5.1

General Principles

5.1.10

Cycling

If Leeaky Hose is turned on all the time your plants will DIE.

Now we have your attention, it is important to understand that many of the ancillary benefits of Leeaky Hose come as a result of proper ‘cycling’ of the system. Each time Leeaky Hose is turned on for the proper period it lifts soil moisture content up to the high 90% levels. When this is achieved, the Hose should be turned off. Over the ensuring three or more days this water level will gradually reduce, encouraging plants to root more deeply as they follow it down (also picking up more nutrients from the soil as they go). At no time should water levels be kept this high as eventually your plants will get ‘wet feet’ and suffer the consequences of this.

How often to cycle? The unsatisfactory - but honest - answer is that this depends on some four or five factors. But a rough Guide is to water at least once a week and for at least six hours (unless watering in coarse sand at the higher rate).

Rainy Season watering? Unless you are totally sure that your ground is water-logged you should still water in the rainy season, if only to be sure that your sub-soil moisture content does not fall below the 43% required to maintain capillary action. Another good reason is to continue encouraging your plants to keep rooting deeply and thus to become ‘shockproof’ faster. It is handy to remember that it takes an hour of overhead watering to penetrate 1cm of soil, so that even an hour’s heavy rainfall will not by itself put any water into your plant’s sub-surface root zones.