Quality Watering Techniques


Let's repeat this, because it is important: the faster the growing media dries, and the more often you water, the better off the plants are.

Techniques which can help you determine when to water involves observing the color of media, feeling the surface, lifting the containers, or water based on a time schedule. You can also look at plant signs (slight wilting). Most growing media turn light brown when drying. A pot filled to field capacity will be heavier than a pot with little plant available water. Soon you will get used to the weight difference and will be able to tell when it is time to water from the weight of the containers alone. Watering on a schedule should only be done with experience, as temperature and plant stage development will affect the speed with which the water is removed from the pots.

Over Watering
Based on above statement, we can deduce that over watering is when growing media stay too wet for too long.

Over watering is very misunderstood concept which has nothing to do with the amount of water applied, in fact, the growing media should be thoroughly soaked during each irrigation, then allowed to drain.

Over watering means watering too often. As long as the PAW capacity has not been exhausted there is really no reason to water again, although it is important to water before the plants actually start to wilt.

This may seem contradictory to our goal of watering frequently, but it is not. The gardener must water according to how fast the water is being removed, but he or she must carefully select a growing medium, pot size, and potting technique to ensure the medium dries as fast as possible.

Choosing Pots
Once the media is at field capacity, water will only disappear through dehydration, from the top of the pot, or by removal by the roots. If none of these happens, the container stays wet. Dehydration is a very slow process especially in highly moisture retentive growing media. This lead us to consider that pot size may be important for the plants at various growth stages to ensure the root size is comparable to the soil volume.

The roots should be able to remove sufficient moisture from the growing media in a relatively short time.

Small seedlings can successfully be grown in small plugs and should only be transplanted into larger cell packs once the roots are capable of holding

The copyright of the article Quality Watering Techniques in Seeds & Plants is owned by Kenneth Joergensen. Permission to republish Quality Watering Techniques in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.

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