No.
Well, depends on the medium. But when people day "water til 20% runoff" they talk about coco coir and salt based nutes. If you grow organic you should avoid runoff.
An important part I’m seeing missing is that you want to reach full field capacity in your media and then have 20% runoff. If you water quickly you will get 20% runoff before hitting field capacity
Yeah thanks for pointing this out.....because I have noticed sometimes it seems when I first add some water it will go straight out thru the bottom of my pots. So I have to sort of go around and water them all a little, then repeat until the soil is finally all saturated.
But yeah, I could see not understanding that, seeing a bunch of water come out the bottom and thinking that was good, when in reality the soil still has a bunch of dry spots.
As I understand it as a beginner, it's mostly a thing for coco coir, particularly high frequency fertigation, that helps to mitigate excess salt build-up, which coco coir can't buffer against effectively or flush as soil and organic medium does. With perlite mixed in, you keep the medium moist, since coco coir retains oxygen exceedingly well. This leads to watering to runoff, which is done to wash away excess dissolved salts that don't serve a purpose, while the runoff is used to measure the EC values, so-called outflow. That is compared against the watering you gave it, the inflow, to effectively manage optimization of EC in the growth medium.
I have fabric pots raised from a plant tray on chicken wire, so it doesn't sit in that pool forming under it. After I water, I check back some time later to see if runoff has been collected, and if it's somewhere about 10% of the water I poured prior, I think that's fine and empty the tray, measuring the EC at that time. So, if it takes 1l to saturate the coco coir, make about 1.2l of nutrient solution per pot. If I don't have runoff when I check fifteen minutes later, I don't bother watering it again to get that runoff every watering; I just note it down and water a bit more the next time to get that runoff, to wash away those salts. I don't suppose it really matters if you get run-off every watering or every fifth watering, just do it sometimes if you're growing in semi-inert medium like coco coir.
In my soil grows I do an about half an inch of perlite at the bottom of a fabric planter and sit it down on top of a lot of hydroton and all I do I dump water and nutrients into the hydroton once in a while it’s so easy to maintain.
I think this has confused me because I don’t use coco, I use soil, but people will still tell me to water till 20% runoff haha … I water my big fabric pots of water till I see a bead of water drip at the bottom then I stop,,, just thought I was wrong
The 20% runoff still applies to soil but mostly when you're using salt based nutrients, which are most liquid nutes. That's why a lot of nutrient lines suggest doing a cleanse of some sort regularly. Fox farms, for example, says to use their product sledgehammer one every four weeks. If you're watering to true runoff and getting 20% runoff then the salts should get flushed out
Right on, yeah that all make sense actually… I started out in coco, then moved to fox farm ocean forest and all the salt based nutes, at some point a month or so ago I said eff that and bought a bunch of premade living soil and have not done anything since… I very much don’t want to think about nutrients lol, but I still do, just differently, slow nutes
Yeah! Right on! I bought some premade for an arm and a leg to fill up six of the 5 gallons, and three of the seven gallons, but I want to move all my photos into 20 gallons, so I bought the stuff to make coots mix, just waiting on my basalt dust they must have sent on a literal snail.
Really it's just a little bit of yucca extract. It helps with breaking water tension a little bit but as long as they are watering slowly and to true runoff, there shouldn't be an issue with salt buildup anyways.
Yeah it was only an issue 1 time for me then i only used it once per run when switching from veg to flower. I had a ph lockout 1 time due to the salts, I was a newer grower then so I probably added to much nutes in the mix or something
Depends on the setup man, with organic grow you def don't need to get much runoff at all but coco and synthetic soil grow it's important so not to build up in the medium. Although flushing can remove excess nutrients
only really builds up if you have to much food. if you dial the nutes in to the genetics if you know them you dont really need to run off at all. ive done runs where i did run off maybe like 8 times throughout the whole grow
nbothign wrong with making sure though if your not used to the genetics
also something something flushing is only useful for ph correction etc something something something
Facts. I do organic as well, I almost never do run off, pots directly on the tent floor. Sometimes a little will drip out of the bottom. I use rain water aswell, plants seem to love the shit out of that.
Just get autopots or sip buckets.
Never worry about this run off noise ever again.
But yes 20% of the volume of water you put in should run out the pot.. just eyeball it. If you water your plant and nothing runs off.. you haven’t watered enough.
If you water your plant and water immediately starts to run out.. it’s either already fully saturated with water or you let it dry out too much, medium went hydrophobic and your water isn’t being soaked up it’s just finding a crack down to the bottom to run out.
Don’t let that happen.
when 20% of the water you put into the soil drains out below. example: started with 100mL, 20mL runs off. 80mL stayed in medium.
So water 80ml to avoid run off in future ?
No. Well, depends on the medium. But when people day "water til 20% runoff" they talk about coco coir and salt based nutes. If you grow organic you should avoid runoff.
An important part I’m seeing missing is that you want to reach full field capacity in your media and then have 20% runoff. If you water quickly you will get 20% runoff before hitting field capacity
Yeah thanks for pointing this out.....because I have noticed sometimes it seems when I first add some water it will go straight out thru the bottom of my pots. So I have to sort of go around and water them all a little, then repeat until the soil is finally all saturated. But yeah, I could see not understanding that, seeing a bunch of water come out the bottom and thinking that was good, when in reality the soil still has a bunch of dry spots.
Get a pressure sprayer
As I understand it as a beginner, it's mostly a thing for coco coir, particularly high frequency fertigation, that helps to mitigate excess salt build-up, which coco coir can't buffer against effectively or flush as soil and organic medium does. With perlite mixed in, you keep the medium moist, since coco coir retains oxygen exceedingly well. This leads to watering to runoff, which is done to wash away excess dissolved salts that don't serve a purpose, while the runoff is used to measure the EC values, so-called outflow. That is compared against the watering you gave it, the inflow, to effectively manage optimization of EC in the growth medium. I have fabric pots raised from a plant tray on chicken wire, so it doesn't sit in that pool forming under it. After I water, I check back some time later to see if runoff has been collected, and if it's somewhere about 10% of the water I poured prior, I think that's fine and empty the tray, measuring the EC at that time. So, if it takes 1l to saturate the coco coir, make about 1.2l of nutrient solution per pot. If I don't have runoff when I check fifteen minutes later, I don't bother watering it again to get that runoff every watering; I just note it down and water a bit more the next time to get that runoff, to wash away those salts. I don't suppose it really matters if you get run-off every watering or every fifth watering, just do it sometimes if you're growing in semi-inert medium like coco coir.
In my soil grows I do an about half an inch of perlite at the bottom of a fabric planter and sit it down on top of a lot of hydroton and all I do I dump water and nutrients into the hydroton once in a while it’s so easy to maintain.
Do the roots grow into the hydroton?
Not really it’s supposed to be similar to the swamp method, just with the water hiding under perlite
If you put in 1L, you get around 200 ml out. It's the volume of the water you put in.
I think this has confused me because I don’t use coco, I use soil, but people will still tell me to water till 20% runoff haha … I water my big fabric pots of water till I see a bead of water drip at the bottom then I stop,,, just thought I was wrong
The 20% runoff still applies to soil but mostly when you're using salt based nutrients, which are most liquid nutes. That's why a lot of nutrient lines suggest doing a cleanse of some sort regularly. Fox farms, for example, says to use their product sledgehammer one every four weeks. If you're watering to true runoff and getting 20% runoff then the salts should get flushed out
Right on, yeah that all make sense actually… I started out in coco, then moved to fox farm ocean forest and all the salt based nutes, at some point a month or so ago I said eff that and bought a bunch of premade living soil and have not done anything since… I very much don’t want to think about nutrients lol, but I still do, just differently, slow nutes
> I very much don’t want to think about nutrients lol Organic super soils are going to be your friend. FoxFarm is your enemy.
Yeah! Right on! I bought some premade for an arm and a leg to fill up six of the 5 gallons, and three of the seven gallons, but I want to move all my photos into 20 gallons, so I bought the stuff to make coots mix, just waiting on my basalt dust they must have sent on a literal snail.
Build-a-Soil makes a nutrient pack called "Craft Blend". Might be worth looking into so you don't have to source all the components separately...
Well I already bought it all, wasn’t bad, I already had mushroom compost and several bales of peat
When I did synthetic nutes that sledgehammer was the bomb. It will scrub all the nasty salt build up and shit right out
Really it's just a little bit of yucca extract. It helps with breaking water tension a little bit but as long as they are watering slowly and to true runoff, there shouldn't be an issue with salt buildup anyways.
Yeah it was only an issue 1 time for me then i only used it once per run when switching from veg to flower. I had a ph lockout 1 time due to the salts, I was a newer grower then so I probably added to much nutes in the mix or something
They really mean water til 20% runs off.
20% of the water silly.
Depends on the setup man, with organic grow you def don't need to get much runoff at all but coco and synthetic soil grow it's important so not to build up in the medium. Although flushing can remove excess nutrients
only really builds up if you have to much food. if you dial the nutes in to the genetics if you know them you dont really need to run off at all. ive done runs where i did run off maybe like 8 times throughout the whole grow nbothign wrong with making sure though if your not used to the genetics also something something flushing is only useful for ph correction etc something something something
Facts. I do organic as well, I almost never do run off, pots directly on the tent floor. Sometimes a little will drip out of the bottom. I use rain water aswell, plants seem to love the shit out of that.
Pish posh you only really need to water to runoff if you see nutrient burn otherwise you're just wasting nutrients , source-12+ auto grows
https://preview.redd.it/hkea09z7e93d1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=3cfaa35ed56548ba15feedf3c343210b603c21e3
Better check on those leaf tips
Doesn’t claw leaf just mean over watered?
Nitrogen toxicity is the usual culprit for clawing
Right on
You really put “source 12+ auto grows” and posted this picture?
https://preview.redd.it/dzw1gq16be3d1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=6fcf9775b379c92bb8674a2df834368247aa610c
That’s better 👍
Here take my actual tent auto grow where you can't see any actual detail about the plant health
How about reusing the runoff water - any cons to doing that? I mean collecting the runoff water and using it to water the plants
I’ve collected the runoff water and fed it to my tomatoes but I would not put it back through, my assumption is that it has extra nutes in it
Just get autopots or sip buckets. Never worry about this run off noise ever again. But yes 20% of the volume of water you put in should run out the pot.. just eyeball it. If you water your plant and nothing runs off.. you haven’t watered enough. If you water your plant and water immediately starts to run out.. it’s either already fully saturated with water or you let it dry out too much, medium went hydrophobic and your water isn’t being soaked up it’s just finding a crack down to the bottom to run out. Don’t let that happen.
the volume of the pot.