Dr. Will Healy, Ball Senior Technical Services Manager, explains why a grower's job is to dry plants to the correct moisture. He covers managing water loss, the water knowledge pyramid and the five levels of water. Copyright 2020 Ball Horticultural Company
1. Copyright 2020 Ball Horticultural Company
Train Your Team
to Water
Properly
Will Healy
Senior Technical & Research Manager
Ball Horticultural Company
2. Copyright 2020 Ball Horticultural Company
A Grower’s Job is to Dry
Plants to the Correct Moisture
Training Issue
Growers with
nothing to do Water!
Pencil Watering ->
Plan What to Do Next Day
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Dr Will, Dr Will
Help me please - I suffer from…..
PWS!*
Paranoid Watering Syndrome
Pay to
Water
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Fish grow in Water
Roots grow in Air
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Water Knowledge
Pyramid
When to Water-How Dry?
How Much to Water
Where to Water
Plant Demand
Language of Watering W1-W5
ClimateQualitative
aka
Opinion based
Quantitative
aka
Data based
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Does Soil Breath?
Water in-Air out
Water out-Air in
What is this??
What are you trying to do??
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Does Soil Breath?
Water in-Air out
Water out-Air in
What is this??
What are you trying to do??
5 3 1
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‘Tools of the Trade’
0.4-1 GPM
0.94-1.6 GPM
1.6-3.2 GPM
9. Copyright 2020 Ball Horticultural Company
‘Tools of the Trade’
0.4-1 GPM
0.94-1.6 GPM
1.6-3.2 GPM
‘Tools of the Trade’
10. Copyright 2020 Ball Horticultural Company
‘Tools of the Trade’
0.4-1 GPM
0.94-1.6 GPM
1.6-3.2 GPM
‘Tools of the Trade’
12. Copyright 2020 Ball Horticultural Company
Starts with Your Water Tunnel
Uniformly add water to start germination process
❖ Pressure & gpm per nozzle
❖ Number of nozzles
→ N1 = glue seed or settle URC
→ N2 = moisture around seed or URC-soil contact
→ N3+ = moisture in soil
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Silly 100 gm Does Make
a Difference!
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Watering vs Flooding
❖ Day 0-5 key period
❖ Irrigation speed
❖ ‘Grit’ is critical
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Water by Weight
❖Better plotting, more attention
❖Less stretched plants (also fertilizer)
❖Calculation day and night losses
❖Record weight after watering
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Pyramid Level 4
Where to Water
❖3-Dimensional Space!
➢Edge
➢Middle
➢Depth
W2-3 W5-2 W3-5W4-5
Highly
Branched
Root System
Top
Horizontal
Root System
Water
Root
System
Vertical
Root
System
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Watering Success
➢ Saturate to a level 4 (bottom drip)
➢ Dry to a level 2
❖ Train your watering pattern to a 4-2
➢ It’s the drying that promotes rooting
➢ Water to get to the next dry point
❖ Draw the roots to the bottom of the container.
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Drying out a cell
❖ Drying out a cell is due to evaporation of the
water from the soil
❖ Water loss is sigmoidal over time
➢ Incremental loss is slowest at level 5 & 1
➢ Incremental loss is linear with time at level 4-2
❖ If water loss is 200-300 g per day then the loss
of 800 g (level 4➔2) will take 2-4 days.
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What drives water loss
from the container?
Night Water Loss
➢ 200+ gm – Rapid drying
➢ 100-200 gm – Ideal
➢ 50-100 gm – Too wet issues
➢ < 50 gm – Tip abortion
A
B
❖ ET
1. Evaporation
2. Transpiration
➔ Change in tray weight will predict the ET rate
➢ Weigh the same container in afternoon & morning.
➢ Night ET = afternoon-morning
➢ Day ET = morning-afternoon
22. Copyright 2020 Ball Horticultural Company
Managing Water Loss
❖ How much water (weight) is lost each day?
❖ How much water (weight) is lost each night?
❖ How much water weight must I add to reach the
target weight tomorrow?
❖ How much water weight must I add to get water
to the bottom of the cell or pot?
❖ It’s not the how wet or dry but how long does it
take to get to the next watering time
23. Copyright 2020 Ball Horticultural Company
Water Knowledge
Pyramid
When to Water-How Dry?
How Much to Water
Where to Water
Plant Demand
Language of Watering W1-W5
Climate
Qualitative &
Quantitative
Set Your
Dry Target
Set Your
Wet Target
Drive
the Roots
Down
VPD
Drives
Water Loss Each Stage
Right Target
24. Copyright 2020 Ball Horticultural Company
More Resources:
View the full slideshow (and many more) at: https://www.slideshare.net/bcalkins
STEM Podcast: The Language of Watering
Part One - https://stempodcast.podbean.com/e/the-language-of-watering/
STEM Podcast: The Language of Watering
Part Two - https://stempodcast.podbean.com/e/watering-the-rest-of-the-story/
Ball Seed LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/ball-seed-co
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