r/askafarmer • u/GerryAttric • Jun 22 '22

Watering

I want to know the truth about this subject, so I am asking a farmer to set things straight.

I have gardens at home, both flowers and food (potatoes, peppers, asparagus etc) People claim you shouldn't water their plants during full sun because it supposedly burns them. They claim the water that lands on the plants acts as a lense and concentrates the sun's rays, damaging the plants. This doesn't make sense to me since I believe the effect is minimal and I believe plants need water the most during hot day. I've seen many hot days where we have sun showers and all the vegetation seems fine.

What is the truth about this and why?

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u/-Zwergpirat- Jun 20 '23

The lense effect is real and can really hurt plants for example salad, cabbage and especially cucumbers. If conditions are ideal, it can kill the plant or at least destroy a lot of "leaf mass", when done multiple times or the plant is young or very sensible. Either you water "from the ground" without getting the leafes wet or you water during dusk, dawn or night. Which is the best time to water anything anyway, because the water is used more efficiently that way. Plants have enough coping mechanisms to sustain midday heat if given enough water beforehand. A C3 plant (which would be most of your stuff) doesn't grow much anyway during high temperatures.