[markem]

Humidity, like pressure and temperature, will travel from areas of higher concentration to areas of lower concentration. Trying to get your trays to roughly equal RH with your humidor and cigars is good since once the cigars are in contact with the trays, a lower RH tray can draw humidity away from the cigars and leave a 'dry side' which leads to bad burns, etc. Also, if the dry area of the tray is covered, less ambient humidity can make it to that spot (or makes it much slower) and so it takes longer to reach equilibrium in your humidor.

Don't forget that if you periodically reseason your humidor that you should take care of your trays at the same time, but don't have excess moisture on the trays when you put the cigars back in.

What I do is wiped the trays down with a moist rag with distilled water first. Then I do one of two things:

1. Spritz the trays and put them in a humidor empty (I use my cabinet humidor) and wait 1-2 weeks for them to reach ambient RH.

2. Spritz the trays and put them in a large enough zip lock (I find the 1.5 gallon ones work best for me) along with a meter and wait until every thing stabilizes where you want it for at least 48 hours. You will likely have to add additional water. some people use a moist sponge, paper towel, shot glass with distilled, etc. but the key is to ensure that you get to the best RH. If you get the RH too high, let the trays sit out a bit.

Properly prepping and maintaining all parts of your humidor is important. Heck, even MRN will agree to that.

Hope that you have years and years of loyal service from those trays.