water When to water? No harm in letting it wilt a smidge

This is not really a post meant for seasoned growers. This is really meant for people that are just starting out that ask the question, when will I know to water my plants.
 
Generally, I suggest to use the dig 1 inch method. Whereas you use your finger or a chopstick to dig 1 inch into the soil. If the soil is dry, it can use a watering. Now, every different plant genetic will react differently to giving us signs it needs watering. But the pepper plants are not subtle at all.
 
When they want water, they tell you. All of the leaves will look "sad" and droop downward. This means that the plant wants to "aspirate," which means it wants to cycle water through its leaves and continue "working." But when it runs out of water, it uses the water in the leaves cells which work like mini hydrolics holding the structure of the plant. When you finally give the plant water, it will raplidy start filling those cells and reforming its correct structure.
 
Now, that is how it works, but what I mean to say in this thread is that this is a direct sign that it is time to water. Otherwise, you will be taking away from the plants' potential. Some people do this intensionally to help increase the heat of the peppers, or any other reason.
 
These plants can take a beating. Even if you were to break a stem, if enough of the outer stem is still connected to support the leaves above the break, then that section of the plant will continue to grow.
 
The environment I have has a LOT of air flow. maybe a little too much. But even with all of that moving air, the humidity is pretty stable around 50% ( I live in southern CA so it is pretty much that way all the time here). But since there is so much air movement, the soil dries out super fast. And I come home all the time to wilted plants.
 
This video shows how quickly you can expect rebound to occur to a point that it is obvious.
 
http://youtu.be/1Gj-9VoqZmw

Excellent post. Now for seedlings. Seedlings should be watered by letting water drip from your fingers or a towel into the soil whenever the top of it looks dry, as seedlings cannot tolerate drought nearly as well as adults. Use the above method once they get to a couple inches wide with 4-6 leaves.

I germinate in plastic bag with paper towel wrapped inside a bath towel ontop of a seedling mat. When they germinate I move them into the rockwool cubes - just when the root barely starts coming out (about 2-5mm), this way I don't damage them. Once the roots get longer, they can bend and crack. And once you break the main tap root when it is only 1cm long, the seed is done for. I then cover the seed in the rockwool cubes by combing the rockwool material over the germinated seed with a tooth pick.
 
Rockwool cubes ph'd to 5.6
 
Once the seeds are in the cubes, I put them into a hunidity dome with a seedling matt under it and all of the vents closed. As soon as the first time I see any green at all, I either put the dome under a regular daylight CFL bulb or I put them in my bug grow area in the far back corner.
 
I generally keep them like this until the second set of leaves comes out for most, if not all. Which I start acclimating them to natural humidity by opening the vents a little, and then a lot until the whole lid comes off over the course of a few to several days (depends on how dry it is outside of the dome).
 
Usually the cubes will only need to be watered once the whole time until the vents are opened.Do not over water the baby seedlings. You can pick up the cubes at any time to see how light they are. When they are dry and need water, you can tell, trust me.
 
After that, when the cubes are out in the open and under a stronger light, I use a turkey baster to drip the nutrient solution that I mix up. Until I decide whether each cube will go into soil or hydro, I keep upping the nutrient solution. I start the nutrients when I first see a good root peek out of the bottom of the cube. I will start off with a full dose of cal-mag (I use light/full dose of cal-mag with EVERY watering I give, from clone to harvest). And then I add nutrients, starting somewhere around 200-400ppm. I gradually bring the ppms up as the plants grow. I never need to pass 800-900ppm even with full growing plants (in my DWC system). A lot of people use higher ppms, but I base it off of what the plant uses. But determining how much a plant uses is a whole other topic and I have way over done this one as is /sorry

Lets see how many pics I can put on one post at a time...
 

Interesting post!
 
When growing in soil, besides the obvious signs like the plant wilting etc, I usually judge the need for water by the weight of the pot. A plant that needs water feels like an empty shell whereas a watered plant feels a bit bottom heavy. I also look for moisture in the bottom holes of the pot.
 
/Bjornson

Huh. I usually just put the rockwool in a small puddle of water and they do just fine. Probably because it only takes in so much at once.

Speaking of watering, as an experiment I used a capillary mat for some of my seedlings since I will soon be leaving town for a week. This is the result:
 

 
Do you know what that is? Damping-off? On some of the other plants I found the buried part of the stem to be a bit pale and brownish. I don't know if that's normal.

cruzzfish said:

Huh. I usually just put the rockwool in a small puddle of water and they do just fine. Probably because it only takes in so much at once.

Click to expand...

 
I've done this too, I have only had a problem when the seed hadn't popped out yet. The extra moisture caused the seed to mold and die. But once there are a few leaves, I have not had any problem with the "puddle" method either. In fact, depending on how I am growing, I may do it on purpose to give the roots somewhere to extend without drying out - if they will be in the cubes longer than expected or if I am pruning/planning/shaping the plants prior to transplanting. --- I usually start doing the "puddle" idea once the roots hit the bottom of the cube or JUST start to stick out.
 
Right now, I am trying something with a new pruning method of mine and the clones are in cubes and will be there for over a month more. I was thinking about putting them into netty pots with the hydroton and just leaving them in there (before moving to the DWC) while I prune the plants and get them ready for the DWC. I will have a puddle for the roots to grow into while I am waiting to move the plants. Might as well get those roots established in the net pots while I still don't have room for them.
 
 

Bjornson said:

Speaking of watering, as an experiment I used a capillary mat for some of my seedlings since I will soon be leaving town for a week. This is the result:
 

 
Do you know what that is? Damping-off? On some of the other plants I found the buried part of the stem to be a bit pale and brownish. I don't know if that's normal.

Click to expand...

 
There can be a lot of things going on, could you take a picture of the leaves too? That way I can get a better idea of the overall health of the plant.
 
If the plant is healthy, then it probably just needs to be hardened off, or is in the process of hardening off.
 
What kind of pepper are you growing? Some different varieties have differently colored stems. I found a really cool looking pepper plant with full black (super dark purple) stems and veins, it was very intersting. I also grow maple trees that have a big variety of stem colors.
 
More pictures would help me out, but it does seem like that plant was exposed to a lot of water. But when I get a look at the leaves, I should be able to tell better, or maybe someone else more knowldgeable than I on this forum might know also.
 
Oh, another idea. What type of water are you using? ph? I use RO water and have to add Cal-Mag. But I have noticed that adding regular doses of Cal-Mag has helped develop very strong green (and then to nice woody) stems. I like my soil water to be around 6.0-6.5 ph, where the clones, seedlings, and pretty much anything not in soil yet get a stable 5.6-5.8 ph. So far, very good results in both mediums.
 
 

Bjornson said:

Interesting post!
 
When growing in soil, besides the obvious signs like the plant wilting etc, I usually judge the need for water by the weight of the pot. A plant that needs water feels like an empty shell whereas a watered plant feels a bit bottom heavy. I also look for moisture in the bottom holes of the pot.
 
/Bjornson

Click to expand...

 
I do this also. Once you water a certain plant/pot-size enough, you can tell just by lifting or "rocking" the pot. I do this most of the time, but I wanted to point out visual signs for beginners. Sometimes I will rock the pot and if I am not sure, I dig 1 inch down and check. And of course, I pay attention to how the leaves look as I do it.

mrgrowguy said:

There can be a lot of things going on, could you take a picture of the leaves too? That way I can get a better idea of the overall health of the plant.
 
If the plant is healthy, then it probably just needs to be hardened off, or is in the process of hardening off.
 
What kind of pepper are you growing? Some different varieties have differently colored stems. I found a really cool looking pepper plant with full black (super dark purple) stems and veins, it was very intersting. I also grow maple trees that have a big variety of stem colors.
 
More pictures would help me out, but it does seem like that plant was exposed to a lot of water. But when I get a look at the leaves, I should be able to tell better, or maybe someone else more knowldgeable than I on this forum might know also.
 
Oh, another idea. What type of water are you using? ph? I use RO water and have to add Cal-Mag. But I have noticed that adding regular doses of Cal-Mag has helped develop very strong green (and then to nice woody) stems. I like my soil water to be around 6.0-6.5 ph, where the clones, seedlings, and pretty much anything not in soil yet get a stable 5.6-5.8 ph. So far, very good results in both mediums.

Click to expand...

 
That's what intrigues me, the leaves look healthy and similar to the other plants I didn't experiment with. This particular variety is a Chinese 5-color which fades from purple to green on both the leaves and the stem. I checked the stem on a Numex Joe E Parker aswell (also in the experiment) and the stem beneath the soil line was brownish and a bit pale. But maybe that's just a sign of some hardening off. However the white part on the Chinese 5-color is not a "discoloration" but actually a flesh wound. Someone suggested it could be a worm munching on the stem since the pattern is too perfect for being fungus. I used high quality soil but I guess it's not a guarantee for not getting worms if I give them the right environment to activate.
 
Sorry, I wasted the plant and didn't take any pictures of the leaves.
 
I use regular tap water which in Sweden should be about 8 ph. From what I understand it's quite rich on calcium.

Bjornson said:

 
That's what intrigues me, the leaves look healthy and similar to the other plants I didn't experiment with. This particular variety is a Chinese 5-color which fades from purple to green on both the leaves and the stem. I checked the stem on a Numex Joe E Parker aswell (also in the experiment) and the stem beneath the soil line was brownish and a bit pale. But maybe that's just a sign of some hardening off. However the white part on the Chinese 5-color is not a "discoloration" but actually a flesh wound. Someone suggested it could be a worm munching on the stem since the pattern is too perfect for being fungus. I used high quality soil but I guess it's not a guarantee for not getting worms if I give them the right environment to activate.
 
Sorry, I wasted the plant and didn't take any pictures of the leaves.
 
I use regular tap water which in Sweden should be about 8 ph. From what I understand it's quite rich on calcium.

Click to expand...

 
I thought of the possibility of disease, which can never be ruled out, but the roots that are popping out seem healthy white. It's hard to tell, but in the picture, the stem just above the first node seems to be wrinkled, is that just me?
 
If it is, the stem could have gotten rot, maybe from that wound on the bottom.
 
I just have to say, also, that you seem to be running very high ph. The good thing about soil is most soils are so low in ph, that the run-off is pretty close pretty normal once you run tap water through it.
 
Do you dechlorinate your tap water? (sorry, I have no idea what the water quality is like in Sweden) In California, our water has chlorine and chloramine. So I have to use a dechlorinator that clears both. Regular chlorine will evaporate in a day in an open container, but chloramine is heavier and stays for weeks if not neutralized.

mrgrowguy said:

 
I thought of the possibility of disease, which can never be ruled out, but the roots that are popping out seem healthy white. It's hard to tell, but in the picture, the stem just above the first node seems to be wrinkled, is that just me?
 
If it is, the stem could have gotten rot, maybe from that wound on the bottom.
 
I just have to say, also, that you seem to be running very high ph. The good thing about soil is most soils are so low in ph, that the run-off is pretty close pretty normal once you run tap water through it.
 
Do you dechlorinate your tap water? (sorry, I have no idea what the water quality is like in Sweden) In California, our water has chlorine and chloramine. So I have to use a dechlorinator that clears both. Regular chlorine will evaporate in a day in an open container, but chloramine is heavier and stays for weeks if not neutralized.

Click to expand...

First of all, thank you for being so patient and trying to help me. I really appreciate it!
 
I wouldn't say its wrinkled. I guess I'll just monitor the other plants in the test for a couple of weeks.
 
Apparently the Swedish tapwater leaves the treatment plant with 8 ph but people report it being a bit less, 6-8 ph. I probably should test it myself! The tapwater is extremely clean here and there is no chlorine.

I use this, works reliably, store it in 7.0 solution in a small cup, calibrate it every month or so, and you will be happy you got it. Oh, and never drop it into what you're measuring! HAHA, they don't work well after being fully submerged, trust me, I've dropped 2 into my reservoirs so far. After that first one I bought a backup to my backup, but now I'm outta backups
 
http://www.amazon.com/Etekcity%C2%AE-PH-009-Quality-Digital-Pocket/dp/B00CH3QZSE/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1392795267&sr=8-3&keywords=ph+meter
 
And if you do get one, measure your run-off water and see what your roots are sitting in, ph wise.

mrgrowguy said:

I use this, works reliably, store it in 7.0 solution in a small cup, calibrate it every month or so, and you will be happy you got it. Oh, and never drop it into what you're measuring! HAHA, they don't work well after being fully submerged, trust me, I've dropped 2 into my reservoirs so far. After that first one I bought a backup to my backup, but now I'm outta backups
 
http://www.amazon.com/Etekcity%C2%AE-PH-009-Quality-Digital-Pocket/dp/B00CH3QZSE/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1392795267&sr=8-3&keywords=ph+meter
 
And if you do get one, measure your run-off water and see what your roots are sitting in, ph wise.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the advice! I've never heard of anyone in Sweden using ph meters though accept for hydro dudes. However I plan on testing hydro for the first time next season so I need to buy one anyway. But they are very expensive in Sweden, the cheapest one I found costs 60 bucks! Maybe I go for testing strips to begin with.

I play with both. Soil is easier, but I LOVE hydro, much better results and it requires me to be more in-tune with the plants. Of course, if you do something wrong, then things can go from great to terrible quickly.

Another important thing to talk about is what time of the day you should water. I've learned the hard way that the risk for oedema increases if the plants are watered in the evening/when the lights are out despite having rather hot and dry air (which is the case indoors during the cold winter). So it's definately worth getting up 10 minutes earlier in the morning to water the plants before work

Just an update
 
http://youtu.be/NsayTHT_8os