Wet/dry cycle with organics

[dwlink]

Hi folks,

Interested in your thoughts on this and what people tend to find works for them? I've had a search here and cant find much.

I just notice that for a few hours after watering my girls aren't too happy. I use the 'weight of the pot' method and wait until they get pretty light before watering. They do tend to perk up by the next day but I wonder if maintaining a more constant water content would help? Or if I just need to let them dry out a tad more first..

Thanks in anticipation

 

[Antics]

What is the PH of your water/ water/nutes?

You could be watering too soon, the soil on the top in my experience, needed to be completely dry, and I had to wait several days after that before watering.

But all soils are not created equal, so they all have a wide variety of water retention properties.

Another thought, is that maybe your soil initially holds TOO MUCH water, creating the wilting you see, and as the water drains and evaporates, the oxygen level at the root zone is restored.

What worked best for me in soil, was following the basic idea of letting them dry out before watering, but when watering, I would water to moisten the medium, and not water until runoff because my soil held too much water.
To compensate for this, I would do a real good flush before Flower, then resume nutes as normal when the soil dried out again.

 

[dwlink]

"Soil Supreme is a unique blend of sphagnum peat, Fytocell foam and our very own Organic
Growth Stimulant"

Thats what my soil says, I guess maybe the Fytocell foam is holding the extra water? The air pots do help the soil dry pretty quickly so that by the next day things look good again, but maybe I'll try leaving it an extra day before watering. I'm just worried that letting the soil dry too much will slow any micro-bio activity in the soil.

I dont touch pH in my soil, I did check a few times last grow with same nutrients and soil and my mix went in at around 7 and runoff came out at low 6's. Unless my water has drastically changed I expect that to be about the same. I've read that the soil acts as a buffer to always maintain a good pH and not to worry too much in soil.

What size pots do you use and how long do you leave them to dry on average between waterings? Were you feeding chemical or organic fertilizers?

*Edit* Apologies for the number of times I said soil..

 

[MassMedMan]

From what I read, in organics, in flowering especially you don't want to dry out your herd. Or the soil your herd is charging.

I try to keep it more moist, mid to late flowering,, but, they are getting more, but less amounts.

Increase frequency, decrease volume... But let the plants tell you....

 

[urdaddy]

atrain hit a lot of points for you ,and should help u.just goin to share my experinces with organic gardening.i have noticed that plant size to pot size ,when running wet dry cycles,means a lot.if I have a three foot well rooted plant n a 5 gallon container ,and she goes dry every other day,and she is limp when she is dry,then I will put a saucer under her to help water retention.i usually drill or poke a hole about a alf inch up the side ,so that she wont suffocate and still achieve a little runoff.if I had a smaller plant say around a foot or so that went dry at the same intervals ,wont limp as much because of soil area to plant material ratio.i know I spit out some confusing stuff .hopefully I didn't make it worse by opening my big mouth,goodluck dwlink

 

[dwlink]

So you're meaning the bigger plant will have more roots and a higher demand for water so will suffer more from drying out? Seems like it would always be a good idea to use proportionally big pots then?

Thanks petergreen thats what I was thinking the beneficials in the soil will surely thrive when in moist (but not soaking) conditions and drying the medium too much could harm them. But I guess it does need to dry out a bit to prevent root rot its just finding that balance.