Growing Without Bloom Nutes By Farside05

I doubt mine going to be that easy since it starts with a 9am covid test down the road before we go. My son spent Monday with a friend who tested positive on Tuesday. :(

We'll probably get the results tomorrow night (at the hotel) and have to figure out what to do from there. If he's positive then we probably all will be, and I have no idea what the school does with him then.

Not a good way to start his first year on campus. :rolleyes:

Ours was a pain, but we weren't in that state of limbo. Best wishes for good test results.
 
I'll clean up the bottoms on the photo tent today. The back left Zkittlez is going into stretch mode before the others.

The rag tag group of autos

Look at how wide the leaves are on the Original Glue auto! BTW @InTheShed the Glue is in that Pro Mix Moisture Control from Walmart, right from the bag, no additions.

I spent a bunch of time reworking the Elemental Calculator in my spreadsheet. Now it will do up to 10 products (previously 5) and I put in space to add products down below so that I don't have to keep looking them up every time. In that area I also put in the values for quite a few raw salts. If you're interested, here is the link:

My Calculators

If you do decide to use it, please save your own copy 1st as to not disturb the master copy. It should open in Excel or Google Sheets (which is freeware).
 
That Glue is that happiest in the tent!

That she is. I'll be real interested to see how she finishes. She's from Nirvana. The first crop I ever grew was Nirvana's autos. I had shitty blurples and had no clue how to feed. The results were less than spectacular to put it mildly. I've always contended that good genetics are a large component to having a good auto crop. We'll see what Nirvana has to offer now that I know what I'm doing. Two crops in a row, their photos have been real consistent, and the Zkittlez is the favorite of everything I've grown over 6 years.

Here's where everyone stands after the weekends maintenance and yesterdays drink.


 
Photo update time

The photo tent. No real training on these ladies, just pinched off tops and fed them. They've filled everything wall to wall

The Tent Chicken® in it's natural habitat, a canna jungle.

I think this pic turned out cool. Look mom, no burnt tips or spots to be found.

The auto tent. Everything the photo tent is not. What a cluster...

...except my pretty little Original Glue.
 
Photos look spot on, and the auto tent will look much more normal once you take down the telephone pole. :cheesygrinsmiley:

That back right auto still doesn't look like it wants to bloom. Hope I don't have one of those photo/autos.
 
I'm gonna drop these here for now. Ultimately I've been thinking of composing a thread along the lines of "Why you can't feed strictly by ppm or % of manufacturer's suggestions" and these would be included graphics. Below are tables showing the ppm per element for five different popular nutrient manufacturers, along with my current mix at the bottom. Examples are "full strength" recommendations, or around week 5 of bloom from feed charts. Obviously, these major manufacturers make a ton of other supplements you can add, but for simplicity, I only computed the base feeds for comparison.

*Computations based on Guaranteed Minimums printed on product labels.

Jack's 3-2-1

General Hydroponics Trio

Fox Farms Trio

Advanced Nutrients Trio

Mega Crop 1 Part

MSU Fertilizer + Potassium Sulfate + Faux-Tekt ®
 
A quick synopsis of things I notice in the elemental breakdowns above.

Most of the base fertilizer regiments have sufficient amounts of the key elements to grow a successful crop. Adding supplements would be a total waste of cash and would only end up causing salt build-up in your growing medium.

The Jack's 3-2-1 has excessive amounts of Ca, Mg, and S, especially the Mg and S. Part of the 3-2-1 system is Magnesium Sulfate (Epsom Salts). You could completely remove this component and still have more than adequate amounts of Mg and S, and frankly a more desirable Ca to Mg ratio (closer to 2:1 when before it was more like 1:1).

General Hydroponics has the lowest amount of N, you may get some yellowing with heavy feeders.

Fox Farms lists no guaranteed amount of Ca. There has to be some, since one of Tiger Blooms listed ingredients is Calcium Nitrate. There may be a need to supplement Ca with their product since the amount of Ca is unknown. They also have the highest amount of N, which would probably cause burn at their recommended feed level. Trying to supplement Calcium with your standard Cal-Mag product, which also contains some Nitrogen, is going to be problematic with the higher N of their base product mix. The amount of P is also excessive. Of the products analyzed, this lineup is probably the most out of whack. Maybe adding their supplements might bring it into some better alignment, but there's no way you're feeding them all at their recommended levels.

Advanced Nutrients is definitely playing with the upper limits of N. Maybe that's why most of the grows I see using it are such a deep shade of green. There's an abundance of K (281 ppm) in their base mix. Adding any supplement that has more K is pointless and could prove catastrophic. We observed K overload symptoms with Mega Crop + PK boosters when K got in the neighborhood of 320 ppm. I fear AN could have the same issues with supplementation.

Mega Crop, see the last comments in the Advanced Nutrients section. Fine on its own, supplements are a dangerous proposition. Proceed with caution!
 
Maintenance day and watering. Took an hour and a half. They always look like shit after a good thinning and they were thirsty on top of it. I'm always amazed on how fast they bounce back. 12 hours later they will look better. 48 hours and they'll have filled everything back in. My pretty little Original Glue Auto (front right 2nd pic) got a big trim. Hard to take off all that lush foliage but it's for the best in the end.

I'm out of Faux-Tekt® and Build-A-Soil is taking a long time to ship my 2lbs of AgSil 16H to make more. So everyone just got 5/8tsp MSU and 1/8tsp Potassium Sulfate.

I absolutely love the smell of the Gelato when it's growing (front right 1st pic). Smells like Orange Sherbet. Her stems will probably need support as she fills in bud. Not nearly as woody as her 3 Zkittlez tent mates.

Next grow the photo tent will be Blue Dream and Chemdog. I love the smell of fuel in a tent too, the wife not so much. Hopefully by only having 2 Chems I'll keep the stink down. The Dream has always been a good yielder for me and the Chem is supposed to put out weight too. Why is it that I can't finish a grow without thinking of the next? Guess that's part of the growing addiction.


 
Thanks for that great set of posts about PPMs and the analysis of the popular brands. I have a question about the Jack's though: How do you get to 151-50-211 from a product that's 3-2-1? Is it part of a line of nutes?

3-2-1 is a bit misleading if you're stuck in N-P-K world. I had the same thoughts when I heard others speak of it. This will sort it out:

"What is #Jacks321? Have you read about Jack’s 321 or seen the hashtag on insta? Jack’s 321 is our tried and true two-part fertilizer program. It consists of Jack’s Nutrients Part A 5-12-26, Jack’s Nutrients Part B 15-0-0 and Epsom Salts. BUT where does that “321” come from, you ask? It’s the shortened amount of each fertilizer in grams per gallon.

To mix up the perfect blend of Jack’s 321 you will need:

3.7 grams Part A

2.5grams Part B

1.1 grams of Epsom salts

This will give you a blend of nutrients for growing almost any controlled environment crop, in any growing system. The order of additions is VERY important. You must add the 5-12-26 first and make sure it is completely dissolved, then add in the Epsom salts making sure it is completely dissolved, then finally the calcium nitrate."
 
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