Water early stage

You've got a tiny plant in a large pot. This makes it difficult to do it properly. Water a small circle around the little plant, but make sure that water goes all the way down to the bottom -- otherwise you are training roots to grow superficially. It will physically turn toward greater moisture and if you only water superficially, then the greatest moisture will be upward instead of downward in the substrate. This is a bad thing. Slowling increase diameter of what you water as it grows. Continue to make sure it gets wet all the way down to the bottom of the pot -- even watering a smaller diameter your substrate will remain wet for long periods of time -- another reason you don't want to have a tiny plant in a big pot. The concept is similar to normal irrigation procedures, but you just water a smaller area. Irrigation is simple under normal circumstances. Water until entire thing is wet (10% runoff if soilless),wait for top layer to dry, then repeat. Don't deviate from that. It is simple but important for long term health and risk-avoidance. you give the volume needed, no some OCD whimsical value based on feelings instead of what is required to saturate the entire medium -- or in this context, attempt to saturate a small column of substrate all the way to bottom. So how much water does it need? You'll only know in hindsight under normal conditions of watering entire pot. In this context, you'll need a little more each time until watering the entire pot. You give what it takes to get wet all the way down. Once watering entire pot, if you re-irrigate at same loss of weight, it takes the same volume of water. this depends on how the soil is constituted and nothing else. in future, use an appropriate sized pot. If it is an autoflower, trust that it's a totaly urban myth to think an autoflower must be in its final pot to avoid "shock." Up-potting does not shock a plant unless you use your retard strength and crush the hell out of the rootball, and maybe spit on it for good measure. if new and unsure of up-potting - it's simple. do it after an irrigation and the rootball will hold together. you gently place it in a hole and cover it up -- little to no stress to the plant. I've up-potted 300-500 plants and yet to see "transplant shock" ... "transplanting" is more stressful. it involves cutting a plant's roots in order to move it from its current position. What we do is not transplanting despite the common misuse of the vocabulary, myself included. Up-potting is not going to shock a plant unless you try to damage the plant and shock it.

At this stage I usually water about a wattle bottle (16oz) of water every 12 hours or so. Not letting the soil get completely dry or soaking wet. Allowing enough wet space for roots to grow into. Gradually increase the water over the next week and by the end of the week you should only need to water once a day or every other day.