Watering Debate

Alright I need to give some in depth details. My roommate and I are doing a grow in a back storage room. I bought 8 clones from a Cali dispensary, and the bought 8 five gallon buckets for the transplants. I bought two different kinds of soils, but are the same pretty much. Foxfarms Ocean forest, and Greenfields or something like that. The main debate is the watering schedule. We already got over the lighting schedule where we finally agreed on a 18/6 veg period. I say that we cant water every day because if we do sooner or later we will just rot out the roots, and also we dont let the top soil dehydrate to force the roots to seeks lower down for water. But my roommate seems to think they need water 24/7 and I say no. Whats your guys opinion? Sorry for the book. Oh and I am under a 400w MH right now

Thanks
Bulldog

Water when the pot seems light or when you can see the plant wilt a lil




Don't water everyday water when it needs it..........the plants will show you when they are thirsty

Bulldogbray said:

Alright I need to give some in depth details. My roommate and I are doing a grow in a back storage room. I bought 8 clones from a Cali dispensary, and the bought 8 five gallon buckets for the transplants. I bought two different kinds of soils, but are the same pretty much. Foxfarms Ocean forest, and Greenfields or something like that. The main debate is the watering schedule. We already got over the lighting schedule where we finally agreed on a 18/6 veg period. I say that we cant water every day because if we do sooner or later we will just rot out the roots, and also we dont let the top soil dehydrate to force the roots to seeks lower down for water. But my roommate seems to think they need water 24/7 and I say no. Whats your guys opinion? Sorry for the book. Oh and I am under a 400w MH right now

Thanks
Bulldog

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what up? Sounds to me like you have new baby syndrome. The thing with Mary is that (especially in a bucket) you will want those roots to go as far down as possible to encourage a more rapid and thorough processing of nutrients. When you water her, stick around the edges of the bucket and make sure you have drilled drain holes in the bottom of bucket!!! PH your water of course and water untill a small but noticeable amount of water come through the bottom of bucket. Then Do Not water for at least a couple of days because this will encourage the roots to go searching for water. Again making them bigger! Bigger is good. Dont worry about the very top of the soil looking dry, if it makes u happy, throw 2 cups on the top. Use discretion when watering right at stem or you will defeat the purpose of edge watering! And in buckets, or mary in general, this is soooo important. GO to Ebay and pick up BLue Mountain Organics full line up $ 35.00 for the entire package and it cannott be beat by anything! Search RIU and you will see what I'm talking about. Just search BMO Super Plant Tonic and you will find. Hopes this helps, and sorry for being long winded, I waked and baked off of subcool's Jillybean about 30 minutes ago!!

Whattap man, first of all, welcome...next, hold off on the 5 gallons for a bit. your right, your roomie is wrong. the wet/dry cycle promotes growth. sticking with a smaller allows you to control the moisture more accuratly while your babies get adjusted to their new homes. Glad you got root rot in mind. I would definately consider cutting your soil with coco too. ocean forest has a tendancy to get compacted over time. coco balances this out cause its very airy stuff that fluffs when its dry. its awsome at getting rid of excess water/nutes too.

Yeah you could say we had "new baby syndrome". We had already re potted them into the five gallon buckets cause a grower friend of mine said you just wanna go to the biggest bucket your going to, so you can cut down on the shook of transplanting.

Ill show him from now on to check out the water the edge of the bucket instead of almost on top of the roots. I always PH check my water and I also am running veg nutes. Fox Farms Big Grow.

buy a moisture probe. i bought a moisture/ph probe here in the uk cost me around £6($10). its a two spiked prod about 12" long and u can probe each pot a few times just to get an accurate reading. i only water bout evry 3rd/4th day. let the soil dry a bit, the tops always gonna seem very dry coz u'v got lights and fans blowin but a couple of inches down it'll still be damp/moist. your plants will tell u very quickly if there is a problem, especially if ur checkin on them evry day. although i would say leave the babies in peace. just check em evry 3rd day.

I water my plants once a week...i got 5 gallon pots...they take about a gallon of water every watering...after you water you're gunna feel the buckets really heavy, you might need two hands to pick it up...dont water again until you can pick up the bucket with one hand with ease...good luck

you shouldn't need veg nutes right now at all the OF has enough nutes in it for a month at least


I usally cut my OC with pro-mix because it burns my plants if its staraight OF you definitly don't need to use veg nutes.



Just give then straight water

CHUDUDE said:

I water my plants once a week...i got 5 gallon pots...they take about a gallon of water every watering...after you water you're gunna feel the buckets really heavy, you might need two hands to pick it up...dont water again until you can pick up the bucket with one hand with ease...good luck

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Ya i agree totally with picking up the pot and feel what they need. personally im getting way better results using schedules should be more like guidelines and help track progress. I feed about the same but 1/2 gallon twice a week in 5gal buckets. I burnt the crap out of my last grow being retarded and following a chart to the t.

No offense to natrone intended, but I've heard that once any wilting starts happening, the plants are being hurt some. I'd try to avoid going that long between watering. I wait until the top soil is dried. For me, that's about every 4 or 5 days.

natrone23 said:

you shouldn't need veg nutes right now at all the OF has enough nutes in it for a month at least


I usally cut my OC with pro-mix because it burns my plants if its staraight OF you definitly don't need to use veg nutes.



Just give then straight water

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Guess what we woke up today and almost all of our plants have yellow spots on the leaves. Between the veins. I assume greatly that we just had our first case of nute burn.

Bulldogbray said:

Guess what we woke up today and almost all of our plants have yellow spots on the leaves. Between the veins. I assume greatly that we just had our first case of nute burn.

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Yeah, and it's going to get worse before it gets better. Did you mix that FFOF with anything? You gotta start those cuttings in something organic and nutrient free, then move them into the FFOF when they get established a bit. Water with just plain water for awhile to give them a chance.

after a few waterings to soil will set and u can get a feel of when the bucket is light enough to water... i dont let mine dry out... top 4-5 inchs are dry and the pot is easy to pick up...i'm using a 3 gal pot.

Is it really going to get worse? ='(

crap. I thought it was ok to transplant clones straight into FFOF and a organic roots mix.

Our clones arnt cuttings. They are dispensary clones. California. Already have roots in natural source.

Bulldogbray said:

Is it really going to get worse? ='(

crap. I thought it was ok to transplant clones straight into FFOF and a organic roots mix.

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When I grew from clones I would always start in an organic mix. One time I mixed the soil so that the top third was organic soil, the middle was a 50/50 mix and the bottom was straight FFOF, but I've never put a clone straight into the FFOF. It's pretty hot stuff.

They will probably be okay eventually, that's the good news. It's just going to get worse before it gets better. They will grow through it, they will do what they can and they should adapt pretty quickly. Just feed with plain water, forget about your nutrients for at LEAST 30 days, I would say closer to 6 weeks.