How wet to keep soil using irrigation system

Sidram420

Sidram420

Well-Known Member
Hello I’ll explain my medium and set up first it’s indoors 5x10 scrog under intense led in 7gallon fabric bags the medium is a livingish type soil made up of one part Amish amended horse manure compost one part coco coir and one part perlite each part being 3 gallons with one and a half cups epsoma garden tone one cup kelp meal one cup garden lime four cups glacial rock dust and 8 tsp’s of recharge soaked and cooked forty five days In the pots it’s top dressed with one inch garden straw lightly sprinkled epsom salt kelp meal and garden tone adds up to a quarter cup mixed up before added to top of straw I just put a irrigation system together using hydro halos 9” in size on a half inch supply line black of course lol using a 20 gallon reservoir on a 400l/h pump with a timer to dial repeat cycles so I can water every so many minutes for so many seconds was thinking around 25 to 35 seconds every five to six minutes obviously I’ll have to watch and time accordingly my question is how moist do I want to keep my soil and how should I separate watering cycles thanks for any help
 
Last edited:
Hi Sidram420,
First things first, start a grow journal, document the details of what you do { time, water time etc.}. Your plants will take up different amounts throughout the grow. No doubt you will adjust either time or pressure to achieve proper hydration. It is a balancing act, good luck...
 
So we will need a few thing to be able to help with this.
what is the flow rate of your drippers. What is the pressure regulated for your water source? With living soil we just want to keep it moist. So we will employ the 5% rule. so with a 7 gallon pot we will want .35 gallons of water. If we have .5 gallon per hour drippers. So with a bit of loose math, a half hour in one dripper is .25 gallons. Since our target is .35 gallons, well ad an extra 5 min. So in a day you would water 35 min through a pressure regulated .5 dripper. If extra dripper per pot cuts the time in half. So 2 drippers 17.5 min. 3 drippers 11.5 min, 4 drippers 8 min 45 sec. 5 drippers 7 min. I wouldnt do more than 5 drippers in a 7 gallon pot. Now that we know how much water is allowed per watering we can adjust the frequency based on size. But never go over that 5% volume. So we will adjust watering freqency based on height during veg. Then weeks 1-10 for bloom.

A good source for this is actually DTW coco growers. In a 7 gallon pot your either growing a small plant or your going to be feeding it something. As soon as the plant is as tall as the height of your fabric pot id flip it and bloom it.
 
m4s73r said:
So we will need a few thing to be able to help with this.
what is the flow rate of your drippers. What is the pressure regulated for your water source? With living soil we just want to keep it moist. So we will employ the 5% rule. so with a 7 gallon pot we will want .35 gallons of water. If we have .5 gallon per hour drippers. So with a bit of loose math, a half hour in one dripper is .25 gallons. Since our target is .35 gallons, well ad an extra 5 min. So in a day you would water 35 min through a pressure regulated .5 dripper. If extra dripper per pot cuts the time in half. So 2 drippers 17.5 min. 3 drippers 11.5 min, 4 drippers 8 min 45 sec. 5 drippers 7 min. I wouldnt do more than 5 drippers in a 7 gallon pot. Now that we know how much water is allowed per watering we can adjust the frequency based on size. But never go over that 5% volume. So we will adjust watering freqency based on height during veg. Then weeks 1-10 for bloom.

A good source for this is actually DTW coco growers. In a 7 gallon pot your either growing a small plant or your going to be feeding it something. As soon as the plant is as tall as the height of your fabric pot id flip it and bloom it.
Click to expand...
I usually veg for around 45 days was going to continuously top dress as needed with a frequency of around once a week with a quarter cup mix of kelp meal epsom salt lime and garden tone sprinkled over garden straw one inch deep the water info really helps should I use a larger pot I’m using 9” hydro halos I have very large 30 gallon fabric pots that I was going to grow two in would that be a better strategy I am scrogging with the net running 8 inches above base of soil I would obviously veg for around 90 days to compensate for pit size and root growth to pot and would still apply 5% method
 
You should absolutely use a bigger pot. and if you can figure it out, line inside sides of the pot with some sort of plastic or tarp. But not the bottom. If you haven't bought pots yet, then get 2 30 gallon grassroots living soil pots. I would scrap the halo rings. if you got lines running, just run to lowes/hd and get some 1/4" drip Tee's. Then run 4 .5 gallon drippers to each 30 gallon pot. Keeping the 5% rule in mind, means you will need 1.5 gallons per watering per pot. and with 4 drippers you would water for 15 min.
 
m4s73r said:
You should absolutely use a bigger pot. and if you can figure it out, line inside sides of the pot with some sort of plastic or tarp. But not the bottom. If you haven't bought pots yet, then get 2 30 gallon grassroots living soil pots. I would scrap the halo rings. if you got lines running, just run to lowes/hd and get some 1/4" drip Tee's. Then run 4 .5 gallon drippers to each 30 gallon pot. Keeping the 5% rule in mind, means you will need 1.5 gallons per watering per pot. and with 4 drippers you would water for 15 min.
Click to expand...
Okay I see your lining the pots to reduce perspiration out the sides but wouldn’t it restrict air to root base also just a question
 
And doing it indoors in that size pot would be okay I just worry about utilizing the whole pot and not wasting area I want to maximize my soil availability but also want to grow the plant to its fullest potential I’ve laid out the pots and can do five under a five by five scrog but worry about the plants getting to big to maximize the pots full potential
 
Sidram420 said:
And doing it indoors in that size pot would be okay I just worry about utilizing the whole pot and not wasting area I want to maximize my soil availability but also want to grow the plant to its fullest potential I’ve laid out the pots and can do five under a five by five scrog but worry about the plants getting to big to maximize the pots full potential
Click to expand...
Most people under size their pots greatly when growing. I consider 30 gallon pots to be the absolute smallest size pot to use for organics. They will grow very fast with a large volume of soil. A small pot will suffocate a cannabis plant. They like to grow, give them the space to grow and they will. So if your in a 5x10 tent, grow 8 plants in 30 gallons pots over and over. makes sure to mulch and then top dress. If it was me, id drop a 4x8 raised bed in that. drop in 32 plants in rows and bloom it.

However, the speed in veg is not even comparable to a coco/perlite dtw drip feed system. Living soil creates a symbiotic relationship from the soil to the plant. The living soil is its own organism that needs to be fed and kept at a proper moisture level. Hydro does not do this. its more of a IV tap right into the vein. With organics its good to have more volume you need then not enough.
 
I should have added the following to my prior post
Maximizing your soil availability is by maximizing the space available for roots to grow. Here is an example of near maximum soil availability in a 5x5 tent. That bed holds around 220 gallons of soil. I currently have around 170 gallons in it. This bed is at roughly 88% of usable space toward soil availability. I could special order a 58x58 bed to go wall to wall, but I would then Bump up again open air availability for plant biomass. This pic is a little dated as I now run the light from the ceiling and the fan rests on the light without the plastic grills. That increased my usable air space.


1635005431364.png
 
m4s73r said:
I should have added the following to my prior post
Maximizing your soil availability is by maximizing the space available for roots to grow. Here is an example of near maximum soil availability in a 5x5 tent. That bed holds around 220 gallons of soil. I currently have around 170 gallons in it. This bed is at roughly 88% of usable space toward soil availability. I could special order a 58x58 bed to go wall to wall, but I would then Bump up again open air availability for plant biomass. This pic is a little dated as I now run the light from the ceiling and the fan rests on the light without the plastic grills. That increased my usable air space.


View attachment 5015277
Click to expand...
I was thinking something similar to your set up when I pictured it you actually convinced me to do a 30 gallon pot in size I set up running ten pots with 9’ halo around plant and misters to saturate and water the whole pot using the 5 percent rule like stated above thank you guys for the help
 
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