Question - how much water?

[growbig789]

hows it goin everyone,

there are a lot of very knowledgeable people on this board, and I have enjoyed trying to glean every bit I can from the various posts. So any input from anyone will be appreciated.

Anyway, on buddy and I's outdoor 6 plant med grow, foothills north end of the sac valley. we're off to a good start, but one concern is watering. We chose 6 plants as a reasonable expectation of how many we felt we could do successfully off a 55 gal water barrel. We fill up the barrel when needed and have the system on a timer with drip, its about a 20 min drive out to fill up the barrel.

Question is.. given some details, what do you think the max water usage may be at peak of the summer per plant?

Holes are about 2' x 1.5' x 1.5' deep...
filled with 1/2 native (more clay) & 1/2 happy frog with added perlite and about a cup of small water polymers pre mixed through the soil

about avg of 7 emitters 1/2 gph emitters per plant, they cover the area of the dug holes and should wet the area pretty well.

about 4-5 inches of mulch.

probably 7-8 hours of direct sunlight, some shade/shadows morning and evening.

strains are maui waui, white widow, bubba kush...

the soil seems to have pretty good water retention with the clay and the water crystals, but also has a pretty good texture and decent drainage. I think we may be able to pull it off max of 2 water trips a week, about 100 gallons/wk or about 16 gal/plant per week. Does that seem reasonable? we could go 3 times a week if we needed to, whatever we gotta do to be successful... we've tried a couple times already and have been learning the hard way

here we are a few days ago... the stakes are about 5 ft tall.
what do you think? thanks for any input

 

[D.S. Toker. MD]

when water is delivered to a plant that recieves no additional moisture through rainfall, use approximately.75 gallons of water per day, unless temperatures jump into the 90's with wind and then they may require as much as 1.25 gallons per day/per 6' plant. Large plants to 10' may require as much as 2 gallons per day in hot, drought conditions.

There is a caveat. Organic or peat based soil looses moisture to evaporation and dissipation to surrounding soil at almost 2 1/2 times that of clay based soils. They also tend to be much warmer: approximately 10 degrees hotter than native soil due to the ability for air to infiltrate the organic soil and because it is generally black if left unmulched. Ive been recording my notes now for about 5 years and thats been the story.

 

[growbig789]

Nice... thanks doc. I see some of the guys talking about 15 gallons of water per plant and so on but thats in the above ground smart pots and mostly out of the bag type soil, plus the plants are absolutely massive

That gives me more confidence that we may be on the right track. I think having 1/2 clay soil mixed in with some water crystals and a generous mulching should help quite a bit with water retention. I'm hoping to be able to water at max 4 days/wk and be able to soak them pretty well on the watering days, and then let the water crystals take up the slack on the off days. Thanks for the reply, appreciate it.