Citrus > Citrus General Discussion

fully soaking containers when watering

(1/10) > >>

brian:
Yesterday I repotted a few trees that I have in rootmaker roll containers.   I noticed a few had large dry sections, especially close to the bottom.   It appears when I am watering the water is channelling straight through and some parts aren't wetting.  This is the first time I've seen this, and I expect it is because my trees are in a greenhouse now while previously they were exposed to rainfall.   I don't have the patience to slowly water nearly fifty container trees, so I am looking into an automatic drip system.  I soaked the affected trees in a large bucket of water for some time to get them back to normal.

One thing I haven't checked is how the few trees I have in solid plastic (non-rootmaker) containers fared.  It's possible this problem is exacerbated by the rootmaker's many side holes.

Millet:
I have many times set my Root Maker and other containers in a larger bucket over night. to soak, with or without fertilizer..

z_willus_d:
I'd think it also depends on the grow medium you're using.  I recently planted seven 5G avocado plants in ~20G RBII expandable container roll pots.  I soaked them well at transplant and gave them a couple inches of pine-needle mulch.  After nearly a month, I still haven't watered the trees again.  The reason is every time I scratch the surface beneath the needles, the soil below appears moist.  I was dropping a lot of avocado leaves, and I had read that wet roots can result in leaf drop.  What I don't know is about how moist the sub-surface, but I would think if the surface is moist, then so too what lies beneath.  Now, I had peat and a fair amount of coco hulls in my mix, so that probably explains the moisture retention.  I was biasing towards more retention because I had read that the perforated RootBuilder containers transpire out more moisture than a solid-walled container.  It might also just be that these Avocado trees are in utter shock and not sucking in any water as yet.

zephian:
I've noticed water rolling off root ball to unoccupied soil when I recently replanted in to bigger pots. This leaves dry spot's in the root ball from my experiance. Darn new soil ducks up all my water!!

laidbackdood:
Z willus........avocado hate wet feet.......you need a porous mix and it needs to stay on the dry to medium side......they are even more fussy on that side than citrus......they will drop all their leaves and die if they stay too wet....i have killed plenty like that.

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page