Overwatered, but not watering till leaves droop?

I changed to those 'quick drain' pargro blocks, i'm in a flood and drain table. I have tried flooding for 5-10-15 minutes 1x daily. Blocks are not drying at the same rate, some plants are drooping for water while other still have water weight.

Its a daily cycle, water when cube is very light or slightly drooping for water, thick curled leaves for the rest of the day, next morning leaves are perky, repeat. More freq watering results in clearly constant over-watered plants. Trying to water less and I have taken the plants to the edge of death. I think there is something wrong with the blocks, I have never had this kind of trouble with normal grodan blocks. I have ran the same programs for years and at this size I would water 1x daily or more without drying out this much..

I have now put cocomats under the blocks hoping this will allow the roots to dry out even if the block is holding to much water. What else could it be?

temps: 70-80F
water temp: 68F
2" flood depth
4x4x4 Pargro Quick drain blocks
Plants are 12"+ topped to 8

I run a flood and drain as well. My primary medium is hydroton. However, my seed or clone sits within a 2" rockwool cube, which sits in the larger container of hydroton. Unlike rockwool, my hydroton drains almost instantly so I flood once an hour.

One thing you might consider is that it's possible the droop is from your plants needing more nutes, not more frequent floods. You could try slowly increasing the nute concentration within each flood?

Just my two cents. If you solve it I would love to know for my own future reference.

Good luck, Pata!!

MrFlatbush said:

I run a flood and drain as well. My primary medium is hydroton. However, my seed or clone sits within a 2" rockwool cube, which sits in the larger container of hydroton. Unlike rockwool, my hydroton drains almost instantly so I flood once an hour.

One thing you might consider is that it's possible the droop is from your plants needing more nutes, not more frequent floods. You could try slowly increasing the nute concentration within each flood?

Just my two cents. If you solve it I would love to know for my own future reference.

Good luck, Pata!!

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Thank you for your reply, I will give it a shot, I normally like to run light on nutrients, maybe this strain is the first really hungry strain I'm running over the years.