I know the other Evan with the lights got a nice way to keep things dry under the canopy yet topsoil stays moist. he got some kind of plastic over the top of the pot. not sure right now if he grows synthetic or organic, but it'll benefit both situations.
Oh hell yeah, good on picking up on that bro, that's the thing with auto watering systems and why I haven't gone down that route - It's the same as with most "weed knowledge" and I found a perfect picture on instagram the other day to describe it - we all went through this
but we can replace the first and last picture with "watering by hand" and the one in the middle a guy ranting on about how a auto watering system is the best.
Majority of growers start off watering by hand, then get to a point where auto watering systems will help them understand how media moisture works, then you hear professionals at the peak of their game talk about the "small private gardens", behind every big time guru is a private small garden grower that moves in silence. all the "new frontier" bits of information and methodology comes from a crazy scientist grower with no friends hardly every goes out and just tinkers with his craft day in and day out. those guys are the fuel to the fire we all gathering to catch some warmth from and they all water by hand.
I also feel there's more authenticity to the bond formed between man and plant when watering by hand. anyway, joint almost finished so I'll jump back to the important bits.
Yeah, auto systems work best when running one phenotype - clones of one mother. out of the random% of people that swing away from hand watering right from the start will get their motivation from synthetic growers. though these days I also see most auto watering growers letting go of their auto systems. not sure if they reached the next step in their journey or of they never got it right, but as of recent times, since no till living soil became the new focus, people have been using just clean water in the auto systems and it seems to work like a bomb. but then like you said, how do you manage when growing different phenos with different needs? I guess with synthetics in the res you can't cause of the fact that the feed goes with the water, but with organics the feed is already in the soil and you just giving clean water, the plants "self regulate" - take what they need and leave what they don't - in the soil. so you can grow different phenos. organics really just making everything easier for yeeeeeeears people wanted to pump organics through the auto system complaining organics is shit cause of this and that reason, but it's because people spend their time and money listening to retail floor staff that sell products, but doesn't even know 50% of the product they have in the shop. we forget where those people are and why they are there. I ask "where do you keep the aminos" not "would you please try your best to make up some randy shit trying to explain the depths of amino acids to me so your supervisor can see you talking to customers" and if I stand there listening to a guy explain to me how synthetics and organics are the same then that's my own lack of understanding will never forget how asking questions in the grow shop had one employee call the next employee call the next employee till the final boss master level employee came and still didn't even understand half of what I was saying