In the Growboard you can quickly see the water uptake of your plants via our Dry out graph. The Dry out graph gives you clear insight in the percentage the substrate dries down in between each irrigation shot.
With this you can see how much stress a plant experiences. After all, the higher the dry out, the drier the substrate becomes and the more generative you steer, and vice versa. However, the speed in which your substrate dries in, is also very important. If your plant is evaporating a lot, you need to irrigate sooner compared to when the plant is not evaporating at all.
That's why we have created our NEW Dry out speed graph. With this graph you can see how fast a plant is uptaking water, and can be compared to a speedometer. With this graph you can precisely see if and when the plant is active and needs faster irrigation. This is especially helpful during bring or dark wet days, when using misting / shading, or any other days when evaporation might differentiate a lot.
With the following steps you can open your Dry out speed graph:
- You can open the Dry out speed graph by opening a graph from the menu Overview
- In the Graph menu bar, you can click the button with 3 dots and select ‘Dry out’ Speed
- You will now see the Dry out speed Graph
- The dry out speed is the percentage that the dry out increases or decreases per hour
- In other words it tells how fast the plant is uptaking water from the plant
- The lower the dry out speed, the slower the water uptake
- The higher the dry out speed, the faster the plant uptakes water
As said before, the Dry out speed can give clear insight into when a plant is actively uptaking water.
In order to explain the benefits of the dry out speed and the insight it might bring, please take a look at the following examples:
Example 1. See when your plant is active
- In the example above you can see when the plant is actively uptaking water or not.
- You can see that the speeds starts to increase from 7:30 and is around max speed around 10:30
- With this you can finetune your irrigation start and first drain moments based on actual plant needs
- Furthermore, you can see that most activity is between 13:00 and 17:00, meaning the plant needs the most frequent irrigation and drain during this period to prevent stress on the plant and rise in EC
- You can also see that there is almost no activity after 19:00, helping you fine-tune your last irrigation shot.
Example 2. Differences between dark/light days
- In this example you can see that on Jan 22nd the plant was a lot less active compared to Jan 23rd
- Furthermore, the plant only became active after noon, with barely any activity before that.
- This can also be seen in the dry out graph
- On the 23rd, you can see that after the first shot the dry out was a lot lower compared to the second shot.
- That means the plant received more water than necessary and thus creating vegetative growth and/or extra root pressure
- It might be beneficial in this case, to delay the second shot to be able and reach sufficient enough dry out during a darker morning
Example 3. Difference between greenhouses
- In this example, you can see that both greenhouses have strong plant activity on the 7th
- However on the 8th only greenhouse 1 has a faster plant uptake compared to greenhouse 2
- When we look at the dry out graphs, you will also see that the general dry back is higher in greenhouse 1 compared to greenhouse 2
- When you look at the water content graphs, you can see that the water content on the 8th for Greenhouse 2 is fairly stable. The water content in greenhouse 1 however, seems to gradually decrease
- This means that the plants in Greenhouse 1 were most likely more active and should have received slightly more water compared to the plants in greenhouse 2.
Example 4. Use of misting
- In this example you can can clearly see the use of misting has on the water uptake of the plants
- On the first day (June 28th) no misting was used at all
- The water uptake is as expected and has a stable like
- On the second and third day (June 29th and June 30th) you can see a big dip during the afternoon in water uptake
- This is when the misting is operation and greatly lowers the water uptake of the plant
- With this information you could adjust your misting length of frequency, or adjust your irrigation accordingly
Example 5. Thresholds
- You can also use the dry out speed in your threshold menu.
- With this, you want generate a warning when your plant unexpectedly starts uptaking water (for example near the end of the day) and needs another irrigation shot
- This helps you clearly decide if the final irrigation shot is needed or not, and help you precisely control your slab moisture during the night
