Doc Bud's High Brix Q&A With Pictures

Hi Skybound,

A Brix of 7 is about right for hydroponics. I seem to recall a reading of 10 on a particularly good crop of Hydro SFV OG a few years ago, but most folks are getting 5-7 in hydro.

1. Calcium. It can't be taken up passively by water roots very well. This means that cell walls have formed with potassium, not calcium. It also means that proteins cannot be formed in hydro. Sugars can and do form in hydro, but not proteins so much. In soil, we need 18 times more calcium than potassium/phosphorus for High Brix. Not only is this impossible in hydro, I think you'd kill your plants if you tried. pH would be sky high for starters.

Perhaps it's time for you to try some High Brix produce? It'll learn ya just fine.

10 brix? That seems a doable goal with some more tweaking and adjusting. FYI, I am in potted rockwool cubes and flood once daily except in mid bloom and beyond, then I flood 2-3 times daily. I religiously use ACTs, twice a week, plus I also now use fulvic/humic/kelp, amino acids and will soon be getting B vitamins, all to improve my organic inputs and hopefully "fake it till I make it" so to speak. I also just got Calcium Carbonate that will be made into a concentrate with aminos for chelation. I also grow perpetually and harvest a pound or more per plant every 3 weeks. As you stated with the Chems, some strains just don't want to yield. I went through this for about a year trying to squeeze 16 ounces from an OG Kush and I simply could not. My weed smokes very smooth to the taste, it tastes very sweet, but I still want to make it better. I'd like to emulate organics as much as I can while still remaining in hydro and growing big and fast. That said, I won't be doing high brix anytime soon. In fact, I am aiming to stop growing all together, but until I actually switch lanes, I will continue to give this my all to keep it fun, educational and who knows, maybe grow some better pot?

When you formulated hibrix, did you have any elemental ratios in mind? I realize in soil, everything takes time for the microbes to prepare so it might be near impossible to target your elements that way I can and do, but I figure it's worth it to ask. Here are my intended targets for my first crack at high brix. I'd like to hear your thoughts or concerns about my ratios more than anything and I can decide if I should change them again before starting the initial test that will begin tomorrow.

High Brix Targets.JPG


FYI, the above targets are not much different than my traditional numbers. To create this, I lowered N slightly in mid bloom, raise Ca up 20 across the board, and added 30 to K. Also note that I hit all of my targets except for Sulfur, that's always 2 or so less than the target. I'd also like to hear your thoughts about leaf sap ph and whether knowing it could be useful for diagnosing the feed based on the ph of the leaf sap.
 

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Wow, see, i look at that last post from Sky and I know that all that stuff is really important - the ratios, the balances, the... and... then I thank the Goddess for Doc :laughtwo::Namaste:

:passitleft:


Does using docs kit make us lazy, smart, or a little bit of both? who knows?! I sure as hell am thankful for the hard work being done :D
 
Ween, Amy , Pooks....pass, pass...:roorrip:.....:roorrip:
Ya funny ...lazy , and smart...yup. made me a lot more aware of wat the fu...k i was doing. Just being on here has helped a bunch too. DBHBB has simply taken all (99%) the hard work and guessing out of it and made a helluva lot more time available to read and enjoy growing without being stressed about it all.
 
Yeah, agree Duggan and thanks! :passitleft:

Normally someone like Sky would wander through and be converted but we understand you want to stick with what you're doing and try to improve and props to you for that. I could never. Similar to my thoughts about breeding, no thanks, I'll let the pros take care of that and even some amateurs who a re willing to share.....

If I hadn't found Docs kit, who knows if I'd still be growing today...,,thanks Doc!
 
Yeah, agree Duggan and thanks! :passitleft:

Normally someone like Sky would wander through and be converted but we understand you want to stick with what you're doing and try to improve and props to you for that. I could never. Similar to my thoughts about breeding, no thanks, I'll let the pros take care of that and even some amateurs who a re willing to share.....

If I hadn't found Docs kit, who knows if I'd still be growing today...,,thanks Doc!

I feel the exact same way about breeding too and solely rely on reputable breeders to keep me stocked up because at the end of it all, I don't want to get bogged down studying another endless tangent. But then I see so many people on here making their own crosses and filling out their own stocks and I wonder if it could really be that hard? We can all defer our challenges to the pros, but at some point there needs to be a novice willing to learn the skills needed to become a pro. And just because one rises to the ranks of being a pro, does that imply that the craft simply cannot get any better? First we dragged things, then rolled them on logs, then attached those logs to the carts and made wheels, then we standardized wheel sizes and then began making them out of steel. Some we've even coated with rubber and filled with air to make for a comfortable ride or not detonating nitro glycerine. My point is that at some points, people need to pioneer a new techinology, then others will come along and make that tech better, and still more will come along and continue making it better. The printing press worked just fine, so why are we wasting our time on the internet?

Maybe at the end I will ultimately crash and burn, or maybe I will make hydro much easier for others to work with. Maybe I might even improve on hydro or be able to graft in more organics? IDK, I just intend to keep trying different things and see if anything sticks. I know it's hard to believe, but I do genuinely intend to quit growing to focus on starting a small business making small 3D and CNC machines to make things or sell those machines. My grow of course will make that happen, but I just need a little more $$$ than I'm currently making, and to be done with the little bit of risk would be a burden off my shoulders as well. If all goes well, I can shut my grow down before 2020, but I still have some bigger projects to iron out before I can commit to closing down shop. So until I know that I can shut it down, I will keep at it as if I'm never going to quit. I don't mean to come off as conceited, but I know that I grow extremely good hydro plants and am very close to working out all deficiencies, no matter how small or minute they are. For me, hydro became extremely boring. About 6 months ago, I switched lanes and dropped using GH and got into salts, After putzing around with that and dealing with those shortcomings, I concluded to discontinue using salt blends from places like JR Peter's or Jack's. I've found blends restricted me and my degree of freedom was greatly restrained. When mixing everything myself, I have total control and am getting WAY better results. So I damn near perfected hydro again and it's getting boring again. Enter high brix. A goal that I will almost certainly fail at, or at best struggle to achieve mediocrity. If you could assign a grade to my hydro skills right now, then retest me 2-3 months down the road after failing to achieve actual high brix, I bet my hydro score would still be much higher despite failing the brix.

Sorry for the rant. I try to bite my tongue, but sometimes it just gets away from me in text.
 
I feel the exact same way about breeding too and solely rely on reputable breeders to keep me stocked up because at the end of it all, I don't want to get bogged down studying another endless tangent. But then I see so many people on here making their own crosses and filling out their own stocks and I wonder if it could really be that hard? We can all defer our challenges to the pros, but at some point there needs to be a novice willing to learn the skills needed to become a pro. And just because one rises to the ranks of being a pro, does that imply that the craft simply cannot get any better? First we dragged things, then rolled them on logs, then attached those logs to the carts and made wheels, then we standardized wheel sizes and then began making them out of steel. Some we've even coated with rubber and filled with air to make for a comfortable ride or not detonating nitro glycerine. My point is that at some points, people need to pioneer a new techinology, then others will come along and make that tech better, and still more will come along and continue making it better. The printing press worked just fine, so why are we wasting our time on the internet?

Maybe at the end I will ultimately crash and burn, or maybe I will make hydro much easier for others to work with. Maybe I might even improve on hydro or be able to graft in more organics? IDK, I just intend to keep trying different things and see if anything sticks. I know it's hard to believe, but I do genuinely intend to quit growing to focus on starting a small business making small 3D and CNC machines to make things or sell those machines. My grow of course will make that happen, but I just need a little more $$$ than I'm currently making, and to be done with the little bit of risk would be a burden off my shoulders as well. If all goes well, I can shut my grow down before 2020, but I still have some bigger projects to iron out before I can commit to closing down shop. So until I know that I can shut it down, I will keep at it as if I'm never going to quit. I don't mean to come off as conceited, but I know that I grow extremely good hydro plants and am very close to working out all deficiencies, no matter how small or minute they are. For me, hydro became extremely boring. About 6 months ago, I switched lanes and dropped using GH and got into salts, After putzing around with that and dealing with those shortcomings, I concluded to discontinue using salt blends from places like JR Peter's or Jack's. I've found blends restricted me and my degree of freedom was greatly restrained. When mixing everything myself, I have total control and am getting WAY better results. So I damn near perfected hydro again and it's getting boring again. Enter high brix. A goal that I will almost certainly fail at, or at best struggle to achieve mediocrity. If you could assign a grade to my hydro skills right now, then retest me 2-3 months down the road after failing to achieve actual high brix, I bet my hydro score would still be much higher despite failing the brix.

Sorry for the rant. I try to bite my tongue, but sometimes it just gets away from me in text.

I hear ya Sky and am routing for you and your CNC business! I almost never smoke and I don't sell it, I just love growing weed and probably will never stop! It all goes to my GF who smokes, vapes and makes oil like mad. I don't know how she goes through it all but she does. If I had to go through all that you've been through and are going through perfecting hydro, I'd have given up a long time ago. I am a Kit grower for life, why, because it's so simple and I get top shelf produce. If I could expand or when I expand, I will try some pheno hunting and grow more than 1 or 2 strains at a time. Good for you in you're efforts to get better and better with hydro!

:passitleft:

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Day 36 cereal milk in DBHB!

Come over to my journal for more pictures and updates! First time user that could use some advance users eyes and brains.

Yeah, get over there guys, another 1st time kit grower crushing it!
 
To piggyback off of the ReCharge talk, What has been your personal dates for applying recharge graytail? do you reapply for longer flowerings?

I usually get around to it at about budset time. I like to see the roots well established in the new soil before I add the EWC and ReCharge. It's generally round the 3rd week of bloom cycle?
 
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