It's common practice to water and or feed until 10-20% runoff to bring in new oxygen as well as flush out the old nutes/salt with new stuff, check the outgoing PPMs and so on, but when the plant is still a seedling, even into early/mid-veg stages, the roots and plant haven't developed enough to drink the water quick enough from saturating the medium with so much water until runoff, resulting in over-watering symptoms in my few experiences.
With proper temps and humidity level, if I water a 3 gallon pot with ProMix HP until runoff, it'll take a week or more to dry out...which causes the plant to droop for a few days and I notice growth slows down.
So how should I be watering the plants from seedling to early/mid veg before the roots are big enough to drink and dry out the pots, WITHOUT having salt build up in the medium?
I like the runoff method because it works better for me to control and prevent overfeeding, but If I water to runoff while they're too young to dry the pot out within a few days, they start to suffer.
With proper temps and humidity level, if I water a 3 gallon pot with ProMix HP until runoff, it'll take a week or more to dry out...which causes the plant to droop for a few days and I notice growth slows down.
So how should I be watering the plants from seedling to early/mid veg before the roots are big enough to drink and dry out the pots, WITHOUT having salt build up in the medium?
I like the runoff method because it works better for me to control and prevent overfeeding, but If I water to runoff while they're too young to dry the pot out within a few days, they start to suffer.
