Moisture Meter

i purchased a rapid moisture meter it has a range of 1-4 on it, it doesn't exactly have the preferred moisture level for mj, so i was wondering if anyone had this model and knew the best level? it said for shrubs(veg) it should be between 2-3...and for flower 3-4 it was the closest in size to mj of the plants listed...once again any help is greatly appreciated

sorry the brand is rapidtest mini moisture meter

Throw it away. Just watch your plant(s) and when the leaves start to droop give them water fairly slow until water starts to flow out consistantly and evenly. Keep adding water for a little longer if you wish, a little flushing wont hurt. Repeat. This method will also protect you from over watering.

i know the basic watering schedule, i just bought this thing, and it's really gonna piss me off if i don't get any use out of it

your finger is the best moisture meter, I bought one of those things a couple months ago and haven't used it once!

yea moisture meters are a way for newbs to waste money... finger in the soil is the easiest thing ever. growers have been doin it for thousands of years. one love

damn that sux, i had been using the finger method, and basically just watered once every 3 days, but i had one pot that got clogged and stopped draining in one portion and everything went downhill cuz of it, i just wanted to use it to avoid overwatering ever again, it's a lot easier to avoid underwatering then it is overwatering, how much water do you usually give a 1 footer i've read alot of different quantities, but i'm looking for the middle ground since i don't know my strain and what environment it prefers

yea no offense meant by my post i re-read it and it may have been misconstrued. it varies from plant to plant but for indoor grows water til a little drips from the hole in the bottom of container and wait until the soil is completely dry on top and you dont feel moisture til you stick your fingers in at least 2 inches into the soil before you water again. I usually end up watering every 3-4 days. always remember that it is easier to fix underwatering than to come back from overwatering problems.

Also, when you do water dont worry about giving it to much water at one time. The soil will only hold so much, once it is saturated what ever else just runs off. I also wasted 10 bucks on a moister meter and have only used it 3 times, I dont even know where it is now, and I really dont care.

i water once every 4 days with 20 oz. of tap water ph 6.8

I too bought a meter thingy. One of these....




At first I hated the thing and was glad I only wasted $10 on it. However, the longer I've had it the more useful I've found it.

--The pH function is basically 100% useless. It seems to read about 7 no matter what. Even if it does vary off that figure it doesn't have near the resolution needed.

--I use the light meter function more and more. It actually does an alright job of providing a comparative measure of how much light is being lost in various spots of my cab.

--The moisture function did not seem to work for me at all at first. Seemed like it would always read nearly maxed out "wet". Although I think now that was mostly because when I was checking my soil really was quite wet (first time grower here). Now that I've learned to let my soil get much dryer, the meter actually provides useful information and uses most of the scale. I only use it to supplement my other methods of gauging when to water. But I'm learning how to correlate the meter's reading with when I know they need water.

Don't know if I'd really recommend it has something worth buying. But like I said, I do find myself using it every now and again.

$0.02

ups420 said:

i purchased a rapid moisture meter it has a range of 1-4 on it, it doesn't exactly have the preferred moisture level for mj, so i was wondering if anyone had this model and knew the best level? it said for shrubs(veg) it should be between 2-3...and for flower 3-4 it was the closest in size to mj of the plants listed...once again any help is greatly appreciated

Click to expand...

I bought this exact same gadget and eventually stopped using it once I learned the basic watering schedule needed with my pot size and soil mix. Like all soil grows I expect, the moisture content of the soil increases from the top of the pot to the bottom. The 2-3" down rule (finger or moisture meter) for dryness does seem to work, and when it's dry there it is probably still wet at the bottom of the pot. So the usefulness of the moisture meter depends on exactly how deep you insert it. For the cheapo Rapitest gadget, 4 just means sopping wet and the low side of 1 means very dry. If it reads somewhere near 1 at about 3" down into the soil it's watering time.

i have it about 5 inches down and it's reading a 4