The VWC/EC Dryback Curve, Read Line by Line
Slope, inflection and the EC mirror-image of the VWC curve — how to read dryback rate as a live transpiration signal and diagnose channeling, root failure and salt spikes before any leaf shows it.
The dryback slope is a transpiration gauge you already own
Earlier in this department you learned dryback as a single number — the drop from the day's max VWC to the next morning's min. That number tells you how far the substrate dried. The shape of the curve between those two points tells you how fast, when, and why — and that is where advanced steering lives. A dryback is not a straight line down. It is a rate that changes hour by hour as light, VPD and stomatal behavior change, and the slope at any moment is a live readout of canopy transpiration. Read the slope, not just the endpoints, and the plant is narrating its own day.
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