looking for a faster dry time

i have had plenty of back to back good grows with very few issues. one thing i would like to improve is my drying time (pots)... as usual, i am 6 weeks into flower and felts r taking 5 or 6 days to dry enough where i feel its time to water/feed. too long. i have usually watered/fed a day early just not to have to wait that long. always have used a 50/50 mix of ocean forest and roots-green lite. thinking about making a change or cutting my mix with something that drains faster other than just adding perlite. i see a lot a growers using coco or a seed starter (ham), which drains faster, i think... today i bought a small bag of SHULTZ starter, miracle seed starter and had some old light warrior starter around. so i had a do a side by side to see how fast they drained. i put a full cup of each soil in a solo cup,and added 8 oz. of water to each. there were 5 small holes in the bottom of each cup for drainage.

light warrior contains mostly MYCORRHIZAE and humic acid. after adding soo much water there was almost no water retention. the cup felt very light and dry!!

shultz seed starter says its sphagnum peat moss and looks like 50% perlite. after adding 8 oz of water there was some but yet again very little water retention. meaning the cup felt only slightly wet. time to water. lol

then tried miracle grow seed starter. it says 90% sphagnum peat moss. a tiny bit of perlite and a wetting agent?? it drank the 8 oz of water very quickly. the soil settled about 20% less. (others did not settle.) also this was the only one that held any amount of the water. it felt heavy and very wet..

i know there must be a lot of options but of these (3), i liked the shultz. am thinking of adding 50% of this to my mix. this will surely speed up my drying time to 3 days or so.. i was very surprised to see the results having only used a few soils over the last ten yrs or so.. thoughts? thanks!!

I would think Dry time would have to deal with uptake and not time?. I have had some strains need feed every 3 days and some that would need 5. Never thought on speeding it up. Maybe Im not understanding what your after????


tcabs

I see no issues, tbh. I would just cut a good soil with plenty of perlite, it is inert so it will not absorb nutes and wont change soil pH you just keep putting in there till you get a mix that drains well and holds a bit of moisture without settling and closing all the nice air pockets that are needed in the soil. Just my .02. Peace

I have to agree. Although I love coco coir. But even coco coir has to have lots of pearlite to keep it from compacting.

i would need a lot of it. i hate the non-stop coughing dust it makes. i read to poke a hole in top for a hose and many small holes in bottom for drainage to get rid of dust.. hose water in bag for a couple minutes....Also a cheaper way to go..

i was wrong, i like the light warrior if i was to cut ocean forest by half. it holds almost no water and is 30%, maybe, perlite..

note; where i grew next to my house about 8 yrs ago, i added perlite to the existing loam. 8 years later the grass there is by far the greenest, densest and tallest grass in my one acre of lawn..

THANKS GUYS!!

you can also use clay pebbles to help cut the soil and allow more drainage

I have found that if I reduce my relative humidity in the room from 35% (where I usually keep it) to about 15%, I go from watering every 3 days to every day.

This was part of an experiment I did to see if reduced humidity would force the plants to transpire more and, therefore, grow more, faster.

You can also use bigger or smaller pots. Under the same conditions, with the same size plant, my 2 gallon pots sure need watered more often than the 5 gallon pots.

Just tossing out some alternatives to a different soil mix.

Hack, look into VPD in cannabis plants......it's only really beneficial when your gassing them. Otherwise the stress of low humidity and low CO2 will just increase the stress on your plants, period. If your gonna force them to go faster you need the fuel and it needs to be dialed in.... [nutes, lights and gas]. Peace

In growrocks I can flood and drain all day if I needed to, I see no better way than to get your soil mix to be airy.

Well increasing the transpiration doesnt necessarily increase the growth of the plant, it does however increase the uptake of calcium, because calcium is only taking up in transpiration. Also for obvious reasons if you drop your humidity down, that is the more moisture it will yank out of the medium, ideally your goal is to allow the nutrients to sit long enough to be takin in but not long enough to cause salt build up, which can also happen with super low humidity

Hackerman said:

I have found that if I reduce my relative humidity in the room from 35% (where I usually keep it) to about 15%, I go from watering every 3 days to every day.

This was part of an experiment I did to see if reduced humidity would force the plants to transpire more and, therefore, grow more, faster.

You can also use bigger or smaller pots. Under the same conditions, with the same size plant, my 2 gallon pots sure need watered more often than the 5 gallon pots.

Just tossing out some alternatives to a different soil mix.

Click to expand...

thank you!

gooch, i never considered mixing clay pellets. will learn more on them.

hackrman, my R.H. is about 35%. as low as my dehumidifier will allow.

hiya zem, not ready to try flood and drain but see its appeal. i gotta couple y-griegas with better yield than last attempt with them. chop in 3 weeks..

as long as i have been growing indoors, my plants take 5 to 7 days to dry. too long. gonna try some different soil mixes to reach a 3 day limit. was growing in 5s, now in 3 gal. felts. flower cycle begins in 1 1/2 weeks. thanks!!!

Kraven said:

Hack, look into VPD in cannabis plants......it's only really beneficial when your gassing them. Otherwise the stress of low humidity and low CO2 will just increase the stress on your plants, period. If your gonna force them to go faster you need the fuel and it needs to be dialed in.... [nutes, lights and gas]. Peace

Click to expand...

Thanks bud. Awesome reading. Ever forward.

Thanks again

I think there is some variance with different mediums, but for me, the determining factor for frequency of wet dry cycle is the size of root mass to container ( in dirt I should specify )

FOF your exactly correct imho. Peace

agreed, but also believe the amount of perlite or a non absorbent material has a substantial impact on dry time?? 2 out of 3 types of seed starter soil held almost no water. more so than straight perlite, i believe. if i used only those 2 soils, (light warrior or shultz starter), i could water every day with no roots at all and still be dry..

yes the goal is to have a draining cycle long enough for the plants to use the nutrients, but short enough too allow them to breath. I think 2-3 days is a reasonable target i think. the benefit to using clay pebbles is they absorb someof the nutrients and the roots can feed on them in dryer times

Just throwing this out but the size of the plant in ratio to the size of the medium container can make a big difference. This does follow the root mass ratio but the size of the canopy is also very important as the bigger the plant is, the faster it will remove moisture from the medium. The more leaves on the plant means more transpiration per minute. This is how I determine when to transplant my younger plants. When the plants in the solo cups get big enough that I am having to water them twice a day, its time to move them to the 2ltr pots.