WHEN to water coco

[mikeydoughnut]

You’ve just been told why not to water during lights off but yer gonna do it anyway. Hope yer not hand watering it’ll get fucking everywhere in the dark. Good luck mate. Sounds like you need it.

[catweazle1]

51 minutes ago, GSZZ said:

 

You shouldn't water during lights off as your plants aren't transpiring. You should water 30 mins - 1hr after the lights go on - a good way to tell accurately is to watch for the relative humidity spiking after the lights come on - this is your plants starting to transpire and thus indicating its time to water.

 

A good way to tell if your plants need additional fertigation is by keeping a note of input and output volume, and input and output EC. If the output volume decreases, and the ouput EC increases, add more fertigation events.

I think you are right, but I'[m just concerned about the nutes concentrating. His pots are prob too small or it's like the Sahara in his tent.

[Penguinfarmer]

Jeez there is no fucking need to get toxic in here. 

Its not sahara in the tent either. Plants are supposed to fill the pots completely. Then they dont need much time to drink so much that pot is light. Not dry, light. Lets say I water last time 2h before lights off. At morning they are LIGHT and I dont want to get salt deposits. I am using small pots on purpose and they are not too small.

 

[mikeydoughnut]

 … You musnt be watering enough simple as. Are the laws of physics different where you are? I water half as frequent as you in smaller pots. You say they’re rooted out. Give them a proper drink …

 

I don’t mean to come across toxic. If that’s the case I apologise. You asked for advice. Then ignore it. I’m just incredulous. It’s your grow your rules mate.

[catweazle1]

49 minutes ago, Penguinfarmer said:

Jeez there is no fucking need to get toxic in here. 

Its not sahara in the tent either. Plants are supposed to fill the pots completely. Then they dont need much time to drink so much that pot is light. Not dry, light. Lets say I water last time 2h before lights off. At morning they are LIGHT and I dont want to get salt deposits. I am using small pots on purpose and they are not too small.

 

If you go off the beaten track, you have to work it out yourself. Unless someone else has done the same thing as you, you will have to learn the way empirically. Your question is like saying  "How long is a pieceof string?" There is no sarcasm or ill-will intended in this post.

[4kali]

theres no right or wrong way. its just my way or the highway. what the man above says is bang on.

4k

[GSZZ]

1 hour ago, Penguinfarmer said:

Then they dont need much time to drink so much that pot is light. Not dry, light. Lets say I water last time 2h before lights off. At morning they are LIGHT and I dont want to get salt deposits. I am using small pots on purpose and they are not too small.

 

Then irrigate 30 mins before the lights go out.

 

If your pots are drying excessively during the lights off period this will be because of it being too warm, too low RH, or too much air movement. Irradiation is the only thing that drives transpiration, everything else is just convection. So remember if the pots are getting too dry during the night, its not because the plants are transpiring. 

 

If none of these are applicable to you, then you are using too small pots no ifs or buts. I know what you are trying to do, undersizing your pot, but there really is a too small believe me, 

[Owderb]

If you've filled a 4ft x 4ft space with only 4 plants then you need bigger pots unless you are flowering under candle light. Simple as

 

Owd

[Penguinfarmer]

@GSZZ

Thanks for your answer. Yeah I am trying to avoid feeding during lights off, and probably will feed 30-60min before lights off last time. It is new to me using such small pot. Last round I was using 8L pots and one smaller plant in 4.5L, and the smaller potted plant outgrew everything and yielded the most. Also after cutting down the plant, roots looked like it was not even close to rootbound yet, so now little bit bigger plants in same pot. Will see how it goes. 

Is it really so that plants don't transpire at all during night? I have pretty low air movement during night and RH is 50-60. Its pretty moist in there still. But it felt like they would get lighter during night.

 

[Penguinfarmer]

Just now, Owderb said:

If you've filled a 4ft x 4ft space with only 4 plants then you need bigger pots unless you are flowering under candle light. Simple as

 

Owd

We will see. Im pretty confident in my tactic. Flowering under 650w bar style led

[BushDoctoR]

Confused if you're actually asking for advise here because you've had some excellent pointers here from some very reputable coco growers but don't seem to want to hear it!

 

You can definitely grow big plants in small pots in coco but as has been mentioned there IS most definitely a limit. That limit isn't just space for the roots, it's how much water the medium can hold between feeds, and if you are having trouble with them drying out with so many feeds they're definitely too small!

 

Correlation doesn't equal causation. That one plant yielding more because it was in a smaller pot doesn't mean the smaller pot was the reason for it.

 

I've done a single feed a day, 2 feeds a day, and several feeds with little to no difference. The important thing is that with however many feeds I was doing a day, the medium was constantly moist and the runoff EC wasn't too high. Like @mikeydoughnut my current regime is two feeds per day and that works for me. One just after lights on and one about 2/3rds through lights on. My run off is good, my plants are healthy and my buds are fat, can't fault that!

[Penguinfarmer]

@BushDoctoR Yes I am asking for advice, sorry if it comes out otherwise. But I am not asking for someone to totally convert my grow into something else. 

People seem to get so hung on on the dryness of my pots. It was not the main question here. I am not 100% sure about things so want to throw it around here and MAYBE adjust my stuff. I don't know the exact moisture level when salt starts to deposit in coco. Or is there a point, is it linear change from 100% saturated? I have no idea, thats why I am worried about the pots drying to much. 

I started to see runoff EC raising with 3x waterings, now im running 6x and runoff ec is coming back down and plants seem to be growing even faster.

I feel that when you get to hit multiple feeds, stalks start to fatten and things just kick into another gear.

 

Sure, one plant sample isn't really a good test. For me it was more like reminder from past. I used to run smaller pots than I did that round, with greater results. So now testing the limits of that.

So far they look like the best plants I have ever grown, and I've grown some healthy shit.

[Guest]

This fucker got watered once a day.  10L pot.  Always dry as fuck the next day so I'd put 5L through to dissolve and remove old salts. 

Letting the pot dry with coco isn't a big deal, managing it properly solves any issues. 

I've had great results watering every other day in coco too. 

[sweettooth]

I swear by smaller pots although use airpots. Had my best yeilds using 5L pots, way more than the 9L airpots and 12L fabric pots ive trialled. I use 5Litre airpots. I can water less using smaller pots but more often....if that makes sense. now using a dripper system on a timer and water 3 times a day, lights on, half way through light period and just before lights out, 40 seconds a time, enough for a bit of run off each watering, same style leds as you @Penguinfarmer. taken me a while to get everything in order but this current grow is killing it, 16 plants in a 5x10 almost 5 weeks in now and looking F.A.F. had to go automated watering as environment was drying them out too much and couldn't keep up with multiple hand waterings a day. now I've got the drippers setup properly,  I may do a side by side with a bigger pot but I'm height restricted so have to keep them small but easily hit 6 to 7 oz per plant.

[badbillybob]

why not just use bigger pots? or am i missing something here? 

bigger pots=slower dryback lights out=less irrigations =happy plants