When is the Best Time to Water Your Garden?

what is the best time of day to water your garden there's lots of information online and some of it's contradictory so in this video I'm going to sort through this business of when you should water some people say that you shouldn't water at night the plants stay too wet and that encourages fungal diseases is that really correct I mean after work is probably the most convenient time for most people others say you should water first thing in the morning it's nice and cool there's very little evaporation most of the irrigation water ends up in the soil which will benefit your plants is that a good time but just a minute if it's cool and the plants are cool doesn't that mean you get less evaporation which means the plants are wetter which leads to fungal diseases lots of people agree you shouldn't water in the middle of the day something I'll call noon it's really hot a lot of the water evaporates before it gets into the soil water evaporating seems to keep down fungal diseases so isn't that the best time to water I'm going to have a look at all of that in this video and give you a really good understanding about what's really going on to decide on what is the best time to water it's important to understand how the water evaporates from the plants that seems to be the reason most people are using for selecting one time or another and I went to look for data on this and I couldn't find any so I did my own experiment I picked a lilac shrub where the front of the plant was in full sun some of the time but later in the day it went into shade the back of the shrub was next to some larger trees so it was always in shade so what I did was I watered the shrub got the leaves really good and wet and then I timed how long it takes for the water to evaporate in the morning and at night in Sun and in shade and here's the results I got if you want to see the results in detail hop on over to my blog where I've outlined all of the specifics here I'll just give you some of the summary information at 10 o'clock in the morning it took 35 minutes for the water to evaporate in full sunshine on the Shady Side of the shrub it took 70 minutes in the evening around 8 o'clock both the front and back of the shrub were in shade the front took 50 minutes to evaporate and the back took 65 minutes to evaporate it's clear from this that the sun does warm up those leaves and warms up the water sitting on those leaves and that speeds up the evaporation in fact in Sun water evaporates about twice as fast when the sun is shining on it than it does in shade but if you have a look at these numbers you'll see that they're all about the same time I mean the difference from the fast evaporation to the slow evaporation was about 30 minutes is that really enough to make such a big difference remember that there are other factors involved in water evaporation wind for instance if you have a windy condition water evaporates faster if you have high humidity water evaporates slower the results on this experiment tell me one thing there's not a lot of variation based on how much sun the plant is getting and what time of day you evaporate can that 30 minutes really be so significant that one case will give you fungal diseases and the other won't let's have a closer look at fungal diseases now for some reason gardeners think that when something is wet fungus grows now maybe that's because in the kitchen if you have a wet Rotten Tomato fungus grows on it if you have something dry you tend to see less fungus but that doesn't mean the same thing happens in the garden remember fungal diseases are caused by thousands of different species of fungus and they're all different so let's have have a look at a few specific ones that you're probably familiar with what about Pottery mildew it's very common in the garden and next to black spot on roses it's probably the most common fungal problem identified by gardeners a common suggestion for preventing powdery mildew is to keep the leaves dry and water in the morning there's a couple things to understand one is that gardeners talk about powdery mildew as if it's one disease but it's actually hundreds of different diseases they all just look the same so we call them powdery mildew but each family a plant has a different disease that we call Pottery mildew so the pottery mildew on your roses will not infect your lilacs and vice versa they're two different diseases what most gardeners don't know is that powder mildew which is spread by spores actually germinates and infects plants when it's dry and in fact in some species the spores are actually killed off by water so if you want to prevent powdery mildew you actually want to keep your plants wet not dry now once the infection takes hold it grows better in moist conditions but the actual initial infection happens in dry conditions the other thing that's important to understand is that overhead watering which gets the leaves wet actually washes spores off the leaves remember spores travel through the air and then land on the leaves watering from above tends to wash a lot of those off the plant and into the soil they can't infect the plant when they're in the soil so overhead watering actually reduces fungal infection what about downy mildew this is a similar type of infection that usually shows up as yellow spots in the leaves and it's quite a common problem on plants like cucumbers and melon this fungus also Travels by spores but those spores only germinate in moist conditions when the humidity is high enough water helps it infect the plants now that Spore needs anywhere from 8 to 12 hours to complete that infection cycle now let's go back to my experiment where the leaves stayed wet for an extra 30 minutes how will that affect a process that takes at least eight hours well it probably has very little impact it's just too short of a time frame if our leaves are drying in less than an hour it's not going to contribute to the infection of downy mildew what about black spot on roses so that's also very common and you're probably familiar with it that Spore germinates when it's wet and it requires a wet condition for at least seven hours to make that happen again plus or minus 30 minutes it's not really going to affect us very much the conclusion from all this is is that one there are many different species of fungus they all have different properties they all germinate different ways some will like it wet some will like it dry but the evaporation of water from our plants is so fast that that extra 30 minutes probably is not going to make a difference some people recommend that you should never get your plants wet you should only water the soil there are some good reasons for that any water that lands on the plant is going to sit there in the form of droplets and evaporate that really doesn't do much for the plant a plant can absorb some water through the leaves but it's a very small amount so most of that water sitting on the wet plant is lost to the air if you get all the water into the soil you end up giving the plant a better drink on the other hand there are some benefits to watering above fungal spores and other pathogens that are sitting on the leaves can be washed offly that's good for the plant it also tends the wash and dust off the plants and that makes the plants more efficient because they get more light from the Sun so there are pros and cons to watering from above another thing I see a lot is a concern about these water droplets when the Sun hits the water droplets do they burn the leaves people are thinking about a magnifying glass that magnifying glass focuses the sun into a small beam and burns things as a kid you may have been burning plants and paper and we used to do ants you might think the droplets act as a magnifying glass but they actually don't I'll deal with that in a separate video but it's mostly a myth now what about water conservation I mean the whole purpose of watering is to get water to the roots of the plant which means we have to get it into the soil we want to water in such a way that the majority of the water ends up in the soil drip irrigation is better than doing it by hand or you using one of these wands that go back and forth because there's less water sprayed into the air and more gets into the soil but what time of day is best for getting the water into the soil well some people say morning is best because it's cool out and so there's less evaporation that may be true but remember if you're out in the morning the sun's coming up and in an hour or two it gets hot and the soil starts drying right away noon is probably the worst time because it's the hottest time of the day and there's lots of evaporation and lots of Sun so evening might be best in evening you put the water on the soil and it has time to really soak into that soil well so from a water conservation point of view evening may be best all right by now you're probably a bit confused when should you water well the common advice of watering first thing in the morning doesn't really have much scientific support or even Logic support as far as fungal diseases go I don't think it matters when you water from a water conservation point of view evening is probably the best but if you're worried about diseases and you think watering might affect those then noon is the best because the water evaporates quickly off the plant but I think we're asking the wrong question when we ask the question when is the best time to water we need to be looking at other parameters other than the time of day when we water we want as much water in the soil as possible we get that when it's cool the wind is low and the humidity is high high humidity means less evaporation when it's cool less evaporation less wind less evaporation so from a water conservation point of view it's better to look at those factors than the time of day pick a day that's not so windy or the humid entity is high if you're worried about diseases it's probably better to do it when it's warm out and maybe when humidity is low but probably most important is to water when your plants really need it if you're in the garden and the soil is dry it's time to water don't worry about what time of day it is you're there do the watering and water properly I think that's much more important than worrying about when you do it if you're the type of person who comes home after work and you're in the gardening evening that's the best time for you on weekends maybe it's midday watering is crucial to plant growth and gardeners have so many questions about watering it's one of the most confusing subjects in gardening and part of it is due to all of the advice that's online and much of that is wrong so what I've done is put together a series of videos that explains everything you need to know about watering how do you water house plants is that different than outdoor plants what about the chlorine in the water is that a problem when should you water and how should you water all of that information is in this set of videos right here happy watering

Channel: Garden Fundamentals

Views: 69,461

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Id: llTcZ0GrxRs

Length: 12min 12sec (732 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 08 2023