I have a question about automatic watering

[mstrpkl]

Goodmorning everyone!

I have a quick question maybe someone will have some experience with.

I just recently bought an auto watering drip system (letpot D2) and i just got the flow rate figured out. If i let it run for 15 second increments, with breaks of 1m45s in between runs, then it flows at about .5L every 10 minutes.

I guess my question is about how long i should let it water my plant. At that rate, my soil would be fully saturated in about an hour and 10 minutes. Is it harmful to the plant to water it over that long of a period of time? Or is that actually better because the soil has time to absorb all the water instead of getting a bunch of runoff?

I use distilled water in organic living soil, and i havent added any nutrients at all and dont plan to unless i see my plant wants something. So i want to avoid runoff for that reason.

Any advice is much appreciated! :)

 

[TheGoldenRoad]

This might be a good question for @HerbalEdu

 

[HerbalEdu]

sadly i have 0 experience with automatic watering system, i dunno what setting would be best to water your plant like it should be done and not flooding the tent, wait for some more to chime in

 

[mstrpkl]

sadly i have 0 experience with automatic watering system, i dunno what setting would be best to water your plant like it should be done and not flooding the tent, wait for some more to chime in

Well i think i have the flooding problem under control by measuring the output over certain amounts of time. I was essentially wondering if watering it over the course of an hour would drown the plant lol but thanks for replying!

 

[HerbalEdu]

no the fact you water over an hour shouldn't change anything if you doesn't saturate the medium with too much moisture, and then if you let it dry enough between each cycle will be fine

 

[mstrpkl]

no the fact you water over an hour shouldn't change anything if you doesn't saturate the medium with too much moisture, and then if you let it dry enough between each cycle will be fine

Thats what i was thinking too. But im a noob so i wanted to throw that out there haha thanks again!

 

[Newty]

The period of time won't matter, I ran mine from the bucket company for 45 minutes and sometimes twice a day.

I don't want to come off wrong but I would ask for opinions on automatic watering systems before purchasing next time.
You could of built a nice system with Netafim halos and components for around the same cost. I prefer systems with a 3/4" feed line from the reservoir that branches to 1/4" to the drippers/halos instead of 1/4" all the way from the reservoir, smaller the line then the more chances to clog.

Also a heads up, do not use organic liquid nutes in the self watering system, it will clog. I say this from experience.
If you run synthetics, run plain distilled water every once in awhile to keep the salt build up out of the lines, pumps, and drippers.