Bottom-Watering, How to water cannabis from below?
Plants need water to survive and thrive, and watering them is an essential part of plant care. Proper watering can help plants grow healthy and strong, and can prevent them from becoming stressed or damaged. Watering plants properly can also help prevent common problems such as root rot, which can be caused by overwatering. One of the best techniques for watering marijuana plants is soaker irrigation, providing many advantages over other forms of watering, and in this content we tell you all about this simple growing technique.
Water in plant irrigation
Water is essential for plant growth and survival, it hydrates and passes on nutrients needed for growth and flowering, and doing it correctly is a very important part of plant care. Proper watering can help plants grow healthy and strong, and can prevent common problems such as root rot, which can be caused by overwatering.
In general, it is best to water plants deeply and infrequently, allowing the soil to dry out slightly between watering. This can help encourage strong root growth and avoid overwatering. It is also important to water plants at the correct time of day, as watering during hot, sunny periods can cause water to evaporate before it reaches the roots. We leave you a link to our monograph on watering marijuana in case you want to review everything, and below we continue with the irrigation by absorption.
Watering plants is an art and, of course, a task that all growers must perform. It is an essential plant care skill. In this article, we will talk specifically about reverse watering of potted plants.
Cannabis and Bottom-Watering
Many Cannabis growers find it difficult to find the balance between watering their plants. Have I watered too much, have I watered too little, are the most common questions. Watering can be one of the most complicated parts of raising plants.
As discussed in our other articles on irrigation and valid also for absorption irrigation, the first tip is not to water on a scheduled basis. Instead, pay close attention to the plants, checking them often and watering only when necessary. The plant always tells you when it wants to drink, not the other way around.
Advantages of bottom-watering
When watering from the bottom of the plant, this gives the plant room to drink when it wants to and absorb the right amount of water it needs. The drainage holes in the pot allow water to soak into the soil over a period of time without over saturating it. It also avoids the shock that can occur when watering too quickly, since when watering from below the water is absorbed by capillarity, progressively and slowly by nature. Other advantages of watering from below are:
- Encourages general root growth by forcing roots to seek water downwards.
- Helps prevent fungi that proliferate in the upper layer of moist soil.
- It avoids over saturation of the soil, since it is nature itself that regulates irrigation, and it is more difficult for it to become self-saturated.
- Irrigation above the top layer can lead to dry spots, instead irrigation from below provides an even distribution of moisture throughout the soil.
- Reduces the possibility of overwatering and flooding.
- Prevents splashing on leaves. Sometimes when feeding plants, water can splash on leaves, which can cause plants to burn. When watering from underneath, this is completely avoided.
How to water from below?
To perform this technique you need a potted plant, which must have several drainage holes, water and a container with some depth to pour it. We recommend that the container be wider than the pot and at least 20% of its height. To give a concrete example, imagine that you have a pot 11×11 cm wide and 20 cm high, a container of the correct size would be 12×12 cm and 5 cm high.
- Prepare the pot with a draining substrate at the bottom, about 10% of the height of the pot.
- Fill the rest of the pot with the chosen substrate, coir works better than soil.
- Transplant your plant that you have previously germinated and transferred to a jiffy or rockwool cube into the pot.
- Fill the container with enough water to reach the bottom layer of soil in the pot.
- Place the pot in the saucer.
- Give it some time. Let your plants sit in the bath for 10-15 minutes. You will notice that the water level in the saucer has dropped. The moisture should move to almost the top of the soil in the pot.
- Repeat each time the plant asks for water, that is, when almost all of the substrate is dry.
Final tips on bottom-watering
You can take your plant out of the saucer and put it back in another place. Also, you can always leave it with the containers always underneath and refill them when necessary.
It is possible that there is an excess of water, but never add it to your plant from above, if the soil has not wanted to absorb it, it is that it does not need it.
From time to time, it is beneficial to give it a watering from the top because the top layer of soil can become very dry and form a kind of crust.
As for feeding from below, it is the same concept of feeding a plant as you normally would. Add your nutrients to the water first with the proper pH and EC and then feed by absorption.
Related articles
Can bottom-watering be used with any substrate?
Botom-watering can be used on substrates that suck up water and soak in, such as soil, coco and rock wool. It cannot be used on inert substrates that do not soak, as for example, with arlite.
