Bluter's Happy Home For Hilarious Hempsters

[bluter]

The latest round I have not been adding in any Cal-Mag. Prior grows was 6g Mega Crop, 5ml Cal-Mag, 5ml Potassium Silicate. Now it's just 6g Mega and 5ml Potassium Silicate. Biggest difference I see is that before I would see a very small amount of tip burn (most likely from the extra N from the Cal-Mag). This grow, no tip burn.

And yes, my calculations have each ml of Potassium Silicate adding a hair over 10ppm of Silica.

this grow i'm trying to keep a bunch of grumpy sativas happy. i'm a hair under the 6g/gal and running cal mag on top. first time ever running it this hot.

actual i s 12.5g / 8L RO and 3ml 2-0-0 calmag. having a hard time keeping ahead but riding a rail. it's a clone run but i've never run as hot this early. this is the first time i ran this much cal mag with MC. they are with us but look like they could take more.

May have a solution for your hempy tubs tipping over if that’s enough of a pain to warrant a solution.

if you read a bit further you'll see i huck them inside another bucket to hold them upright.

 

[bluter]

been so long ...

there will be better ... really.

i got the BE in. flower room update soon.

 

[013]

Damn tumbleweed on what appears to be a frozen lake..... brrrr don’t want none of that

I did finish up reading your journal but swear I must have missed the double bucket write up post. A few of my problems are pain, insomnia, sleep deprivation and exhaustion. I probably fell face down in the tablet and woke up 6 pages later or something. Anyway I’m gonna redo the last 30 or 40 pages when I’m really coherent. I’m real excited about the prospects of dutch buckets and MC and the chance to learn new methods.

Thanks again Bluter - you are killing It over here!!!

 

[bluter]

that might be salt lol
i just grabbed a pic off the web

 

[013]

dummy me, that makes more sense. I was thinking of some frozen Canadian landscape

 

[bluter]

hope everyone's having a good day. sunday is always a good grow and posting day here.
lots to get in to today.

to begin the jungle room has been working on slow motion disaster...

i haven't been on top of this grow with stuff going on in the background. we've been trying to ramp ahead of a feed issue. the plants have run hungry or threatened to burn with little in between. i got them stable before flip, but they haven't played well.

i didn't get all of the stretch i expected the first two weeks after flip, and they didn't fill in as well either.. then, as soon as flower set in they began eating themselves.

we're dealing with low rh which has contributed. they still should have done a bit better though. i'm guessing i could have vegged another wk pre-flip to help as well.

we're on this run now though. so i'm gonna have put to my head together and get on it.
they've been a bit pale all through, but have seemed worse the last couple days.

trouble is we've run out of head room. we were feeding at the 6g/gal mark, 12.5g/8L RO actual, which puts us at a ceiling in MC. the plants kept pushing us higher. i've gone hotter in the past, but it always comes with issues. i don't think i can push these the same as past runs.

@farside05 and @Mr. Sauga have both documented the restrictions of MC quite well in their journals. especially running at the upper end. i would recommend a read through their stuff if anyone would like a more in depth analysis.

if you're reading you'll see why i tagged them in a minute or two.. right now i gotta rescue some stuff from the double-boiler. i'm capping pills and putting topicals together today while i update lol

 

[bluter]

my BE came in, and i've been hoping i can use it to help get us through.

it's pretty hot at 0-26-37 a lot of growers have blown stuff up on it, and most who use it run it way back of the suggested rates. it's not something you can just pile on top of the MC, and it can really mess with your ec and nute balance.

of course i ran it hot ... hopefully not too hot though... i kinda had to horseshit a balance on the fly which is partly why i tagged the guys in.

more on that in a bit.


i'm sitting on what looks like a general hunger issue to me, which normally is easy enough to fix. staying in balance with a booster is a dance though. when you're looking at a hunger issue stuff gets a bit more entangled. i'm questioning where i am with N in this, as it's the nute MC keys on.


at present i'm banking on the fact the plants were eating the lowers primarily. meaning it's a general pull for the bud building. and seeing if i get there in time to fix it. powerplant on the hunger ..

the way i'm reading the leaves is a general want for all with some pk ask..
peek at a hungry gorilla glue

this whole run has had me second guessing. if i have a lock that i'm reading as a def i'm gonna be rolling hard to a crash soon.

you'll see why in a minute ..

 

[Reave]

Looks to me like high N low magnesium and maybe p and k too. Strange. flowers look good. Nice looking plant. One day I want to get one through flower with out it looking like something the cat dragged in.

 

[bluter]

Looks to me like high N low magnesium and maybe p and k too. Strange. flowers look good. Nice looking plant. One day I want to get one through flower with out it looking like something the cat dragged in.

pretty well where i was leaning. a general lack of colour in the fans has me questioning the N side though.
at this point the plant should have shifted nute wants. which is sorta where i headed with the mix.

 

[bluter]

speaking of the mix .. i fished for a proper start and came up hard. i was at the folks and couldn't remember my login so the forum wasn't as accessible. i paged through a couple of the threads i knew were relevant and sorta spun my wheels.

then figured i'd use where we were at as a base. i checked the greenleaf site and got a base estimate of the current ppm. we were running at about the 800-900 ppm mark, with an ask. so i didn't want to go too much hotter. our ppm level for the MC was already at the late flower mark, and if anything i'd probably want to pull back a touch, but i took 900 as a base guess high side.

i then used the suggested amount for the BE as a launch point, and decided to build a mix on ppm.

the online feed sched recommended a bit over 3g if running at our current level, and roughly 2g at what i considered our actual point of development. i went with the 2g, even though most would call it hot. they are likely right.

the 2g amount was supposed to be worth 150ppm in 8L of RO. i started with the BE because i wanted to ensure i had the headroom. actual was pretty well dead on after adding the BE to the RO.

my RO books in between 5 - 7 ppm so the BE is dead on.

next i carefully added in the MC. checking the greenleaf website suggested that we were running a bit over the 800 mark previous. it would look safe just to add what we ran before to hit 900, and be done. but it doesn't work that way.

i crept up to it by first adding in 5g of MC. then let mix dissolve nice and took a boo.

5g bumped my ppm a pile - 460ppm-ish. i guessed it would be a touch less, but it gave me a decent idea of how steep the stuff runs. using BE with MC does not act as a straight additive , ie: 1+1=2 , and MC can be all over the map on a weight basis, which is mainly how it is used.


oh yeah i would have used ec as my measuring basis, but i had all my gear set to the 500ppm scale (tds). i'm totally north american lol

i added in another 3g and wound up a bit bigger, but in the range of where i wanted.

we've been running a bit of calmag since mid veg on this run. 900 is hot but still gives me theoretical head room. i've run 1100 - 1200 in hempy previous in AN nutes, but haven't touched it since starting MC. i don't really track ppm in MC though.

i know a little camag will help keep me in better nute balance, and it will bring a little N, both of which will have dropped since i cut back the base MC by 4.5g. i'm out to lunch on the math though. since this was cobbled on the run.

which is why i tagged @farside05 and @Mr. Sauga. they actually dive deep in to this stuff. awesome stuff. my head hurts a bit.

anyway i kept rolling with hammers, and dropped 3mL of 2-0-0 cal mag in to the bin.

gave me 1000ppm on the nod. we were running 3ml before, so i let it ride. i was shooting closer to 900 on a guess.

at present this gives a mix at :

8L RO
2g BE
8g MC
3ml calmag

i can probably roll a half g back on the MC or BE to get me closer to 900. probably the MC if i keep the cal mag. not sure i want even to pull back though. they've run harder on nutes than i am comfortable with all through.

i need to keep a read on the plants over the next 48 to see what happens here. i can adjust between the BE and MC if it proves too hot. or pull back on everything as well.


got rid of the most spent leaves and fed them up.

they didn't get a 2 wk post flip defol, but no where needed it. after pulling out the spent stuff they were cleaned right out. they did not fill in after flip at all.

tops show some promise. it's gonna be a ride no matter what. really hope i can pull this off .

added a couple open buckets of water to get the rh up a bit passively. everything is stubbornly at the 25 -30% mark which is where we are at ambient everywhere. i'm eyeing up an adjustable fan to see if i can't change the environment a bit in my favour for the jungle room.

 

[InTheShed]

They look low on nitrogen to me, which seems to be one of the issues that MC has. You want to raise the N but can end up blowing through the upper limits of calcium and potassium.

It's one of the reasons I'm running mostly without it this grow (even though I still have over 15lb left). Using the HydroBuddy software I can back into a more reasonable mix using other nutes I have on hand. @Mr. Sauga is my tutor on that.

 

[MrSauga]

Maybe we can help bluter. Do you have the GA for the MC, the BE, and the calmag that you use? I'm not sure if the BE is the same as mine. Nobody really knows what comes out of that factory so I always like to double check first.

 

[bluter]

They look low on nitrogen to me, which seems to be one of the issues that MC has. You want to raise the N but can end up blowing through the upper limits of calcium and potassium.

It's one of the reasons I'm running mostly without it this grow (even though I still have over 15lb left). Using the HydroBuddy software I can back into a more reasonable mix using other nutes I have on hand. @Mr. Sauga is my tutor on that.

i've been dancing all around the N and the ceiling with these plants all grow. i've kept the cal mag in as it carries some N along with the calcium.

Maybe we can help bluter. Do you have the GA for the MC, the BE, and the calmag that you use? I'm not sure if the BE is the same as mine. Nobody really knows what comes out of that factory so I always like to double check first.

i'm pretty sure i'm running the 0-26-37 version. they've re-jigged it a bit on a newer version but it is perpetually out of stock. mine shipped from the US and would be older.

i'm running version 2 of the MC and a 2-0-0 cal mag.

 

[InTheShed]

i'm running version 2 of the MC and a 2-0-0 cal mag.

In advance of MrS getting back, what are the percentages of Ca and Mg?

 

[bluter]

In advance of MrS getting back, what are the percentages of Ca and Mg?

on the MC itself it should be 5.6% Ca and 2.4% Mg.
it's not a pile. hence the supplement. i need to check on the plants but a preliminary report seems to indicate they look ok on one feed at the new levels.

 

[InTheShed]

Sorry, on the cal-mag!

 

[bluter]

Sorry, on the cal-mag!

oops i shoulda known lol

N 2.0% Cal 3.2% Mg 1.2% and some Fe at .1%

i'm running it at 3ml / 8L RO.

 

[farside05]

I'm at a bit if a disadvantage being at work. I can crunch numbers but not necessarily post them. I've never been a fan of using any of Greenleaf's supplements with MC. The 1 part Mega Crop basically has a "bloom booster" built into it. It's like running a flowering mix from start to finish. The way I see it, Greenleaf's supplements are made to supplement other nute company's products and shouldn't be used with their own base nutes. Back when the Mega Crop thread was hot and heavy, it seemed that those who experimented adding BE or SC, and exceeded 300ppm from K had serious issues. I like analogies so try this:

A hamburger is Veg feed. A hamburger and fries is Bloom feed. Feeding Mega Crop is like feeding your plants a burger fries from the start. Now let's say you went to Red Robin to get your burger. They offer free refills on fries (Bud Explosion). You can only eat so many refills of fries, on top of your burger, before you get sick.

 

[bluter]

I'm at a bit if a disadvantage being at work. I can crunch numbers but not necessarily post them. I've never been a fan of using any of Greenleaf's supplements with MC. The 1 part Mega Crop basically has a "bloom booster" built into it. It's like running a flowering mix from start to finish. The way I see it, Greenleaf's supplements are made to supplement other nute company's products and shouldn't be used with their own base nutes. Back when the Mega Crop thread was hot and heavy, it seemed that those who experimented adding BE or SC, and exceeded 300ppm from K had serious issues. I like analogies so try this:

A hamburger is Veg feed. A hamburger and fries is Bloom feed. Feeding Mega Crop is like feeding your plants a burger fries from the start. Now let's say you went to Red Robin to get your burger. They offer free refills on fries (Bud Explosion). You can only eat so many refills of fries, on top of your burger, before you get sick.

that's a really good analogy. it's kind of how i felt about MC as well. i've gone with the BE as i've noticed there are some plants that i just can't get happy on it alone.

good news is the plants seem to be ok on the new mix. they got a second feed today and i'm gonna monitor the next couple days. i'm looking to see if i can halt them eating themselves for bud building. see if i can get some pics in.

 

[Stunger]

i'm looking to see if i can halt them eating themselves for bud building.

I noted the back building approach that Light Addict used to use, and he spoke highly of it for fattening up the buds, but when I tried it 2 or 3 years ago I didn't feel it really did anything compared to the buds that I didn't trim the tip off . But that was more than likely from me doing it wrong or just wrong timing on my behalf. I'll be interested and keeping my fingers crossed that you get a better result!