Ball Tech On Demand: Training Your Team to Water Properly

Copyright 2020 Ball Horticultural Company
Train Your Team
to Water
Properly
Will Healy
Senior Technical & Research Manager
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

Dr Will, Dr Will
Help me please - I suffer from…..
PWS!*
Paranoid Watering Syndrome
Pay to
Water

Fish grow in Water
Roots grow in Air

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

Does Soil Breath?
Water in-Air out
Water out-Air in
What is this??
What are you trying to do??

Does Soil Breath?
Water in-Air out
Water out-Air in
What is this??
What are you trying to do??
5 3 1

‘Tools of the Trade’
0.4-1 GPM
0.94-1.6 GPM
1.6-3.2 GPM

0.4-1 GPM
0.94-1.6 GPM
1.6-3.2 GPM

Watering
Technique
Vol*speed = Qty/cell
3 5-33-5 5

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

Silly 100 gm Does Make
a Difference!

Watering vs Flooding
❖ Day 0-5 key period
❖ Irrigation speed
❖ ‘Grit’ is critical

Water by Weight
❖Better plotting, more attention
❖Less stretched plants (also fertilizer)
❖Calculation day and night losses
❖Record weight after watering

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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
Greenhouse Tech Team Closed Group: Search Greenhouse Tech Team on Facebook Groups

Ball Tech On Demand: Training Your Team to Water Properly

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