I don't see much thatch, but I can always tell better by feel. Thatch has a rubbery bounce back to it when squeezed, where soil tends to stay compressed. As far as the water issue, it looks to me like the bottom of your plug might be the start of a transition to a sandy layer and therefore just doesn't have the holding capacity that the rest of the plug does. I would hold off on watering until you start to see that dry look-- blue tinge, slight wilt.
Soil plug visual analysis
I used my Proplugger to pull a plug. Wanted to check a few thing. Root length, thatch level, and moisture.
First, am I correct that there doesn’t appear to be much thatch here?
Second, can moisture be judged correctly from a plug? I watered about an inch on Monday. I thought the soil would start to dry out from the top down. But it’s almost seems like it’s drying from the bottom up. The bottom of this sample seems to be the only part that looks slightly dry. I thought by Friday I’d have to water again because we’ve had no rain.
Please excuse the bird poop. They love my porch.
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First, am I correct that there doesn’t appear to be much thatch here?
Second, can moisture be judged correctly from a plug? I watered about an inch on Monday. I thought the soil would start to dry out from the top down. But it’s almost seems like it’s drying from the bottom up. The bottom of this sample seems to be the only part that looks slightly dry. I thought by Friday I’d have to water again because we’ve had no rain.
Please excuse the bird poop. They love my porch.
