August 07, 2020
Watering your medicinal plants in your indoor grow tent properly may sound like an easy thing to do. After all, it's not rocket science. But, did you know that many medicinal plants growing problems are due to improper watering? Here is how to water your medicinal plants right for healthy growth and large yields!
How Often Should You Water Medicinal Plants to Benefit from Good Buds
We offered some very generic outlines of how often you should water your seedlings, along with plants in their vegetative and flowering stages. However, there is no ‘hard and fast’ rule. Everything depends on the climate, type of strain, the growing medium you use, and whether you’re growing indoors using indoor grow lights or outdoors with sunlight.
Overall, it is a ‘safe bet’ to water your plants a little. Ideally, you’ll reach the point where you soak the pot with a little bit of runoff. While the water should remain on the surface briefly, it needs to drain into the growing medium relatively quickly. Next, you have to monitor your plants carefully and look for signs of underwatering or overwatering.
As for when to water your plant next, experts agree. They say that when you use soil, you should water the plants once the first couple of inches of soil feels dry. Another telltale sign is if the container feels exceptionally light. Are you adding nutrients to the water regularly? If so, add enough water to get up to 20% runoff that drains out of the container’s bottom. This process prevents a build-up in your soil.
A step-by-step guide to watering medicinal plants
First, prepare your equipment. You will need a source of water, a pH meter, pH down (this could be any strong acid), your chosen nutrients, and a watering can, hose or similar.
Water should be around room temperature—hot or cold water can shock and stress plants severely and sometimes irreparably. Most agree that water should be left to stand for 24 hours before use as this allows pH to be more accurately determined.
pH should be between 6.0-6.5 if growing in soil; if growing in soilless medium this value may be somewhat lower (coco prefers the 5.5-6.0 range). Use pH down to reduce pH if necessary, making sure to mix well. Incorrect pH can result in nutrient burn and various deficiencies, as roots are unable to process nutrients as effectively.
Add nutrients according to the manufacturer’s instructions, and mix thoroughly. Nutrient concentrations may be adjusted according to the strain and the stage of growth of the plant—such as when plants are young, or just after being transplanted.
Using a watering can, hose or similar, water the plants until runoff is visible in the trays beneath the pots. Many growers aim for around 10-20% of total water draining off, as this is believed to prevent nutrient build-up—but this is disputed.
Nutrient build-up occurs due to oversupply of nutrients (or reduced uptake by the roots due to overwatering or pH issues), and is fixable by flushing with pure water and not by adding more nutrient solution.
How to solve underwatering
Simply give your plant more water! The good news is that healing a dehydrated plant is easier than healing an overwatered plant. However, plants that have been underwatered to the brink of death require some special care. When nursing back to health, make sure that your water is pH balanced and free of any additives or fertilizers—as mentioned earlier, nutrient supplements will not address the core issue, which is dehydration. Wait for your plant to pick itself back up and for the wilting to cease before you make nutritional adjustments.
How to solve overwatering
Prevention is key. Answers don’t come much shorter than that, but it’s 100% the best solution. Measurement and careful administration of watering are must-have disciplines for every medicinal plants cultivator.
To avoid both underwatering and overwatering try to water approximately 10-20% of the volume of the container. For example, a mature medicinal plants growing in a typical 10l container needs 1-2l of water every watering.
You can avoid over-watering by doing this: when your soil is dry, lift up your pot and weigh it, then weight it again when you’ve fully watered it. If you repeat these weighings for a day or two then you’ll have an accurate idea of how much water the plant is using and develop a better idea of how much to give her.
This basic guide should give novice growers all they need to successfully water and feed medicinal plants. However, adjustments to the basic principles may need to be made according to local climate, choice of strain, type of medium, and several other factors.