I’m currently growing two autos in 3 gallon fabric pots with coco/perlite, and fertigating twice a day to get ~20% runoff. One is at week 10 of flowering and the other at week 15 (two different strains), and both are close to harvest, but not quite there yet.
I have to go away for two nights, and have no one to take care of the plants. I could either just let them go without water for 48 hrs, or else fill a large saucer with a liter or two of dilute nutrient and let them bottom feed until that runs out.
Which is preferable? I can also reduce the lights-on time from 16 to 12 hours, so they drink less.
I would keep the hours of lighting the same, just reduce intensity.
I would water heavily and possibly bottom feed.
Cover the soil so air does not dry out.
Fabric 3 gal bags fit inside 5-gal bucket (reducing air flow to bag).
Best results to you.
Leaving in Oct for 22 day trip.
Middle of harvest/dry season.
I could also raise the humidity a bit so they dry slower?
It is currently about 50% RH, 80-82 degrees F. I have been keeping the tent door open to lower the humidity (hoping to prevent mold), but if I close it, the RH goes up to about 55%.
Absolutely, I run autopots and it surprised me how much more water evaporates with lower humidity. Especially with fabric pots…. You can get programable auto feeders from Amazon for about $30 to $40. I do a lot of traveling and use them when the girls are too young for the autopots.
That looks just like the one I bought. I had nothing but problems trying to program it. It never operated when I was gone and I lost my crop. The lights worked correctly though, the plants dried up. I regret being cheap on a waterer, it wasn’t worth it!!!
We had a dude gone for a week not too long ago and despite mixed opinions on whether to leave them or not he just heavily watered them, came back to massive growth.
RealGrowers have a clip on YT talking about forcefully letting your plant dry out a bit extra every so often to induce a bit of extra stress, encouraging the plant to think she may be nearing her end of life cycle and promote extra growth.
I’m a first time grower with not much time to take care of the plants. We vacation for a month the last 2 weeks of July and the first two weeks of August. I built a self watering raised bed in the backyard and to me they look ok.
Update: I lft the plants without watering while I was away, and they were fine when I returned.
I fertigated them before leaving, put them in saucers and filled the saucers with water, covered top of the coco with cardboard and the sides of the fabric pots with plastic film, to reduce evaporation. I also turned the lights down to 16/8 and reduced intensity to 6 from 8. So you were right - 2 days without watering is ok.
