Drooping leaves, can't be overwatering

Verbalist

Verbalist

Well-Known Member
Grow Journal of the Month
February 2022
Hey mag! A quick question, whatsapp with the ladies? Leaves been drooping like that for last +24hrs.
I watered them last time 2 days ago and just tested the soil its completely dry.
Leaves are not wilting which should be a sign of underwatering right? And drooping leaves should be because of over watering?

one of the plant has slightly yellowish baby leaves which looks for me a magnesium defiency.
Question is should I keep watering them anyway even tho the leaves are drooping and soil is completely dry?
just gave a lil 0.2l to each plant -
27C3744B-2B14-4303-AFD9-1225D7F9B813.jpeg
 
Or maybe N issues? Nitrogen toxicity? Feel like the leaves started to curl down even more after watering them.
 
The leaves started canoing up after watering them.

should I just wait for soil to dry down and after that give couple rounds just a plain water? Or should I take actions already? Flush the soil and hope most added nutes flushes off from the soil?
C08C56F1-B443-4E68-B0DA-B8C9CDF9AE99.jpeg


thank you for the help, I appreciate it :)
 
Hiya - they are small pots and being air pots, they will dry out quickly
Agree with the above that they look like they are simply wilting through thirst
If the medium has dried out completely it needs to be rehydrated in order to retain moisture
To do this, drench til run off then water again an hour or two later and you should find it now holds a bit more water rather than running straight through the bottom of the pot
Some don't like it, but I sometimes stand the pot in 1" of water and see how much it soaks up - if it sucks it all up, the soil was dry ...and make sure the water is ambient temp or that will shock the roots and make the plant droop but that should be only temporary
 
They look like overwatered plants to me, and are plants with very weak root systems that certainly are not yet ready to uppot. You say that you are certain that the soil is dry when you water... just how often is that? How exactly are you determining that your soil is dry?

Typically in a situation as you are describing, the gardener is not actually drying the plants out all the way, and when they come back to water, they continually add to the water that is still sitting in the container. When the lower roots shut down because of too much water, the plant begins to only rely on its upper spreader roots. When you water, they get a quick drink and look happy for a while, but that water quickly drops to the bottom of the container because of gravity and out of reach of the only active roots... hence the droop.
 
Emilya said:
They look like overwatered plants to me, and are plants with very weak root systems that certainly are not yet ready to uppot. You say that you are certain that the soil is dry when you water... just how often is that? How exactly are you determining that your soil is dry?

Typically in a situation as you are describing, the gardener is not actually drying the plants out all the way, and when they come back to water, they continually add to the water that is still sitting in the container. When the lower roots shut down because of too much water, the plant begins to only rely on its upper spreader roots. When you water, they get a quick drink and look happy for a while, but that water quickly drops to the bottom of the container because of gravity and out of reach of the only active roots... hence the droop.
Click to expand...
That actually made sense, a lot. They looked happy couple hours after watering - leaves were reaching upwards etc but at the end of the day the leaves started drooping again…

but yes I was pretty much 100% sure the soil were dry, a bit moist from the bottom.. from the top I tried with the knuckle. It was completely dry when I pushed finger in. And how I tested the soil from the bottom: I took a small, kind of a stick which I stick in from the bottom air hole and scraped a small sample of soil. It was dry - a bit moist, as I mentioned. The sample certainly told me to water the plants.

Is it someway possible the soil still is dry from bottom center of the container? Im confused right now lol.
..even tho the drooping leaves arent the only problem. They keep drooping and canoing up and still. For me it looks like a nitrogen toxicity.
and pretty much sure the whole 4l soil is not filled yet with the roots.
 
Verbalist said:
That actually made sense, a lot. They looked happy couple hours after watering - leaves were reaching upwards etc but at the end of the day the leaves started drooping again…

but yes I was pretty much 100% sure the soil were dry, a bit moist from the bottom.. from the top I tried with the knuckle. It was completely dry when I pushed finger in. And how I tested the soil from the bottom: I took a small, kind of a stick which I stick in from the bottom air hole and scraped a small sample of soil. It was dry - a bit moist, as I mentioned. The sample certainly told me to water the plants.

Is it someway possible the soil still is dry from bottom center of the container? Im confused right now lol.
..even tho the drooping leaves arent the only problem. They keep drooping and canoing up and still. For me it looks like a nitrogen toxicity.
and pretty much sure the whole 4l soil is not filled yet with the roots.
Click to expand...
Because of gravity, the water drops toward the bottom and forms a lake under the soil. The surface of that lake, the water table, continues to fall as the plant uses the water. In a cloth container or an airpot, the very bottom and from the sides can dry out, leaving a core in the middle that retains a lot of the moisture. The bottom line though, is that your finger in the top can't tell you where the top of that water is, if it has fallen to mid container level.

So imagine that lake in there, with the bottom roots continually under water, and your knuckle tells you it is time to water again. Even though the soil is still half full of water, you rise the level of that lake up to the top again, water runs out of the bottom and it looks like you did a good thing... for a while anyway.
 
So lets look back at your title of this thread... stating that it can't be overwatering.

Now you have enough information to understand this statement:
You can not overwater these plants by giving too much water in one session... the ONLY way to overwater this plant is by watering too often.

So how do you tell when to water? The "lift the pot" method is the most accurate. Fill a container the same size as what you are using, with dry soil. Lift it in one hand. In the other hand, lift your plant. If you can feel ANY water weight with your human senses, then it is NOT time to water yet.

Force your plants through a strong wet/dry cycle, insisting that they dry out all the way to the bottom before watering again. This forces the plants to grow new roots each time you do this, so as to find all of the water, and each time you go through this wet/dry cycle, the roots get stronger. Each time you do this, the time between waterings will decrease as the roots get stronger.

I recently uppotted my plants to their final 7 gallon containers, from 3 gallon. I watered to runoff when I uppotted, and just today, 10 days later, my plants needed watering, having lost most of their water weight. This evening I watered again to runoff and instead of expecting to go 10 days to the next watering, I expect the roots to now be strong enough to halve that time. The time after that, I expect the wet/dry cycle to fall to 3 or 4 days, and until the end of stretch I expect those roots to keep expanding, leaving me with a final wet/dry cycle during bloom of 2-3 days.
 
Hey Verb - sure hope you get this sorted out!!! Chasing problems can wear a person out!!!
Just a quick question for Emilya - as a lark I put a couple of tomatoes in those upside down containers and they are doing the same as described above. Anything special seeing as they are upside down???
 
greenjeans said:
Hey Verb - sure hope you get this sorted out!!! Chasing problems can wear a person out!!!
Just a quick question for Emilya - as a lark I put a couple of tomatoes in those upside down containers and they are doing the same as described above. Anything special seeing as they are upside down???
Click to expand...
same rules apply... remember the roots are growing upside down too
 
Emilya said:
So lets look back at your title of this thread... stating that it can't be overwatering.

Now you have enough information to understand this statement:
You can not overwater these plants by giving too much water in one session... the ONLY way to overwater this plant is by watering too often.

So how do you tell when to water? The "lift the pot" method is the most accurate. Fill a container the same size as what you are using, with dry soil. Lift it in one hand. In the other hand, lift your plant. If you can feel ANY water weight with your human senses, then it is NOT time to water yet.

Force your plants through a strong wet/dry cycle, insisting that they dry out all the way to the bottom before watering again. This forces the plants to grow new roots each time you do this, so as to find all of the water, and each time you go through this wet/dry cycle, the roots get stronger. Each time you do this, the time between waterings will decrease as the roots get stronger.

I recently uppotted my plants to their final 7 gallon containers, from 3 gallon. I watered to runoff when I uppotted, and just today, 10 days later, my plants needed watering, having lost most of their water weight. This evening I watered again to runoff and instead of expecting to go 10 days to the next watering, I expect the roots to now be strong enough to halve that time. The time after that, I expect the wet/dry cycle to fall to 3 or 4 days, and until the end of stretch I expect those roots to keep expanding, leaving me with a final wet/dry cycle during bloom of 2-3 days.
Click to expand...
By lifting the pot I kinda felt like Im having ”a touch” on it.. sadly dont have same size of an empty container which I could use to test with the soil.
 
Verbalist said:
By lifting the pot I kinda felt like Im having ”a touch” on it.. sadly dont have same size of an empty container which I could use to test with the soil.
Click to expand...
light as a feather is used to describe it... so light that you are amazed the plant is still happy, even with the soil pulling back from the sides... people have even described cracks in the top of the soil. I like to say it is as dry as the sahara...

You will get a feel for it, but now you have to force the plant to use all of that water... without active lower roots. It is going to take a while. Every three or four days, give the top roots a little drink... not much at all. Imagine just watering the top 3 inches... don't let any more water fall into the water table. Those little drinks will keep the plant going, you can even fertilize every other time if you wish, but let it use all that water at the bottom before you water to runoff again. This time it will take a while... maybe up to a week. Next time, not so much... maybe 4 days. Soon the roots will be so strong that the plant will be able to use all the water you can get that soil to hold, in 24-36 hours. That is when you know the roots have gotten as strong as they are going to in that container, and it is then time to uppot to something at least 3x bigger.
 
Verbalist said:
Verbalist said:
The leaves started canoing up after watering them.

should I just wait for soil to dry down and after that give couple rounds just a plain water? Or should I take actions already? Flush the soil and hope most added nutes flushes off from the soil?
C08C56F1-B443-4E68-B0DA-B8C9CDF9AE99.jpeg


thank you for the help, I appreciate it :)
Click to expand...
The canoeing or Tacoing can be most commonly caused by too harsh of a light change too.
C08C56F1-B443-4E68-B0DA-B8C9CDF9AE99.jpeg


thank you for the help, I appreciate it :)
Click to expand...
It doesn't look like wilt... Yet! Looks like super droop
 
Back
Top Bottom