Pre-Germination Flushing ?

[LuluLuke]

Hey guys, I was trying to research what type of water I should use for my autoflowers; whether tap is sufficient or if buying spring water from the store will add some benefits and I ran into this article saying how one should flush the pot full of soil before germination.

Link

Watering before germination

Before putting your precious autoflowering cannabis seeds in the growing medium you need to completely saturate the soil from top to bottom. What you need to do is pour two or three times the amount what the pot can hold and let it run off the bottom. This pre-planting flushing process is needed for the whole soil to get completely wet. If there are some dry soil pockets then your plants roots wont grow there and those dry spots can also be good places where high nutrient concentrations can appear when they eventually get wet! When all the excess amount of water is drained away you still need couple of hours to let the soil dry up a little. This drying process means that the time before you can put your seeds in the pot, after completely saturating the growing medium, is somewhere from 3 to 5 hours depending on the surrounding temperature and how fast the water drains and evaporates.

My question is does anyone else support this method of pre-germination flushing? I thought flushing was to remove excess nutrients, why would one want to do that before growing a plant ?

And in terms of water, can anyone weigh in on tap vs store bought spring water; is it worth the money ?

Thanks

 

[Arthur]

Soil that hasn't had water in it for a while (like in the bag) can become hydrophobic, or actually repel water. I don't "flush" your paying good $ for a soil that's been blended with nutrients etc. Last thing I'm going to do is wash a bunch of it out of the pot.

Get a succulent of some sort. I use a powdered yucca. Lowers the surface tension of water so it will soak hydrophobic spots.

As to water, it depends on the quality of the tap water where you are. Its different everywhere.
Here I have to run an RO system due to high salt content in my tap.

 

[automan2]

Regardless the water, ph is important. Personally, I use DI water only for the first two weeks, then start with well water ph'ed to 6.4-6.5.
On the "preflushing"... why make germing more complex than it already is for new growers? And why use a medium that needs flushing before germing? Lot of "ifs" going on there....we can "if" ourselves to growing sucky plants.... Pre-moistening the medium is all that's necessary, especially growing organic. A drop of household soap fixes any overdry medium.