Bottom water top water your cacti question?

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JCcares
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Bottom water top water your cacti question?

Post by JCcares »

I am very interested to learn What are your opinions what is the consensus is there a best a better between the soaking your cacti from the bottom or the top?
28161DEE-DF5A-4281-AF90-0D0A4B32497B.jpeg
28161DEE-DF5A-4281-AF90-0D0A4B32497B.jpeg (320.87 KiB) Viewed 1042 times
My name is Joe I Live in Hickory NC USA four equal perfect seasons.
LateBloomer
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Re: Bottom water top water your cacti question?

Post by LateBloomer »

I always top water to remove any salts and oxygenate the roots…

Bottom watering doesn’t reduce rot just increases efficiency of mass watering via capillary wicking. Very useful in commercial growing and hazano who is a great grower on here uses it with his seedlings… can’t remember if he also uses it with adults. Many large scale growers also use this to water their plants.

There are pros and cons with every system. If you dive deeper into plant behavior you will actually see it doesn’t matter since plants are smart enough to adapt and make use of situation.

Reason I top water is in nature rain always top waters… most plants will not reach underwater reserves. I’m sure some may actually only get bottom watered in nature depending on where they germinate but most do not.
DaveW
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Re: Bottom water top water your cacti question?

Post by DaveW »

I once made a remark to a speaker who advised bottom watering for a certain genus that "it doesn't rain upwards in S. America. :D

Really it can depend whether you are an ardent shower or just a general collector. Some of the shows people tend to water from below since it does not remove the wool from the top of the plant, or risk staining it. Whereas in habitat wind or rain removes the loose wool and so does top watering over the plant.

We once visited a keen show person and one of our party seeing a woolly cactus said "I know how to get rid of all that old wool" and gave it a good hard blow. The owner nearly went ape as he had bottom watered in order to leave all the loose wool on the top over the years for showing purposes since it produced a nice woolly crown.

There are of course three ways to water. The first is water right over the top, provided it is clean water, but if it contains fertiliser it can stain the plant wool on the areoles.

The second is watering into the top of the pot, largely missing the plant and that helps to flush out the salts, just as with top watering as LateBloomer says. However it can sometimes splash dirt on the plant if a woolly plant, or with the white tight spined little Mammilaria's etc can pull dirty water up the spination through capillary attraction. In those cases a reasonable top dressing gravel layer can help to stop that.

The third is bottom watering, but if you regularly do this you either need to periodically repot or flush out the pot occasionally watering in the top of the pot as with the second method mentioned.

The choice is yours since people grow their plants successfully by all three methods.
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JCcares
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Re: Bottom water top water your cacti question?

Post by JCcares »

DaveW wrote: Fri Jun 10, 2022 4:29 pm I once made a remark to a speaker who advised bottom watering for a certain genus that "it doesn't rain upwards in S. America. :D

Really it can depend whether you are an ardent shower or just a general collector. Some of the shows people tend to water from below since it does not remove the wool from the top of the plant, or risk staining it. Whereas in habitat wind or rain removes the loose wool and so does top watering over the plant.

We once visited a keen show person and one of our party seeing a woolly cactus said "I know how to get rid of all that old wool" and gave it a good hard blow. The owner nearly went ape as he had bottom watered in order to leave all the loose wool on the top over the years for showing purposes since it produced a nice woolly crown.

There are of course three ways to water. The first is water right over the top, provided it is clean water, but if it contains fertiliser it can stain the plant wool on the areoles.

The second is watering into the top of the pot, largely missing the plant and that helps to flush out the salts, just as with top watering as LateBloomer says. However it can sometimes splash dirt on the plant if a woolly plant, or with the white tight spined little Mammilaria's etc can pull dirty water up the spination through capillary attraction. In those cases a reasonable top dressing gravel layer can help to stop that.

The third is bottom watering, but if you regularly do this you either need to periodically repot or flush out the pot occasionally watering in the top of the pot as with the second method mentioned.

The choice is yours since people grow their plants successfully by all three methods.
Love your insights and confess my little lazy with the bottom watering method.

Thank you both for sharing your experience your opinions with a newbie like me.
My name is Joe I Live in Hickory NC USA four equal perfect seasons.
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nachtkrabb
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Re: Bottom water top water your cacti question?

Post by nachtkrabb »

Hallo Joe,
I have just had a closer look at your nice picture. On top of the left cart you have a Nightblooming Hedgehog" with a big bud: Have you seen (and smelled) it's flower? Did you like it?

To me it looks as if you have some plants in cachepots (that the right word? A flower pot without a hole to place a flowerpot in?), and / or as if you would use saucers outdoors. I would do neither, as both mean standing water & your cacti might get wet feet. Then root rot peeps around the corner.
When I put my plants outdoors for the summer, I leave all the saucers inside. When it rains, water just passes through pots & soil & no harm done.
In a cachepot, you can't even see if there is water standing inside. So they are banned at my place. I only use them upside-down as a kind of pedestal for a small plant.

Looking at all your threads: You seem to take a scientific approach. I am impressed.
Good luck with your wonderful plants,
N.
Love and Revolution!
...and still more cacti.
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7george
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Re: Bottom water top water your cacti question?

Post by 7george »

Pros & Cons, exactly. I practice both ways. Bottom works with small pots better. Pick and dip it into water it, by the weght I even can feel how much of the soil gets wet: sometimes I want just the lower half wet, deep roots will reach it but the cactus body will be dry mostly. Yes, this way builds salts in the soil and needs more often re-potting.
I keep my saucers for indoor plants otherwise windows, walls and furniture will get wet and damaged. Even after top watering the draining water being absorbed back after some time. Too wet soil? If in doubt do not water or do just surface spraying or slight wetting. Another case for favor of the bottom one: when a large plant covers most or all of the pot upper opening and water slides away not reaching the soil (or it will take too much time and efforts to imitate drizzle) and it remains dry or semi-dry if sipped from the top.
If your cacti mess in your job just forget about the job.
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greenknight
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Re: Bottom water top water your cacti question?

Post by greenknight »

When cacti are in the seedling stage, when they prefer to have constantly damp soil, bottom watering is best - not plunging them into deep water, but letting them wick up moisture from capillary matting or very shallow water. In this way you can insure the mix is damp all the way to the bottom of the pot without getting it saturated - this promotes deep rooting while avoiding rot from too-wet substrate.

When you water potted plants deeply from the surface, a layer at the bottom of the pot remains saturated until the plant roots take up the extra water. This phenomenon is explained here: http://gardening.stackexchange.com/ques ... ater-table

This isn't a problem for cactus plants that have their pots well filled with roots, but you need to avoid it with seedlings and cuttings that don't yet have roots down deep. Once cacti have grown into their pots well, deep watering from the surface until water flows out the drain holes is the way to go for the reason already mentioned - flushing out salts and promoting air exchange.

Letting the pots absorb the water that drained into their drainage trays is not recommended. While you can get away with this from time to time in very dry conditions (and I have at times), it promotes the buildup of salts since the salts that have been flushed out are reabsorbed. In humid condition it would be very risky to ever do it.
Spence :mrgreen:
DaveW
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Re: Bottom water top water your cacti question?

Post by DaveW »

Spence's last paragraph sums up bottom watering. Nothing wrong as long as after the pots are saturated you tip the water in the tray away and let them drain. Also if your pots are not having the water from their drainage hole regularly running to waste (as in plants grown in the house) in order to remove salts build up an occasional leaching of the pots helps, or repotting in fresh soil every year as many used to do in the past.

https://www.gardeningknowhow.com/housep ... plants.htm
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JCcares
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Re: Bottom water top water your cacti question?

Post by JCcares »

DaveW wrote: Sat Aug 20, 2022 11:58 am Spence's last paragraph sums up bottom watering. Nothing wrong as long as after the pots are saturated you tip the water in the tray away and let them drain. Also if your pots are not having the water from their drainage hole regularly running to waste (as in plants grown in the house) in order to remove salts build up an occasional leaching of the pots helps, or repotting in fresh soil every year as many used to do in the past.

https://www.gardeningknowhow.com/housep ... plants.htm
Thank you Dave 🙏🏽
My name is Joe I Live in Hickory NC USA four equal perfect seasons.
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