Sorry for the late response, I'll shed a bit of light onto the target ranges for water content depending on the phase of flower.
If you want clarification on any of these just let me know. I won't go into EC readings because you're not measuring pore water EC, which is what I use to steer our crops. I would hate for you to scorch your plants trying to get your bulk media EC up to 8! I'll leave environmental cues out of this as well, just know your VPD needs to stay between .8 and 1.4, do not let it go below .4 at night as that is dew point and you'll be at risk for mold.
In early flower, first week or so you want to keep your wc high, peak saturation around 65% not allowing your substrate to dry back below 45%, but ideally keep that water content around 55-60% all day by irrigating frequent, but small shots. This is to help ease your plants into flower gently.
during your stretch, or "phase 2" of bloom we go generative. You want to create a water scarcity stress response in your plants to force them to focus on generative growth (flowers) as early as possible. This is done by hitting your peak saturation of 55-65% early in the day, around 2 hours after lights on, then giving them a 22-23 hour dry-back before your next irrigation and bump up your EC a bit to increase osmotic pressure and really stress those girls out. This will mitigate stretch, increase bud sites and like I said earlier, your flowers will set earlier, allowing more time for the next phase, which is our bulking phase.
During this phase, which starts the day your plants are done stretching, is where we remove all stressors from the crop and allow them to focus all of their resources on those flowers we just set in. This is done by reverting your irrigation strategy back to phase one. We'll lower our EC and irrigate frequently to hit peak saturation about 3 hours after lights on and maintain that throughout the day.
Phase four is your flush. Flush however you normally do but don't ever flush with straight R.O water, always use a low EC of
cal-mag and cut your nitrates in half or more.
If you nail phase 2 and phase 3 you're going to see big boy yields like you've never seen before!
Assuming you have the right genetics, which is a whole different conversation.
Hope that helps!
If you care to peep the insta for the grow I manage to see I'm not full of it, it's here: redbarn_gardens
it's just Dosifry here. Stoned and up past his bedtime and shouldn't be posting just reading lol!
