The Proper Way To Water A Seedling In A Large Final Container

jokerlola said:
Yes. I watered the the 2 bigger plants to run off on Saturday. I gave them about 2 quarts each. I gave the 2 smaller plants 2 cups of water each on Sunday. They are still not up to 1/3rd of the width of the pots yet. I used a pump sprayer to water all of them slowly.
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So it’s been 3 days since watered the bigger plants to run off. In your article, you say to water the top level of the pot to keep the surface roots growing while the plant’s lower roots use up the water at the bottom of the pot 3 days after watering to run off. My soil has a lot of perlite in it so it drains really well. It seems like if I try that, the water is just going to drain to the bottom and just add to the bottom water. The pots are still heavy but noticeably lighter than Saturday when I watered to run off. Should it be fine to just wait for the pot to get light before watering again or is that wetting the top half of the pot a necessary step?
 
jokerlola said:
So it’s been 3 days since watered the bigger plants to run off. In your article, you say to water the top level of the pot to keep the surface roots growing while the plant’s lower roots use up the water at the bottom of the pot 3 days after watering to run off. My soil has a lot of perlite in it so it drains really well. It seems like if I try that, the water is just going to drain to the bottom and just add to the bottom water. The pots are still heavy but noticeably lighter than Saturday when I watered to run off. Should it be fine to just wait for the pot to get light before watering again or is that wetting the top half of the pot a necessary step?
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First, I don't want you to give enough that it could drop down to the bottom, so just a cup will do it. Second I didn't say water the entire top at this point, just concentrate on the outer edges. Your goal is to make the outer edges the wettest point in the container and you will draw new roots towards that water. You are attempting to greatly increase the lateral growth of your roots. Without this step your roots will basically grow up and down instead of filling out the entire container. Root balls do not happen naturally nor by accident.

Another reason this is difficult in your case is because you didn't fill your containers. You are not taking advantage of the vertical space that you could have and this is causing you to take a few shortcuts. The next time you fill your containers with soil take advantage of the entire container up to about an inch from the top lip and that will make this system make a lot more sense and it will give you Roots a little more room to work.

I noticed this first when you said it took about 2 quarts to get to run off, where a container that size would usually take almost a gallon. It's no big deal, but we'll just treat it as if it's a two and a half or three gallon container.
 
First, I don't want you to give enough that it could drop down to the bottom, so just a cup will do it. Second I didn't say water the entire top at this point, just concentrate on the outer edges. Your goal is to make the outer edges the wettest point in the container and you will draw new roots towards that water. You are attempting to greatly increase the lateral growth of your roots. Without this step your roots will basically grow up and down instead of filling out the entire container. Root balls do not happen naturally nor by accident.
Emilya Green said:
Another reason this is difficult in your case is because you didn't fill your containers. You are not taking advantage of the vertical space that you could have and this is causing you to take a few shortcuts. The next time you fill your containers with soil take advantage of the entire container up to about an inch from the top lip and that will make this system make a lot more sense and it will give you Roots a little more room to work.

I noticed this first when you said it took about 2 quarts to get to run off, where a container that size would usually take almost a gallon. It's no big deal, but we'll just treat it as if it's a two and a half or three gallon container.
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OK. I understand now.

Each one of my 5 gallon Smart Pots has about .75 cubic feet of soil in each one. Each bag of the potting soil is 1.5 cubic feet, so 2 bags in the 4 pots. The potting soil bag says one bag will fill two 5 gallon pots. These are the old design Smart Pots which are wider than they are taller. When I initially filled them, the soil level was up to about an inch below the rim. But the sides of the fabric pots eventually start to bulge out and it causes the soil level to shrink. This could be caused by the heat of the sun causing the fabric to stretch.

With other soils I’ve been able to fill my 5 gallon Smart Pots with up to 1 gallon of water before run off. But this soil has 45% perlite which makes it hold less water. I used a pump sprayer to try to water slower and so the water doesn’t just run through the pot but saturates the surface before sinking into the soil. Also, the hot sun drys out the soil surface quickly which makes it hydrophobic. I started getting run off after I had sprayed about 2 quarts for each plant so I stopped but I probably could have got more water in them if I had come back and tried. They sucked up the runoff pretty quickly.
 
Hi, I’ve started an auto and an auto fem in 3 gal fabric pots. Transplanted them from germination plugs once they grew a set of true leaves. The 3 gal pots will be their final home. They are about 3weeks old post germination but have only grown 1 set of single fan leaves. Height is hardly 2 inches and leaf tip to tip diameter is maybe 4 inches. Is this a normal size? Or has the growth slowed down due to improper transplant? I haven’t watered the container to run off yet. Should I do that to entice growth?

They’re growing in a soil-coco peat-perlite mix and using natural sunlight outdoors. Have given 1 feed of seedling strength nutes.
 
Emilya Green said:
In the beginning, you may even want to start your seed directly in the final container, simply by putting it one inch deep, pointy end down. It is surprising to some how often this works, even though mother nature does it all the time. If you go this route, lightly mist the area around the seed several times a day with 5-10 good squirts, attempting to only wet down as far as that seed. Continue this until the seedling hits the surface.

Keep using the spray bottle twice a day, now attempting to give enough water to soak in to roughly 3x the plant's height, and in a circle out to 3x the plant's diameter, by at least doubling the amount of squirts you gave to the seedling. Do not soak the entire container right away.... your new seedling cant handle that much water and if the seedling starts to wander or swim in the wet soil, you are giving too much.

Water like this, with these relatively small amounts a couple of times a day, always attempting to get a good part of that water out away from the trunk of the plant, by trying to make the outside edges of that circle 3x the diameter of the plant, the wettest places in the container.... you are attempting to entice the top roots to grow out in that direction.

After the plant has gotten a couple of leaves and gotten taller, it will no longer swim around in the soil if given a lot of water, and it is time to get a bit more aggressive than the spray bottle can do... it is time to move to the watering can and a couple of cups of water at first, slowly soaking the entire top surface of the container. We aren't trying to saturate the container yet, but we do want enough water to soak into the entire surface at least 3x the height of the plant, and we want some of that water to head straight down the middle, where the roots are trying to reach the bottom. This is when it is handy to have been an outside vegetable gardener, so that you know how to test the top of the soil to see if it is moist. When you can no longer feel moisture a day or two later, water like this again.

When the plant's 3x diameter reaches the outside edges of the container, water the entire container slowly, to saturation (runoff) for the first time. It will take a week or more for the plant to use all of that water on this first round, but you don't want the plant to sit idle all of that time either, or it will stagnate. It is time to change the watering pattern again.

Every 3 days or so do a partial watering of the top of the surface, again with only enough water to soak in to the first 3 or 4 inches of soil. Two specialized sets of roots are now forming, the top spreader roots designed to choke off other plants and quickly gather up rain, and the bottom tap and feeder roots. You are attempting to water only the top spreader roots, while the bottom tap/feeder roots continue to work on the water sitting in the bottom of the container for as long as it takes to clear that first full watering.

You may have to do this secondary top watering 2 or 3 times while you wait for the container to dry out all the way to the bottom. Force the plant to grow the necessary roots to do this job by being patient, and the plant will eventually use all of that water. Once the lift method, a dip stick or a moisture meter tells you that is is finally dry down to the last inch of container, it is time to water completely again and repeat the process, while every 3 days watering the top, until the bottom finally syncs up with the top.

Every time you go through one of these cycles, the roots will get stronger and the time between complete waterings will diminish. Eventually the top and the bottom will sync up and you will not have to do the secondary watering any more, you will just be watering the whole container every 3 days or so, as the wet/dry cycle stabilizes at around 3 days.

It is important to cycle the plant like this all through veg so as to force the plants to develop a solid root ball... the roots do not grow to fill that container unless you challenge them. Once you get into bloom, it is time to change your watering strategy.

From then on your goal is not building roots, it is time to really start using the roots that you have carefully built. Your goal at the end of stretch should be to start pumping as much water/nutes into the plant as it can take. I typically will force a plant that is perfectly happy with a 3 day wet/dry cycle into an every other day watering all during bloom... and with the roots you have forced the plant to grow in Veg, they will be able to take just about as much water as they did in 3 days, if you have done this correctly.

Good Luck and Good Grows!
Emilya
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Hi Em

Hi, I’ve started an auto and an auto fem in 3 gal fabric pots. Transplanted them from germination plugs once they grew a set of true leaves. The 3 gal pots will be their final home. They are about 3weeks old post germination but have only grown 1 set of single fan leaves. Height is hardly 2 inches and leaf tip to tip diameter is maybe 4 inches. Is this a normal size? Or has the growth slowed down due to improper transplant/ improper uppotting? What can I do to entice growth?

They’re growing in a soil-coco peat-perlite mix and using natural sunlight outdoors. Have given 1 feed of seedling strength nutes.
 
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