water under textil pot

Yes, I always water fabric pots in the bottom tray with 25%-33% of the combined volume of all pots, and they wick up the water in less than an hour. Best and easiest hand watering method :)

To just let soil sit in a pot sitting in water is not good. Soil will get soggy. Asking for bacteria to form or roots to rot. Ive used fabric pots for a while now. Ive done top feeding and bottom feeding.was able to reach a good harvest either way but with issies both ways. I am currently running a grow with 5 gallon fabric pots with a bottom feeding tray. I watered from top only fully saturating the pots and letting them dry back till the leaves reached the edge of the pots after transplanting a 2 week old plant. I am starting the second week of flower now. Once the leaves got close to the edge of the pots, I top water enough to fully saturate the top and then pour about 1/3 a gallon into the base to wick up. Its been working amazingly well so far. Air pots dry fast. Especially around the sides and top with good air flow. I put mulch on the top to slow it down. Keep in mind I use dry fertilizers, and have not tried feeding nutes through the bottom. Bottom feeding only, allows for a crust of salt to form on the top. If you dont constantly water from top even with bottom feeding, the salt build up can cause issues. You get a big enough build up amd then try to water from the top and you will reak havoc on the poor plant from the salts. By watering some from the top, then letting the bottom wick water up, I dont force my nutes out the bottom, nor have the built up on the top so far. Constant water to roots isnt the problem, as hydro wouldnt be a thing if it was. Overwatered soggy soil will suffocate the roots. Wicking method does not over water. I also use about 1 inch of perlite in the bottom of the pot to keep the bottom of the pot from becoming soggy. You can make a wicking system really easy too. I bout mine from vivosun, however, some shoe laces and a small tote can be made to a wicking system. Just have to cut holes in the tote for shoe laces to drape across the top of the tote lid while shoe laces rest on bottom of tote. Make a hole to fill the tote (like on the side of the tote away from where the pot will sit so you can pour water in without having to mess with the pot. Pour your water in. Sit the fabric pot on the shoe laces. Wicking system done! This is an experiment for me. If it continues to work well, may be my new go to. My base holds a full gallon per plant. I am constantly pulled away from my grow for sometimes days at a time. Having a gallon reservoir per plant allows me to full saturate the pot and fill the reservoir leaving me several days before I have to water again. I dont fully load it up unless im gonna be gone for a while. Otherwise I use the method I said above and so far im happy with results. Just my thoughts, Best of luck! Happy growing!

I also use fabric pots. Normally, I water very slowly from the top. If you do the same but feel like you have dry spots, you might want to adjust your watering behavior a bit by only pouring small amounts, like two or three hundred milliliters, then waiting ten minutes, watering a small amount again, and continuing this way until your nutrient solution is used up. Occasionally, I also just water a third or half from the top and the other part from the bottom. Among other things, this encourages the roots to spread all the way down into the pot.

ha.. "timefrom" = "timeframe" at the end there...

It shouldn't be necessary. If the medium is repelling water, use a surfactant (aka a wetting agent). Yucca extract is a 'natural' one. That'll help it absorb more easily. Usually you don't want a solid substrate sitting in water for any long period of time. Those bottom feed systems use a wick for a reason. Definitely don't want dry pockets in medium after irrigating either. In the end you do what you gotta do. i used fabric pots for a couple years in the past... never had a problem watering form the top. Either it's too hydrophobic or something else is exacerbating the problem. While you may have to work around it this time, far better to figure out what is causing it and avoid it in the future. You may need to tamp it down with slightly more pressure next time. Irrigation is going to 'tamp' it down whether you do or not. Could make the surface a little concave ("little" being stressed), that'll reduce how much water flows to the sides before absorbing. Watering should be a mindless and easy task. 1) fully saturate (if soilless, 10% runoff and doesn't sit in its piss) 2) wait for dryback and repeat. If you do find out the problem is the medium repelling water (hydrophobic), that's a bad sign for the store you bought it from or the soil product itself. Only the 'raw' stuff that requires treatment before use should ever repell water. It indicates aged or poorly composed soil product that didn't use a proper wetting agent. Soil naturally will become hydrophobic over time, but for a timefrom of an indoor grow, it should not happen. May need to just treat with a yucca extract before use each time, or find a different store or product.

Never had that issue with bag pots. You need to fill them properly then soak medium first.

Fabric pots dry out quickly from the sides. This causes the pot mix to shrink and pull away from the container walls. When you water from the top, the liquid runs down these side gaps and out the bottom, leaving dry hydrophobic pockets in the center of your light mix. Water more slowly and use slightly warmer water as it breaks the surface tension of dry peat-based mixes much better.

just make sure she dries out before you water again, you don't want to keep the roots wet all the time. she shouldn't be sitting in water all the time. I use a bag for growing and it sits on top of blocks in a tray so the water drains out but I never put water in the tray. Soaking up from the bottom may be good for common household plants

It wouldn't hurt useing the bottom to fully saturate the medium then return back to top feeding once complete

The dry spots can also happen when giving the water from the top. In times when the humidity in the tent is low, I mix both: 1/3 water from the top and 2/3 from the bottom. When humidity is high (and the soil is not already too compressed by watering), I water only the soil directly.