Irritating

anyone notice FFOF sucks at absorbing water? Tried watering my seedlings yesterday and the water just rolled off of the soil instead of absorbing, I actually had to just pipette it slowly into the base of the stem. Wondering why

soil can become hydrophobic if it is too dry but when I use ffof for autos I always add some perlite to help with aeration and drainage because it seems to help absorb water as well

but I’m no expert haha

Ns950641 said:

soil can become hydrophobic if it is too dry but when I use ffof for autos I always add some perlite to help with aeration and drainage because it seems to help absorb water as well

but I’m no expert haha

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I'm gonna have to try that next time, when I added coco to my first batch they absorbed just fine but pure ffof is giving me a hard time lol

You can add a small drop of natural dish soap to help the water penetrate your soil. I use this when I transplant for the first watering.

A nursery trick is to use a spray bottle to coat the surface and when the surface retains water again (about a half inch) it's ok to water like normal.

The surface will act as a single conduit and allow the water to seep into the substrate.