Conradino23 Keeps On Keeping On Outdoor & Indoor Using LOS/High Brix Methods

Skybound said:
I just started looking into Brix after your last mention of it. I mean I've seen it mentioned in many other posts in regards to DocBud's High Brix, but I just always assumed it was something that was in the soil from the start, so I never looked into it being a hydro grower. I found a video of Icemud going through the process of crushing one or more leaves, squeezing out the leaf juice, putting said juice between glass slides, then analyzing the slides in a refractometer and thought how cool it was to be able to self test right on the spot. Now that I have been getting very involved with my nutes, and feed in general, I want to know if Brix is something I can inlfuence in a hydro grow, and if yes, in short, how? FWIW, my leaves overall are already very healthy and shiny, and I literally just recently learned why, lol, but I'd like to take it further if possible.
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maybe if you could figure out a way to make some rock dust mobile and not plug up your system you can always foliar some minerals in!
 
Skybound said:
I just started looking into Brix after your last mention of it. I mean I've seen it mentioned in many other posts in regards to DocBud's High Brix, but I just always assumed it was something that was in the soil from the start, so I never looked into it being a hydro grower. I found a video of Icemud going through the process of crushing one or more leaves, squeezing out the leaf juice, putting said juice between glass slides, then analyzing the slides in a refractometer and thought how cool it was to be able to self test right on the spot. Now that I have been getting very involved with my nutes, and feed in general, I want to know if Brix is something I can inlfuence in a hydro grow, and if yes, in short, how? FWIW, my leaves overall are already very healthy and shiny, and I literally just recently learned why, lol, but I'd like to take it further if possible.
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Taking the reading is pretty straightforward. Pushing the plant into HB territory is a PITA sometimes. A lot depends on the genetics and not every plant grows like it was born to be a brix champ, so there’s a learning curve for sure. You can try to do it in a hydro setup and see how far you can go :thumb:
 
ilikemsticky said:
maybe if you could figure out a way to make some rock dust mobile and not plug up your system you can always foliar some minerals in!
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Is that how Brix is input into the plant, via rock dust? I was under the impression that Brix is how much sucrose is in the plant which made me think sugars, or in my case sulfur. HMU with some study leads please?
 
Technically Brix is a measure of tds of which most are indeed sugars and the rest are minerals and vitamins.

Rock dust can add minerals to your soil if it’s depleted, but it takes a balanced medium to grow these HB plants and the key is setting NPK, Ca and Mg straight, get your CEC and C:N in the zone as well as care for proper microlife without which everything else is useless.
 
interactions-between-plant-nutrients-Interaction-A.png
 
soil-components.jpg
 
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These graphs are something to ponder while you’re heading towards HB weed :)

„There are five exchangeable cations, and the percentage of each one is shown in soil test results as a percentage of CEC. The desirable ranges for them are: calcium 65 – 80% of CEC, magnesium 10 – 15%, potassium 1 – 5%, sodium 0 – 1%, and aluminium 0%.”

This is really ABC of balanced soil!
 
Excellent posts Conrad! :bravo:

In hydro, you could balance Calcium/Magnesium etc, but you wouldn't have microlife to break down minerals, so "rock dust" in general wouldn't help. You could concentrate on feeding with balanced micronutes though. :hmmmm:

In theory, you could probably produce high Brix in hydro, but you wouldn't get the microlife/exudates feedback that soil has. It can adapt instantly. In hydro, you'd have to somehow replace that process.
 
There’s emerging branch of hydro known as aquaponics, which goes for environment rich in microbes, that could be considered living organic hydro. Without it you’re forced to use chelates, cause plant can’t break down the nutrients on its own.
 
Here is my current regimen. Because I mix all of my nutes from salts, and make my own micro mix from chelated metals, I guarantee my ranges and none are guessed. I also inoculate my root zones twice every week with aerated compost tea, though I have since swapped out the compost with powdered humic/fulvic/kelp mix, and I would probably need to have my bennie brew tested to validate how active my microbe life is, but I've been doing this overall process for years, always with great results. I realize that I can't have a biologically active media like can be achieved in soil, I still have more than what some may expect to find in the average hydro grow. I grow in potted rockwool, and top feed from a recirculated reservoir, and between making my own nutes and my own ACTs, I am 100% in control of what goes in. FWIW, my studies have found that the roots themselves do release organic acids that chelate ionic metals for uptake, though I wouldn't go so far as to say on a level in the ideal range. I'm still learning a lot of new things and am remembering and comprehending what I can, but there is a lot.

I suppose the best place for me to start would be to get a refractometer to test my current brix levels, would you agree?

Some of the contents of those charts made little sense, but most of it made no sense to me. I'm used to comprehending elements in PPM, but the numbers seem to be vastly multiplied and IDK how to interpret that. At any rate, these targets are actual ppm in my nutrients and all are 100% accurate except for sulfur which is 18ppm less than the desired 100.

Full Grow Targets.JPG


Everywhere that is blank means that the value(s) did not change from what is previously listed.
 
I’m not gonna pretend I know much about hydro, cause I don’t but in general ratios and numbers in soil in above measures can be converted into ppm, so you can find out if they give you any hint after conversion. In general though calcium plays a crucial role on balanced soil so if you followed that you’d have to up it... but I don’t really know what effect it’d have on your plants as there are interactions and counterreactions that’d you’d have to watch for posted above.
 
In general, is Ca kept about equal to N? I can see room to increase my Ca slightly, but I was intending to observe if my prior adjustments had an overall effect before changing anything else.
 
No it's 15-20 Ca:N ratio. The goal is to have a high base saturation, a lot of cations available. I found out my quality and overall health also brixwise is growing when N and K are borderline depleted.
 
In US probably gypsum, but you have to control the amount of Mg in soil too.
 
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