water from the bottom

I recently got into a debate with a friend about watering techniques. He has adopted filling a tray with water and letting his soil plants soak things up from the bottom. He insists it promotes better root mass by telling the plant to tap down for wayer access.


I have been lucky enough to work with a local university in splitting haploids in barley trying to develope a strain that can compete with the grandfather strains from germany and france in our climate, as to avoid import costs and royalties. I noticed that in their greenhouse they water all test plots in trays by filling from the bottom.

I was able to pick the brain of the lead genetisist about their growing techniques and benifits of doing this. His explanatiin was simple.

Saves time watering 30 plants by filling a single tray. No other benifits in yield, pollen or seed production.

What i got from the discussion is that plants do not need any special tricks, and that many strategies implemented by growers give nothing but placebo benifits.

He also suggested keeping heat below 74 degrees in the last week or so of a resinous plants lifetime to maximize active terpen content.

Easy way to promote salt buildups if feeding

I grow my cannabis just as simple as can be done and still keep a plant healthy. I used to do all types of tricks and spend a lot of money to make this plant grow better, bigger, more yield, soon and so forth. I grow my weed just like I grow my veggies. I keep them healthy and give them what they need when they need it so they have all they need to give me what I need. This attitude gives me the same results as doing all that special shit people do fooling themselves into thinking it will increase yield but they haven't taken the time to do any side by sides to be able to see thru the cannabis specific hype.

What I'm trying to do is agree with you,OP, that this plant does not need us to do any magic tricks to provide us with what we expect.

Excuse the ramble, I grabbed the wrong jar and handed it to the wife to roll up for me and didn't want to tell her to roll something else so I went with it.

Bottom feeding is much like hydro.
You feed it from the bottom.
Roots grow down and fill the pot.
The soil is dry on top, no more gnats.

I think it's called 'passive hydroponics' and it works for me.
I see 'hempy buckets and get confused.

SnapsProvolone said:

Easy way to promote salt buildups if feeding

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It can result in salt build up too.
Last grow the soil was just right and I added no nutes.

I do add water to the pan but only as a buffer during the phase when they are using lots of water so I dont have to worry.
root balls look the same as when I diddnt.

However I do let my buckets dry fairly well after transplant with the belief that the roots will seek feed n water.

No science just what I do fwiw

Nutrient regiments were added through foliar feedings and through saturating the pots as normal.

They were using half strength nutes and never enough that would run off into the fresh water in the tray. That plant should keep the salt levels down. With the fresh water accessible the plant takes what it wants when ot wants it.

I usually alternate between nutes and just water/bacteria every feeding. My soil results are no where near my hydro yet though