What is Easily Available Water?
This is the amount of water that is left in the substrate after irrigation. Plants can take up this water with little capillary force. This means it takes the plant little energy to take up the water through its roots. Crops can then use this energy for growth and development.
As you might realise already, growers can actually use the EAW to steer crop growth. If you need a plant to be more compact, you can choose to use substrates that offer a lower amount of EAW. This way the plant needs to work harder to get to the water. In that case less energy will be left for growth. This is only desirable for some specific crops and mainly used in the cultivation of ornamental plants.
Medicinal cannabis and EAW
Your cannabis plants however need to develop a large amount of strong and healthy foliage for you to get a high yield in the end. As you can see it’s important to grow your medicinal cannabis plants in substrate with the right properties.
Substrates for medicinal cannabis
With our substrates containing high-quality European peat your cannabis plants are sure of optimal support. These mixtures offer great structural support and supreme hydro dynamics. The even water distribution enables exquisite root development and these substrates benefit growth through a high amount of EAW.
Watch this short animation video to see how peat-based substrates compare to other growing media when it comes to the amount of Easily Available Water:
If this was interesting to you, please also read the following article to learn more about other buffer capacities these substrates offer:
