constantly spending $6 or $8 or $12 bucks. For what it's worth!!! I'm pretty cool with free ways to do the same thing I used to pay for. Lol. Good luck!We learn something new everyday if we are open to new information.
I recently went to the big box store for a 2nd 2gallon watering can. Turns out they were sold out and only had little wee ones. Guess who didn’t pick one up at the time?
Another lesson learned for next grow. Thank you so much for your original post @Emilya and all the time you’ve taken since then to get everyone up to speed.
Moony
Well-Known Member
I bought a 1.5 litre watering can. I look super strong and masculine with my 6 ft 6 220 frame carrying a tiny watering can haha. But with the rain spout attachment it takes like 3 mins to empty. Imitating how rain falls on soil normally. Plants seem to like it 
JasonMichael420
420 Member
Unfortunately for those who grow autoflower strains, putting into a small pot and then transplanting into a bigger pot is not an option. We autoflower growers have to plant our seeds straight into their final container (which is typically a 3 or 5 gallon pot) autoflowers do NOT do well with transplanting. They only have a very small vegetative phase so transplanting can really stunt the plant. Id Love to know how to properly water a plant that goes straight into its final container. I was told to water just around the middle in a 2-inch diameter out from the center and as the seedling stage progresses, to slowly water further out closer to the edge. I don't usually water the entire pot until I'm at least in veg around day 14 but I've even had issues with not watering correctly. Its a shame there's not much info online about this subject of taking care of autoflowersThe Proper Way to Water a Potted Plant
Also covered: the importance of pH and why we successively up-pot
How to Water
Over the last several years I have put a lot of study into this, and I feel that I can now define the proper way to water a potted plant. Keep in mind that this discussion applies to at least 3 gallon containers and bigger. Please realize that this special plant of ours does not grow like anything else you have ever tried to grow, and no matter how good you are at growing peas, beans and tomatoes, you will have to change your methods to grow a weed.
The first rule of watering is to always water slowly, using no more than a quart at a time, pausing often to let the soil suck air in behind the water as it pools on the top. For me, that involves a routine of watering each of my plants with 1 quart, then taking a nice relaxing drink of whatever beverage I have brought with me to the tent. Then I take a deep breath, making sure to exhale deeply onto this plant, letting her know that I love her. After this, I take a nice big hit off of the pipe that also followed me into the tent, and then after a nice pause and maybe another drink, I go back to plant #1 and repeat the cycle. For 2 rounds, I water the entire surface of the soil, watching it pool up and get sucked down.
After this initial wetting of the top, my watering method changes a bit. Now, I want to do whatever I can to make the outside edges of the container, the wettest areas. Still only using a quart at a time, I now carefully water only there, all around the plant, only on the edges. While doing this, I slow down a bit so that the water doesn't pool as much in the center, always concentrating on the edges. The center will end up getting some too, and that's fine, but the wettest areas of the pot will be on the outside edges and you will be driving nutrient rich soil into the dense original root ball. Continue this, again going slow, maybe with a deep breath in the middle of it, and then continue all around, taking drinks, deep breaths and hits in between each round. Continue until you see the first signs of runoff, and then stop.
Look carefully at the surface of your container now. You will clearly see where the root ball is from your last transplant, because it will now be sticking up just a little bit above the original outer rim. Very fine soil has been driven through the original root ball with the flow of water and soil from the outer edges. This micro fine soil is very rich with nutrients because of its mobility. When you water from the outside edges, you force this micro fine sludge into the dense root ball, where it can do the most good. Once you establish this flow pattern in the container, you can be assured of totally replacing the micro soil in the center of the root ball with new soil, every time you water. Watering in the normal way does not create his circular flow, and root growth cannot be nearly as aggressive.
Lastly, take one last quart of water, and water very very slowly, just in the raised area where the original root ball is. As you do so, watch what happens at the outer edge of the original root ball.
You will see the very finest soil, almost a mud, migrating out of the old root ball, and into the middle! This completes the process of soil exchange in the container. In this manner, all the roots get to take advantage of the nutrients in the soil, and the roots follow the migration of the nutrient rich soil, toward the outer edges, creating lateral growth. I strive to actively drive the soil out of the middle, making room for the roots to grow more dense and bigger there, and as they do, the lateral growth also has to increase. Using this method, I have seen a steady increase in the amount of water needed to get to run off throughout the grow and by the end, plants watered in this way use approximately 30% more water than is seen using standard watering techniques. Watering in the manner I have described allows for a constant circular flow of soil throughout the container and will create an extremely dense root ball.
Now it is time for a truism. It is best to water the roots, not the plant. A healthy and robust root system means a happy and productive plant. Neglect the roots and your plants can die, and certainly will be less than they could have been.
When do we water?
By far, one of the most common plant problems that I see with new gardeners is a lack of understanding as to when to water. New people get it set in their mind that watering every day or every other day is best, or that somehow, mysteriously, they know in their own human minds exactly how much water the plants need. These well-meaning new gardeners will determine that they will give exactly one quart or some other random amount, each time, no more... and no less, and really believe that they are doing a good thing for their plants, making these decisions for them.
Just as bad as these over-thinkers are the tomato gardeners, the "stick your finger in the ground" crowd, who proclaim: it's time to water when it is dry below the second knuckle. What they fail to realize is that when the top 2 inches is dry, the lower half of the container could still be saturated with water. Both of these common mistakes in watering methods are quick ways to drown your plants. These methods are not correct for growing weeds, and using them can actually kill your plants.
Marijuana is a weed, and the main thing that this scientific term refers to, is a class of plant that thrives in adversity. In order to grow it well, you need to understand that this incredibly robust plant works differently than other, less hardy plants. It is an extremely aggressive grower if you allow it to be, and to grow prize winning pot, you need to use its abilities to send out new roots to your advantage.
Watering incorrectly is the most common mistake that new weed farmers make. This plant needs a clear wet/dry cycle in order to thrive. If you keep it moist, you will kill it. The roots will aggressively chase your water, whatever you give them. If you just give a small amount every couple of days, that water will drop right to the bottom of the container. Your roots will follow, and will cluster on the bottom, instead of growing laterally throughout the container, and since they continually sit in the nutrient rich water, the plant sees little need to grow additional roots. How you water makes a huge difference in the formation of the root ball, and how this development happens is up to you.
There are many ways to tell when it is time to water, and if you wait long enough the girls will actually tell you that they are thirsty. They do two things when they see that they need water, they throw out a smell, and they begin to wilt, starting at the bottom, moving up. You can also use the lift method to tell when the container is dry, and almost always you will "feel" a dry container, before the above mentioned wilt and fragrance pump happens. Rusty Trichome taught me an important lesson; every time I think that I need to do something to my plants, I wait a bit... and I try to move at the speed that my plants are moving. "Patience, above all else." --Rusty
If you have a moisture meter you can also use it to find where the wet/dry (water table) line is in your container, and you can watch that wet/dry line move down over time. I used to graph my water table level by day, so that I could project ahead when the wet dry line would reach the last inch of container. Your wet/dry line will never go lower than that last inch or so, because once you get down in there, you are in all the big tap roots and mass at the bottom, and it tends to stay wet there longer because of capillary effect. Again, if you wait for the first sign of wilt and that perfume pump that happens at "water me" point, it will usually be just a bit longer than your measurements would indicate. Once the water table line is anywhere in that bottom inch is ok to water. You have dried out 95% of the water by that time and the roots have been chasing it as the wet/dry line progresses both downward and outward. The suction caused by the diaphragm that is the water table, will have pulled oxygen down deep into the container, and filled any voids. The roots will be happy.
Why do we up-pot?
The art of successive up-potting is important in growing a healthy root system. People like to be lazy. I am constantly seeing new gardeners take a little sprig of a weed and put it in a big 3 or 5 gallon container, thinking that they have done a good thing, and are now done with it... it's on to harvest time! The problem is, this doesn't work, because it gives you zero control over developing the roots, and without crazy watering techniques, almost no chance of a solid root ball forming. It is imperative to successively up pot your plants through stages so that the root system can roughly take on the same size and shape as the plant in order to get the maximum productivity. The roots grow aggressively in these weeds, and if you confine them to a container the size of the plant, they will fill that space in a short time with a dense root system. Putting a plant in an oversized container can and often does, result in all the roots going to the bottom, drowning the plant, root rot and overall poor health because of a lack of a root ball, and certainly less than optimum harvests. It is important to force these weeds into producing a root ball at various stages, to give the plant the ability later on to take in the massive amounts of nutrients needed to produce lots of quality buds.
The plants in the smaller containers can also more directly show you when they are thriving or more importantly when they are not. A strong healthy plant will eventually outgrow its container and an observant gardener is carefully watching the length of time between wet/dry cycles, and directly relating shorter cycles with more robust roots. A smaller container also gives the gardener the ability to see when the moment arrives that the amount of soil the plant is in is no longer large enough for the plant's abilities to be happy in it, because it will be obvious when the plant can drain the water that soil is able to hold, in less than 24 hours. Your soil and your container at that point have ceased at that point to be a good enough buffer, and it is time to double the space the roots have to work with. Let your plant show you when that time is, and try not to make decisions for her.
Why is pH important?
Some people claim that pH is not important, and if you are a pure organic gardener, never applying chlorinated water or salt based synthetic nutrients at your plants, pH indeed is not important. For the 99.9% rest of the world, a very important lesson for the new gardener to learn is the importance of pH. There is a scientific reason why a proper pH allows the plants to use synthetic nutrients, and why being outside of the proper range can cause deficiencies. If you want to grow pot using chemicals, you need to invest in a method to test the pH of any water going into the plant, whether it is plain water or water mixed with nutrients, and whether it is applied to the roots or sprayed on the leaves. If you neglect the pH, you can easily create deficiencies in your plants, and if left unchecked, you can even kill them. If you spend a lot of money on nutrients, it makes sense that you would want to also create the proper environment so that the plant can use these nutrients, but with a pH way out of the 6.3-6.8 range in soil, a lot of those expensive nutrients will just sit there, not doing the plant any good. If you are in a soilless mix, pH in the range of 5.5-6.1 is necessary. It is only within these ranges that all the nutrients are mobile, are able to be broken free of their salt bonds and be in the form that can go into the plants. Most soils and systems are designed so that you can apply liquids at a lower pH and then the soil or the soilless mix causes a drift, so that the pH can visit each spot in the usable pH range for that medium, and all of the 17 needed nutrients will be picked up, each in its turn.
I hope that this study on containers, watering and pH helps someone who reads it. This paper was a result of having to explain these same concepts over and over and over again to new growers at they hit the forums, until finally I put all these thoughts together into this paper. Some of the thoughts previously given have also been refined for this publication, as questions were asked and answered the last time I posted it, and I have learned better ways of explaining my thoughts. Here, I give you, approximately draft 10 of this paper.
Be well everyone and blessings from my garden to yours,
Sense Emilya
Hey @JasonMichael420, I'm Jon. Forgive me for my forwardness, but I have made it a habit to respond as I'm about to anytime I see someone post this idea.
This is NOT accurate.
I have grown MANY autos. I do well with them, check out my journals. I have up-potted every single auto I ever grew. It does NOT stunt the plant in the slightest if it is done properly, and in fact it actually HELPS the plant in a BIG way, because the root ball is so well established when it hits the three or five. Your training window is not affected in the least because you begin the training in the Dixie Cup and simply transplant a plant that has already begun training. I also stopped using threes after the first auto I grew, because the roots don't have nearly enough space in a three, and that's a guaranteed way to stunt your plant. I fill fives EVERY SINGLE TIME with roots so dense they can barely be removed from the pot, and so this time I'm seeing if I can fill a seven. All this is happening in either Fox Farms soil mix or in plain Sohum living soil.
Here's a few pictures to help make my point. All of these are autos in fives. All were uppotted. The Chunkadelic towers is a 4 or 5 ounce autoflower. The bud is Sour Apple auto harvesting shortly. The five others are in my current outdoor grow journal. I also have four more, three in 7s and one in a 5, that for the FIRST TIME I am attempting to grow starting in their final pot, but only because they are outdoor autos and ONLY because I have had several shots now at perfecting @Emilya's watering technique. Without this technique I was unable to generate proper roots. With it they're always spectacular, and a large reason why is because I up pot every time.
I am not trying to be over the top about this or slap you back or anything, so please don't take this the wrong way. I just KNOW it's not true, and I KNOW you'll do better if you change your mindset. I promise you will. Try it!!
- Thread starter
- #908
Emilya Green
Well-Known Member
Hi @JasonMichael420 and welcome to the forum!
First of all, with a little bit of searching you might have found my second major article on watering, which of course centers in on autos and those who for whatever reason, decide that it is best to start in their final container.
Here is the link to that article: The Proper Way To Water A Seedling In A Large Final Container
But next let me explain to you why it is that you were so easily taken in by this bit of misinformation, that Autos needed some sort of special technique. It all comes down to the fact that Autos are inferior plants when compared to photoperiod plants of similar heritage. Autos have been bred with cannabis ruderalis, a small scrawny northern plant that barely even resembles Sativa and Indica. It is short, barely produces THC, and yes, it flowers in any light conditions, its ONLY redeeming characteristic. The offspring of this plant and one of our superior plants generally results in smaller, less yielding and weaker in THC/CBD plants than the originals.
So how do you market such a beast, aside from its obvious shorter grow periods and ability to bloom in any light period? Seed houses found out that if you tell the consumers that they are easier to grow, they sell. So a whole new way of growing developed, supposedly for these "special" plants, centering in on the laziness and greed of the consumer public. They were told that they needed less nutes, less time, and hell, you should even be totally lazy and grow them from the start in their final containers. The strategy worked, and autos became a thing.
Truth be told, a plant is a plant is a plant. Autos are an aggressively growing plant that actually could take advantage of more nutes, earlier, than a typical slower growing photoperiod plant. Given a grower who understands this, autos can achieve amazing yields if given what they need.
Furthermore, it is a myth that transplanting necessarily causes stress and a lot of the sources of this misinformation comes from the auto world. There is no good reason to start these plants in their final container, other than pure laziness. In the gardening world there are transplanting methods that are designed to cause stress on purpose, so as to get the roots really going strong, and there are also zero stress methods. My father first taught me to slice the rootball into quarters when I transplanted, and that does cause 2 or 3 days of slowdown because of stress, but I have also learned that I can put my old pot into the new pot and build the soil around that shape, to be able to neatly set my entire fully intact rootball gently down into the hole with zero stress. Using this method, even autos go into an immediate growth spurt... obviously suffering no stress.
So yes, if you want to develop the strongest rootball possible while in veg, so as to produce the most product possible from the plant, you have to successively uppot, forcing the plant to fill each constricted space with roots as you move toward the final container. With autos, you just do this faster. If you start off in the final container, without using extraordinary watering methods, you will never produce a rootball because a rootball as we are describing it, filling the container, will not happen naturally... you have to force the plant to produce it in a constricted space. Without a full container, solid rootball, you will never get great production from your plants and you will need to get used to less than spectacular yields.
mochoa2356
420 Member
Hello from Tucson AZ. Love and appreciate your paper, and will gratefully apply your wisdom for sure. Thanks for the well wishes, and blessings. Sending them right back to you from the Sororan Desert.The Proper Way to Water a Potted Plant
Also covered: the importance of pH and why we successively up-pot
How to Water
Over the last several years I have put a lot of study into this, and I feel that I can now define the proper way to water a potted plant. Keep in mind that this discussion applies to at least 3 gallon containers and bigger. Please realize that this special plant of ours does not grow like anything else you have ever tried to grow, and no matter how good you are at growing peas, beans and tomatoes, you will have to change your methods to grow a weed.
The first rule of watering is to always water slowly, using no more than a quart at a time, pausing often to let the soil suck air in behind the water as it pools on the top. For me, that involves a routine of watering each of my plants with 1 quart, then taking a nice relaxing drink of whatever beverage I have brought with me to the tent. Then I take a deep breath, making sure to exhale deeply onto this plant, letting her know that I love her. After this, I take a nice big hit off of the pipe that also followed me into the tent, and then after a nice pause and maybe another drink, I go back to plant #1 and repeat the cycle. For 2 rounds, I water the entire surface of the soil, watching it pool up and get sucked down.
After this initial wetting of the top, my watering method changes a bit. Now, I want to do whatever I can to make the outside edges of the container, the wettest areas. Still only using a quart at a time, I now carefully water only there, all around the plant, only on the edges. While doing this, I slow down a bit so that the water doesn't pool as much in the center, always concentrating on the edges. The center will end up getting some too, and that's fine, but the wettest areas of the pot will be on the outside edges and you will be driving nutrient rich soil into the dense original root ball. Continue this, again going slow, maybe with a deep breath in the middle of it, and then continue all around, taking drinks, deep breaths and hits in between each round. Continue until you see the first signs of runoff, and then stop.
Look carefully at the surface of your container now. You will clearly see where the root ball is from your last transplant, because it will now be sticking up just a little bit above the original outer rim. Very fine soil has been driven through the original root ball with the flow of water and soil from the outer edges. This micro fine soil is very rich with nutrients because of its mobility. When you water from the outside edges, you force this micro fine sludge into the dense root ball, where it can do the most good. Once you establish this flow pattern in the container, you can be assured of totally replacing the micro soil in the center of the root ball with new soil, every time you water. Watering in the normal way does not create his circular flow, and root growth cannot be nearly as aggressive.
Lastly, take one last quart of water, and water very very slowly, just in the raised area where the original root ball is. As you do so, watch what happens at the outer edge of the original root ball.
You will see the very finest soil, almost a mud, migrating out of the old root ball, and into the middle! This completes the process of soil exchange in the container. In this manner, all the roots get to take advantage of the nutrients in the soil, and the roots follow the migration of the nutrient rich soil, toward the outer edges, creating lateral growth. I strive to actively drive the soil out of the middle, making room for the roots to grow more dense and bigger there, and as they do, the lateral growth also has to increase. Using this method, I have seen a steady increase in the amount of water needed to get to run off throughout the grow and by the end, plants watered in this way use approximately 30% more water than is seen using standard watering techniques. Watering in the manner I have described allows for a constant circular flow of soil throughout the container and will create an extremely dense root ball.
Now it is time for a truism. It is best to water the roots, not the plant. A healthy and robust root system means a happy and productive plant. Neglect the roots and your plants can die, and certainly will be less than they could have been.
When do we water?
By far, one of the most common plant problems that I see with new gardeners is a lack of understanding as to when to water. New people get it set in their mind that watering every day or every other day is best, or that somehow, mysteriously, they know in their own human minds exactly how much water the plants need. These well-meaning new gardeners will determine that they will give exactly one quart or some other random amount, each time, no more... and no less, and really believe that they are doing a good thing for their plants, making these decisions for them.
Just as bad as these over-thinkers are the tomato gardeners, the "stick your finger in the ground" crowd, who proclaim: it's time to water when it is dry below the second knuckle. What they fail to realize is that when the top 2 inches is dry, the lower half of the container could still be saturated with water. Both of these common mistakes in watering methods are quick ways to drown your plants. These methods are not correct for growing weeds, and using them can actually kill your plants.
Marijuana is a weed, and the main thing that this scientific term refers to, is a class of plant that thrives in adversity. In order to grow it well, you need to understand that this incredibly robust plant works differently than other, less hardy plants. It is an extremely aggressive grower if you allow it to be, and to grow prize winning pot, you need to use its abilities to send out new roots to your advantage.
Watering incorrectly is the most common mistake that new weed farmers make. This plant needs a clear wet/dry cycle in order to thrive. If you keep it moist, you will kill it. The roots will aggressively chase your water, whatever you give them. If you just give a small amount every couple of days, that water will drop right to the bottom of the container. Your roots will follow, and will cluster on the bottom, instead of growing laterally throughout the container, and since they continually sit in the nutrient rich water, the plant sees little need to grow additional roots. How you water makes a huge difference in the formation of the root ball, and how this development happens is up to you.
There are many ways to tell when it is time to water, and if you wait long enough the girls will actually tell you that they are thirsty. They do two things when they see that they need water, they throw out a smell, and they begin to wilt, starting at the bottom, moving up. You can also use the lift method to tell when the container is dry, and almost always you will "feel" a dry container, before the above mentioned wilt and fragrance pump happens. Rusty Trichome taught me an important lesson; every time I think that I need to do something to my plants, I wait a bit... and I try to move at the speed that my plants are moving. "Patience, above all else." --Rusty
If you have a moisture meter you can also use it to find where the wet/dry (water table) line is in your container, and you can watch that wet/dry line move down over time. I used to graph my water table level by day, so that I could project ahead when the wet dry line would reach the last inch of container. Your wet/dry line will never go lower than that last inch or so, because once you get down in there, you are in all the big tap roots and mass at the bottom, and it tends to stay wet there longer because of capillary effect. Again, if you wait for the first sign of wilt and that perfume pump that happens at "water me" point, it will usually be just a bit longer than your measurements would indicate. Once the water table line is anywhere in that bottom inch is ok to water. You have dried out 95% of the water by that time and the roots have been chasing it as the wet/dry line progresses both downward and outward. The suction caused by the diaphragm that is the water table, will have pulled oxygen down deep into the container, and filled any voids. The roots will be happy.
Why do we up-pot?
The art of successive up-potting is important in growing a healthy root system. People like to be lazy. I am constantly seeing new gardeners take a little sprig of a weed and put it in a big 3 or 5 gallon container, thinking that they have done a good thing, and are now done with it... it's on to harvest time! The problem is, this doesn't work, because it gives you zero control over developing the roots, and without crazy watering techniques, almost no chance of a solid root ball forming. It is imperative to successively up pot your plants through stages so that the root system can roughly take on the same size and shape as the plant in order to get the maximum productivity. The roots grow aggressively in these weeds, and if you confine them to a container the size of the plant, they will fill that space in a short time with a dense root system. Putting a plant in an oversized container can and often does, result in all the roots going to the bottom, drowning the plant, root rot and overall poor health because of a lack of a root ball, and certainly less than optimum harvests. It is important to force these weeds into producing a root ball at various stages, to give the plant the ability later on to take in the massive amounts of nutrients needed to produce lots of quality buds.
The plants in the smaller containers can also more directly show you when they are thriving or more importantly when they are not. A strong healthy plant will eventually outgrow its container and an observant gardener is carefully watching the length of time between wet/dry cycles, and directly relating shorter cycles with more robust roots. A smaller container also gives the gardener the ability to see when the moment arrives that the amount of soil the plant is in is no longer large enough for the plant's abilities to be happy in it, because it will be obvious when the plant can drain the water that soil is able to hold, in less than 24 hours. Your soil and your container at that point have ceased at that point to be a good enough buffer, and it is time to double the space the roots have to work with. Let your plant show you when that time is, and try not to make decisions for her.
Why is pH important?
Some people claim that pH is not important, and if you are a pure organic gardener, never applying chlorinated water or salt based synthetic nutrients at your plants, pH indeed is not important. For the 99.9% rest of the world, a very important lesson for the new gardener to learn is the importance of pH. There is a scientific reason why a proper pH allows the plants to use synthetic nutrients, and why being outside of the proper range can cause deficiencies. If you want to grow pot using chemicals, you need to invest in a method to test the pH of any water going into the plant, whether it is plain water or water mixed with nutrients, and whether it is applied to the roots or sprayed on the leaves. If you neglect the pH, you can easily create deficiencies in your plants, and if left unchecked, you can even kill them. If you spend a lot of money on nutrients, it makes sense that you would want to also create the proper environment so that the plant can use these nutrients, but with a pH way out of the 6.3-6.8 range in soil, a lot of those expensive nutrients will just sit there, not doing the plant any good. If you are in a soilless mix, pH in the range of 5.5-6.1 is necessary. It is only within these ranges that all the nutrients are mobile, are able to be broken free of their salt bonds and be in the form that can go into the plants. Most soils and systems are designed so that you can apply liquids at a lower pH and then the soil or the soilless mix causes a drift, so that the pH can visit each spot in the usable pH range for that medium, and all of the 17 needed nutrients will be picked up, each in its turn.
I hope that this study on containers, watering and pH helps someone who reads it. This paper was a result of having to explain these same concepts over and over and over again to new growers at they hit the forums, until finally I put all these thoughts together into this paper. Some of the thoughts previously given have also been refined for this publication, as questions were asked and answered the last time I posted it, and I have learned better ways of explaining my thoughts. Here, I give you, approximately draft 10 of this paper.
Be well everyone and blessings from my garden to yours,
Sense Emilya
Great history lesson. I didn't know about this but it makes sense. Thanks
Ouch... and here I was planning my next grow of autos (first time growing autos) fully expecting to have to sow and grow in a final container. I was even going to do multiple plants inside a single large container or bed.
Slip potting is an amazing technique and knowing now that autos do fine with this technique, I will 100% be doing that.
I did experience lower yield and performance as you have explained with my photos in the 7 gallons. I think I stunted them several times over the past few months under my care. Laziness for the win...or the loss...???
Thank you for posting this valuable information. I was wondering if you could tell me if there are any indicators to watch for that confirm the plant has "established" itself? Also, how much would constitute a "tiny amount" of water that goes down the center daily? Would it just be a few drops from a syringe or something else? Lastly, you say to continue to lightly spray or water while you are waiting for the plant to establish itself. What is the target depth for this watering phase and should it be directed in a specific location? I appreciate your efforts and thank you for your time.
- Thread starter
- #912
Emilya Green
Well-Known Member
Hi @kikikopa and welcome to the forum!
One of the very first tasks the new seedling accomplishes is sending the tap root down to the bottom of the cup. Once it hits bottom it turns and starts investigating the distance to the next edge. Shortly after the tap root makes this turn, it locks the plant in place so that it stops swimming around when you water. This happens around the 3rd or 4th day above ground, if not sooner. This is when the plant becomes established.
The tiny amount of water is maybe a tablespoon or two... it doesn't take a lot. If you are spraying, 2 or 3 sprays should do it. There really isn't a target depth, because some of this water is going to follow the root down to however far it has gotten in its search for the bottom while the rest starts to soak the area around the stem. There will be a time to use a lot more water and wet more of the soil, but this isn't it. Once you start following the 3x the plant diameter as your rule of where to water, you will start using more and more water, getting closer and closer to that first actual saturation of the container.
Thank you very much for the welcome, your prompt reply, and also for taking the time to explain the answers to my questions. I can now proceed with confidence knowing not just the how but also the why. You are literally a "seed saver".Hi @kikikopa and welcome to the forum!
One of the very first tasks the new seedling accomplishes is sending the tap root down to the bottom of the cup. Once it hits bottom it turns and starts investigating the distance to the next edge. Shortly after the tap root makes this turn, it locks the plant in place so that it stops swimming around when you water. This happens around the 3rd or 4th day above ground, if not sooner. This is when the plant becomes established.
The tiny amount of water is maybe a tablespoon or two... it doesn't take a lot. If you are spraying, 2 or 3 sprays should do it. There really isn't a target depth, because some of this water is going to follow the root down to however far it has gotten in its search for the bottom while the rest starts to soak the area around the stem. There will be a time to use a lot more water and wet more of the soil, but this isn't it. Once you start following the 3x the plant diameter as your rule of where to water, you will start using more and more water, getting closer and closer to that first actual saturation of the container.
One other thing that I forgot to ask if you would please and forgive me if you have already addressed it. I tried to search some of your posts but was not able to find a way to do a search. Do you recommend the use of root stimulators, mycorrhizae, and/or enzyme products such as Cannazym and if so, what would be their proper application(s)? Thank you.
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- #915
Emilya Green
Well-Known Member
I recommend the use of myco when uppotting and recommend our sponsor @DYNOMYCO . The use of enzymes and other products depends on which nutrients you are using and what your particular situation calls for. For best results, keep things as simple and basic as you can.
CharlieWaffles
Well-Known Member
My transplanted Bruce Banner. I know what you’re saying but it’s not entirely accurate. You just have to be cautious and realize it’s probably going to stunt or prolong your grow.
420giirl
Well-Known Member
Hey emilya, Is this while watering one plant at a time? Is it ok to water one after another?
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- #919
Emilya Green
Well-Known Member
The flowering addendum starts at message #69 of this forum... here is the link: The Proper Way To Water A Potted Plant
Yes... If you start rotating around the room, hitting all the plants in there, by the time you have watered the last one, you will have waited long enough to give more water to the first one. Simply move around in a circle until you finish the job with all the plants.
If I may....@Emilya, once I got that rotating watering thing down that you just mentioned it made watering a bunch of plants at once much more pleasurable. Your watering advice is the primary reason for my uptick in all phases of my growing. Thank you.