PazVerdeRadical said:
Yes! Water! I'm all to familier with the problem of lacking water, my climate gets less rainfall in summer than many North American desert regions.
I have often heard of people using shade to conserve water, and from my experience, each plant will need less water to reach its maximum potential(for that plant in that location), but a plant grown with less light will have less potential for yield.
I can see where shade growing can be a advantage for those people who grow in climates with rainfall in the growing season(like many jungles), it may be possible to eliminate the need to hand water at all, you simply plant more plants to make up the loss in yield.
But in climates like mine, where the grower must provide 90% of the plants water needs through the summer, the rules of the game changes, the ammount of bud you yield is in direct relation to the ammount of water you provide.
If a plant does not need more water because it is growing in more shade, then it will produce less bud than its sister who is in more sunshine and needs more water, more sun x more water= more bud.
My average is about 10-15 Gallons of Water for each ounce of bud I harvest. I could have one plant growing in full sun who yields 4oz, or 4 plants under partial shade who yield about 1oz each, but both plots will take 40 gallons of water from July-Sept to make that 4oz.
Another thing some may find interesting is that the Sun does not drive moisture from the soil directly, once the sun has dried the top few inches of soil, capilary action quits bringing water to the surface and no more moisture can be evaporated directly by the sun. Moisture below this shallow level is evaporated by the sun only through the plants that grow in it.
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