Blog entries by slimm
Posted in the blog: The many benefits of potassium silicate
Why You Should Use Potassium Silicate.
Many benefits can be gained by using a good Potassium Silicate product in your feeding program. Increased tolerance of environmental stress, heat, cold, drought, water and soil toxicity or deficiency, improved growth rate both in the root zone and in the...
Posted in the blog: Simple Germination Success
There are many ways to germinate seeds. However, each brings its own set of risks. For instance, the paper towel method has the potential to breed fungus that will kill the sprouts. I use a method that gives close to a 100% success rate within approximately 24 hours (older seeds and those stored...
Posted in the blog: runoff, flushing, cations, pH mgmt
t's of limited value only when the excess is of cations, and very specially, Ca. Due the high CEC, pH and EC of runoff may be very misleading, and it shouldn't be used as reference. Adjust the watering solution and forget the runoff, as it's figures may be much higher than those measured in...
Posted in the blog: Nutrients and pH mgmt
Being an experimental grower, you can use almost any hydro formula for growing in coco. You need to be aware of coco's special characteristics and adapt ph/EC of the nutes you use acording to it.
Coco's main characteristic which does it different from most other hydro mediums is its very high...
Posted in the blog: Transpiration and EC
What determines an optimum EC level is the plant's transpiration level, not the watering cycle setup by the grower. As far as the watering cycle is enough to keep water potential at a good level that won't constrain transpiration. Temp., humidity and CO2 level (or directly the three parameters...
Posted in the blog: Curing Like A Pro
This method is particularly effective for folks who are starting out, those looking to maximize quality in a shorter period of time, and folks who's like to produce a connoisseur-quality product each and every time with no guesswork involved.
It's a very simple and effective process:
Cut...
Posted in the blog: PH/EC Basic cheat sheet
Ec goes up, PH goes down = plants require less nutes.
Ec goes down, PH goes up = Plants require more nutes
Ec stable, PH goes up = Equilibrium, Good thang.
Posted in the blog: Nutrient Deficiencies
Nitrogen Overall yellow with no green veins
Magnesium Yellow between veins, looks somewhat like iron deficiency
Boron New leaves are smaller, edges curl and are thicker
Potassium Browning of older leaves, edges dying, leaf crinkling and splotching
Manganese Mottling of new leaves with...
Posted in the blog: Making Near Pure Alcohol
Ingredients / Equipment necessary:
Everclear (obtainable at places like BevMo and some liquor stores).
Epsom Salt (Any drug store and most grocery stores & Walmart or Target)
Cookie Sheet
Aluminum Foil
Blender
Several Jars with airtight lid (i.e. Mason Jars)
Vacuum Filter setup is...
Posted in the blog: No rinse sanitizer
Room temp water, 1oz bleach (not clorox, use no-name brand) and 1oz white vinegar in 5 gallons of water. Add to the water separately or you can gas yourself. At this concentration it is effective in 30 seconds of contact and can be used as a no rinse sanitizer.
Posted in the blog: Total Alkalinity Control - Citric Acid
Citric acid is available in a pure granular form. A rate would be about 0.2 grams per gallon to remove 50 ppm alkalinity. Pre-mixed citric acid solutions (Seplex, GreenCare Fertilizer (815- 936-0096)) are also available for alkalinity control. Other organic acids like vinegar and lemon juice...
Posted in the blog: Pre-treating Coco to build up buffer
I always pretreat my coco with a 1500ppm (3.0 EC) buffer solution of calcium nitrate, magnesium nitrate, magnesium sulfate & iron sulfate (I make my own).
This effectively rearranges the base saturation in favor of more ca/mg.
Before pretreat:
Potassium and sodium occupy 96% of the base...
Posted in the blog: High Performance Cloning Solution
There is something magical about the way turface and flora nova bloom grow very small plants, either cuttings or seedlings.
i've thought a lot about it, still don't know why for sure. but it's hard to argue with a 100% clone success rate for about 30 months now.
the turface has a substance...
Posted in the blog: Basic Nutrient Ratios
The old gardeners axiom on fertilizer macro nutrient ratio is 3-2-1 for veg....and 1-2-3 for flowering.