Over watering possabilities

[tommytwotone]

Alright guys and gals.

So I have been making my mix about 70/30 coco perilite

I am watering roughly 1 litter per watering twice a day

my leaves seem to be wilting down and my coco always feels moist however my moister meeter says that it is dry. (I am in 5 gallon buckets)

My healthiest plants at this point are some vegging in stadium cups which I have abused! wtf the plants that I dont care about are thriving while the plants that I am tending too show issues.

The plants that are thriving I almost let the coco dry all the way out before I remember to water. Should I continue to do this,

OR the big question, when do I know to water?

 

[bobby-o]

yes COCO needs that dry period. You need to find that balance of letting it get nice and dry, the plant should slightly wilt before re watering.. Hope that helps.

--S.U.G.

 

[Seamaiden]

Alright guys and gals.

So I have been making my mix about 70/30 coco perilite

I am watering roughly 1 litter per watering twice a day

my leaves seem to be wilting down and my coco always feels moist however my moister meeter says that it is dry. (I am in 5 gallon buckets)

My healthiest plants at this point are some vegging in stadium cups which I have abused! wtf the plants that I dont care about are thriving while the plants that I am tending too show issues.

The plants that are thriving I almost let the coco dry all the way out before I remember to water. Should I continue to do this,

OR the big question, when do I know to water?

The bigger question is if you're learning from this experience. Stop loving your plants to death, quit watering so often, listen to bobby.

 

[smirkis]

i disagree on it wilting a bit before watering again, thats stress. so i find the perfect amount of dry time to water before they wilt.

but to be honest, and to make it simple. if there bigger healthier plants, they should be able to take a drench of water once a day. in veg or flower.

my youngest ones out of the clonedome get water about every other day at first and eventually end up once a day.

 

[IVIars]

Don't water so often and water wit more than one liter for a 5 gallon bucket. Your meter is proba my reading the dry spots because you don't water with enough when you do water. I run 2 gallons through my 5 gallon smart pots and a gallon and a half or two through my one that's in a 5 gal bucket

 

[bobby-o]

you can disagree all you want, but there is clear benefit of a wet dry cylce.

You misunderstood a slight wilt. To you your probably assuming full wilting, once you see it after a while you will notice that slight wilt im talking about.

 

[budboy299]

Ok....warning...please do not hang me for this. It works for me but I do not know why exactly.

In my coco I water to about 20% runoff, twice a day. This was originally done because my timer has a max of 12hr cycles.
When I hand watered I noticed that if I allowed the coco to dry out too much between waterings...the salt buildup was huge.
I attribute this to the water evaporating and leaving the mineral salts behind. The the next water the concentration became even more until I had way too much salt buildup in my coco.
My waterings went like this
1st...900ppm
2nd...1050ppm
3rd...1200ppm

and kept going like this. That seems to be why Zoolander and many others recommended to feed, feed, water.

When I feed twice a day with that much runoff...the coco just never seems to build up salt and never needs flushing...other than the 2 week flush at the end.

I know this is contrary to what everyone does but it seems to work for me. No wilting or any deterimental effects. Perhaps the plants just get used to it. I don't know but hey its working for me.

 

[mrdizzle]

I disagree with bobby, perhaps he can explain the benefit

5gal of coco hold a good amount of water, depending how big your plants are your might just be watering too much, try 1liter per day

 

[StinkyPete]

Agree with budboy. If I let my 7gal coco smart pots dry out there is a significant amount of salt build-up. I have noticed when I water more often the plants are happier. I water 2x-3x daily in the 7s and no problems so far.

 

[intruder]

I always run 3x 1 min each off a 240gph pump into 3 gallon pots and never have drain issues and run strait coco except for a 1 inch or so layer of clay balls at the bottom so the roots dont sit in the rim of the pot,

I drain to waste about 20% daily and dont flush until the last week and run about 1000ppm all the way except for the first 2 weeks I build up from about 600
I say never let the coco dry out keep it moist ,coco can only hold so much water and if your pots are draining like they should be then I find it impossible to drown a plant thats growing in coco-and I have tried LOL

 

[Mmmmasonite]

Alright guys and gals.

So I have been making my mix about 70/30 coco perilite

I am watering roughly 1 litter per watering twice a day

my leaves seem to be wilting down and my coco always feels moist however my moister meeter says that it is dry. (I am in 5 gallon buckets)

My healthiest plants at this point are some vegging in stadium cups which I have abused! wtf the plants that I dont care about are thriving while the plants that I am tending too show issues.

The plants that are thriving I almost let the coco dry all the way out before I remember to water. Should I continue to do this,

OR the big question, when do I know to water?

Put hydroton at the bottom for better drainage and water with more water and less often...Once every day or 2....peace

 

[IVIars]

I just read that by letting the pots dry out you kill the root hairs and they wont grow back

 

[Mmmmasonite]

I just read that by letting the pots dry out you kill the root hairs and they wont grow back

Makes sense to me...Can you post the link?

 

[bobby-o]

why would you let the pots dry out.. You guys dont under a dry cycle.

In the world of soil science, you have saturation, field capacity, and wilting point/wilting coeffefficient.

You want to water right before that wilting point, the point of that is the roots get extra oxygen, rather then being wet all the time.


Before that wilting point there is about just under 15% total moisture left in the soil, the water is held so tightly by the particles to the human eye it looks and feels dry but there is moisture present

 

[budboy299]

In soil bobby-o I would totally agree with you. Not in the coco though where we are totally dependent upon added fertilizers.

If my nutes in my pots are at say 1.8EC and 5.9PH, by the time 50% of the water is gone the nutes will be 3.6EC and around 4.8PH. This is because you took 50% of the water out, thereby doubling the strength of the solution.

Yes the plants will eat some of the salts but honestly not that much. We tend to get away with it in the long run because the plants will weather the range over time.

What I learned by trial and error is that if you leave it to dry out (Yes I mean almost dry) is that the salt buildup will be exponential and will damage them in time.

 

[Mmmmasonite]

Simple....Just completely drench coco once a day....If there is a problem when you do that ....then it must be a deficiency, ph problems, or nute burn.....Coco is very forgiving.....Peace

 

[Seamaiden]

I found the most explosive growth occurred when I gave up watering daily and went with every other day to every three days. Always to the point of good run-off. At a certain point grow before last I had a little problem with build-up, so I began the feed with clean, pH'd water and got the medium moistened, then fed, cleared up, did fine. Since I didn't pull plants out of the pots I can't say that root growth was so much better than not letting them dry out. But, one thing's for sure--once they're acclimated to less than daily watering, you're no longered tied down by them like they're a room-full of balls and chains.

 

[IVIars]

Makes sense to me...Can you post the link?

Medical Marijuanan Growers Bible by Jorge Cervantes

I run 2 gallons every two to three days through my 50% coco, 40% perlite mix. My coco is chunky and fibers, not much pyth. I get close to a gallon of runoff. But I just feed feed feed, I figure the extra water I give them helps flush

 

[budboy299]

I think the beauty lies in the fact that MJ is a very adaptable plant and will grow amazingly on its own...its us the grower that usually tries to over analyze things.

Sounds like almost all the varying cycles work well

 

[Z-ro]

Watering frequency and quantity are really dependent on the size you your containers, veg time / root mass, and environmental conditions. With coco, I find you need to let them get established before you start blasting them with more frequent waterings, and once they get going nothing will stop em if you have good conditions in your room. For me once the coco starts to dry out a little on the top, its time to water, which can only be every other day in veg, then daily in early flower and twice a day in late flower to keep em a optimum saturation... Coco is a different beast then soil...