Water to waste or no?

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stinkyelements

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I'm just curious on everyone's watering style in whatever medium you use. How often you have to water generally in what size pots and how much do you water at a time.....I know many water with runoff some don't, what do you do and what is your take on watering with 20% runoff?

I understand the purpose of watering with runoff for many reasons, I personally do not although I used to years ago and it just worked out better for me to water as needed as often as needed. Of course when I need to do a flush midway through if I feel it's necessary and toward the end of flower that is a different story. Just interested in others ways of doing it here and how it works for you......
 
i use ebb and flow buckets that are 2 gal i have a 15 gallon res that i change every week to 10 days for flower then i have a 25 gallon rez that i change every week to 10 days for veg. I do not flush ever, as i dont believe it serves any purpose at all, i have run tests side by side flush not flushing no difference, you want to make a difference wash your buds, just my 2 cents
 
I do basically soilless for my plants that are in veg but when I move them to flowering, they go into a hydro system.
I water them until I get just a little runoff, soley for the purpose of making sure that they have enough water to thoroughly wet all of the medium so that I don't end up with dry pockets in medium under the rootball.

I think, depending on the medium that they are in and how well it aerates as it dries, having some runoff is good. An important key is to allow the plant to sit in that runoff for about an hour to allow the plant and medium to soak up any extra that it might need, then remove the excess runoff so that the roots don't sit too long in water.
 
i am in dirt and smart pots, i water till runoff and let the plants drink it up.
 
I personally believe that if you don't water to runoff, you don't know how deeply you are actually watering. IMO, deep watering encourages good root growth.

How often you water has so much to do with the humidity a place has and if outdoors, the amount of rain. one gets. I live in high desert where humidity percentages are often in the teens and sometimes even single digits. In addition, temps have been in the 90-100 degree range most of the summer. I pretty much water every day.

Like Gooch, I do not flush my grows, even when running hydro and using chemical nutes.
 
am in soils. do 10 to 15% runoff. vacuum up after 20 min. soak. check ph both in and runoff.
 
I am a feed the soil organic grower.
I water till I just start to get run off. Then I wait a hour or so then water again to the start of run off. You would be surprised how much water is added before run off the second time.
 
Thats how i water all my plants,,including flowers and such.
 
No dirt for me, I am totally into rapid rooters, hydroton pellets and net pots
I hate dirt but pay the price as those damn pellets hurt when you step on them
I'm cranky old man, regular seeds only so hydro was a stupid choice but I do it.
I find transplanting easy.

watering is ebb and flow (tray and rez) and RDWC (buckets)
from cradle to grave

plenty of graves :)

the only water to waste I do is that dumb cooling coil idea I had, regret that one.
 
It seems like most here water with runoff. I use 2/3 perlite to peat moss I guess that is more or less soilless. I water everyday, every other sometimes. I did water with runoff years ago and eventually got into the habit of watering less at a time but more often. It seemed to solve a lot of issues I'd have. I feel as though I have less troubles that way, I recall times I was waiting to water up to a week and didn't feel right leaving them soaking in water for that long and not having much of a dry cycle, I think the root mass would get water logged and I would water again when I thought it was dry and just make matters worse.. Then I would notice an issue and not be able to try and correct it until the medium dried and then a waiting game and just hoping what I did next was a good idea. I'm sure other factors played a part. I agree that I truly do not know how deeply I am watering but I like that I can read the plant and feel a little more on top of things this way. I just transplanted into 5 gal which I typically do not use that big but it got me thinking about how much I watered at a time, but I really can't imagine watering for runoff in these every water. It works for me this way I don't think there is a right or wrong but it's interesting topic how different some do things and what works for us all. Thanks for all the responses
 
You grow long enough and keep an open mind to adjusting, you will certainly "dial in" a method that works for you. It sounds like you are doing the right thing. I would certainly water a little less but more often being in soilless. Using just pearlite and peat, that gives you a very "airy" medium that will not hold much water, therefore you should water more often. I hope you are using a watering system so that you don't have to do it all every day. That can get a little old after a while.
 
I like being able to charge the roots with ferts all the time, with run to waste systems, it is a big waste of water and ferts to try and do that.
 
That is why I so love doing hydro. I can control every aspect of the feeding/watering and I control when to dump the solution. That is also why I love growing in coco coir. It hold a lot of the nutrients in the matrix of the coco where the feeder roots have it readily available. Then the hydro system flushes out some of the old and used up stuff each time it waters. :)
 
I'm running Blumat injection/pressurized systems on my rooms, so I don't have to worry about such anymore...what a joy :clap:
 
Hush I actually do hand water everyday, have not set up an automated system. This may be next in line to do although I do not mind doing it myself but I hear you on it getting a little old
 
I'm running Blumat injection/pressurized systems on my rooms, so I don't have to worry about such anymore...what a joy :clap:

just read a half hour of the 475 page thread on blumat. damn.. would love to see it in action. wonder if blumat has displays somewhere.
 

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