It's kind of hard to judge, actually. As far as what's visible, the water is allmost all concentrated in one small area between where it drips out to about the diameter it takes to reach the cone. So things like sticking a finger in the top (say on the other side of the pot), or feeling the bottom of the pot will almost always feel dry as a bone. I can see the speed of the dripping change on the mature plants throughout the day. Will look once and it'll be dripping pretty steady 2-3 drops a second, then an hour or two later and maybe one drip every 15-20 seconds. With it being kind of hard to guage the wet dry cycle, it was kind of a leap of faith I suppose to just trust in it. I kept wanting to turn them up more and more in the early stages so that there would be more wet feeling around the pot. But after getting myself to just let 'em do their thing the plants seem to be digging it so far.
Should be interesting to pull the roots at the end of the grows and inspect them. I'm guessing there will be a nice little cluster around the area between the drip and the cone.
