High Brix Hydroponics

[Skybound]

So far, my leaves all through the grow are responding very well to the sprays I been using. Here's the one I sprayed 2 hours before the pic was taken. Since then, I learned Humic isn't for in the spray, so I need to omit the organic acid blend. I think all of the elemental concentrations were all weak enough to supply adequate levels of each w/o over doing it. This reads 350 TDS on my meter @ 5.4 ph. I also ordered ammonium phosphate today because I want to begin inching in some ammonical N (NH4+). Having a lot is BAD, but having too little is not good and right now my only source supplies an estimated 5% of the N as NH4+ and that's definitely deficient. I want to experiment with the 10%-15% range. The books say it can go up to 25% safely, but I don't want to push the envelope too hard.

The other spray I made is based with fish, seaweed, aminos, gypsum, phosphoric acid and all the micros except Molybdenum and added reading suggests I could have used that too. The Micros spray is intended to trigger enzymes to encourage my roots to exudate sweets to the microbes that aren't there !

 

[Skybound]

I decided to test the brix of raw fish hydrolysate and it came in at a cool 24 brix. The next time I spray my plants with it, I'll test some leaves shortly before and after the spray session to see how much the fish will influence my readings. As shown above, I only put 4ml of fish into a gallon so it's greatly diluted.

 

[Skybound]

@ilikemsticky this will make a good read while out on vaycay. Soil growers in general will appreciate the short read for soil building aimed at high brix.

Soil Remineralization

 

[FelipeBlu]

I’ve spent a couple of days compiling accumulated information and playing around with my spreadsheet (developed before I learned of HB, but I’m used to it and it works for me). I’ve come up with the following nutrient profiles for various growth stages (not scientifically chosen), using some of my current lineup of products:

Early to Mid-Veg (2-6 weeks)
I will dilute this to 0.7 EC for earliest veg)

Mid to Late Veg/Stretch
Again, diluted down to about 1.2 EC to start

Mid-Flower (after stretch - flower weeks 3 to 6)

Late Flower (FWs 6-10)

These will be my targets for next grow. I realize that I am unable to micro-tweak the micronutrients, but I feel that the DTE blend is an upright product, and am happy, in general, that I can make my targets with locally available, commercial products, in reasonable quantities.

Incidentally, one of the biggest tools in the vineyard for increasing brix is to prune heavily and sharply reduce yield. If one is willing to sacrifice many buds for fewer of stellar quality, that is an established method.

 

[Skybound]

I’ve spent a couple of days compiling accumulated information and playing around with my spreadsheet (developed before I learned of HB, but I’m used to it and it works for me). I’ve come up with the following nutrient profiles for various growth stages (not scientifically chosen), using some of my current lineup of products:

Early to Mid-Veg (2-6 weeks)
I will dilute this to 0.7 EC for earliest veg)

Mid to Late Veg/Stretch
Again, diluted down to about 1.2 EC to start

Mid-Flower (after stretch - flower weeks 3 to 6)

Late Flower (FWs 6-10)

These will be my targets for next grow. I realize that I am unable to micro-tweak the micronutrients, but I feel that the DTE blend is an upright product, and am happy, in general, that I can make my targets with locally available, commercial products, in reasonable quantities.

Incidentally, one of the biggest tools in the vineyard for increasing brix is to prune heavily and sharply reduce yield. If one is willing to sacrifice many buds for few of stellar quality, that is an established method.

I'm concerned with your Mn and Zn being so high, but using any premixed blend locks you into what said product offers, still keep an eye on those. My reference says Mn toxicity will express like a Fe deficiency. I am very interested to see your results in mid and late bloom. I like the jacked up calcium you got in there. I'm inching my calcium up while choosing other macros to inch down in hope of getting my EC to 1.3. In the rockwool, I had great results with 1.0-1.3 and though I'm at 1.6 now, I want to ratchet it back down, then put more thought into my foliar sprays. Last week I lowered my K and tomorrow will be adding NH4. I'm also upping my micro levels as follows;

Fe ____2 -> 2.5
Mn ___1 -> 1.2
B ___0.3 -> 0.5
Zn __0.3 -> 0.5
Cu __0.2 -> 0.3
Mo _0.05 -> 0.1

and my next macro ranges;

________veg___strch____mid____late
NO3___120_____95____76.5_____80
NH4____10______9______8.5______0
P_______65_____65______65______55
K______150____150_____160____180
Ca_____110____120_____120____100
Mg______50_____55______60______60
S________80____100_____100____100
Si_______25_____25_______25______20

^That's the culmination of my studies and lessons learned from 4 prior regimens. All were too hot with my K at 200, plus the high K was getting in the way of Ca uptake, so I lowered it to save on EC and also hopefully witness less Ca issues. I also still intend to bump the P up to 70, but I want to wait and see what happens when I add in the ammonium. Still, I'm fairly confident that I will see better overall health than what I did with previous attempts.

 

[FelipeBlu]

Thanks Sky
I’ll look into the Mn/Zn issue for sure. I also appreciate benefiting from your previous research and hands-on grower experience.

 

[Skybound]

Thanks Sky
I’ll look into the Mn/Zn issue for sure. I also appreciate benefiting from your previous research and hands-on grower experience.

Please keep me in your loop too either by linking me to your journal if ya have one, but if not, upload some bloom pics to this thread. If ya have problems in veg, I'd like to see those photos too.

Edit - My reference suggests that Zn is a lot more forgiving.

 

[Skybound]

Another good read about fish ferts.

Fish As Fertilizer? Everything You Need To Know

 

[Pennywise]

Interesting info.

 

[Skybound]

Foliar recipes

Best Hemp Foliar Spray | AgZaar

 

[Skybound]

Damn, I might want to switch to coco for the CEC yo!

Buffering Up: Adjusting the Cation Exchange Capacity in Coco Growing Media

 

[StoneOtter]

Thanks for the info guys! A lot of it I'm like a dog watching tv but some is getting into my head!

 

[Skybound]

Thanks for the info guys! A lot of it I'm like a dog watching tv but some is getting into my head!

I'm in the same boat, except I'm the one blindly trying things out hoping I don't smoke my whole crop in the process, lol. I'm confident I would never do that and make small educated guess adjustments and am inching my way towards the goal. I'm having a LOT of success spraying my crop with fish hydrolysate. I amend it with a little Epsom for Mg, Gypsum for Ca, but the fish is all my NPK and together with some organic wetting agents, makes a well balanced Macro Munch, lol. I spray once every 7 days and my canopies are looking stellar for a change.

I make a half gallon of spray each week. The fish hydrol does not store well after mixed so use it up in 24 hours and toss out the unused, or use it elsewhere in the yard. As an option, I can add soluble seaweed to that to elevate the K, but I'm content with the current mix.

 

[Skybound]

Good read about NO3/NH4 for PH manipulation as well. I been trying to see what else can be applied. It seems a blast of NH4 when the bud sites set (about week 4) is giving kit and organic users a nice covering of trics, well not that per say, but nutrient analyzation and research leads me to think that and I'm thinking of a brief reservoir with about double the NH4 to see if anything happens. By "brief" I mean about a half a week or less, so 2-3 days of NH4 being about twice it's normal percentage of my N. The very last page in the below link confirms the benefits gained by adding a small amount of NH4 into the N supply, however, NH4 can easily become toxic so nutrient control is needed.

https://greenhouse.cornell.edu/crops/factsheets/nitrogen_form.pdf

 

[Skybound]

P is an anion

 

[Skybound]

I began testing the cationic mix which is a double portion of NH4+. I'll run this for 3 days for this plant/this round and increase to 6 days for the next plant. Beyond that I can increase the NH4+ till I notice some increased tric production. I just confirmed spraying with a fish based spray improves flavor of the smoke, it's good stuff.

 

[Skybound]

The Cat test was another dud, or failure. The cation NH4+ likely further upset an imbalance that was already affecting my Calcium, and now I have textbook Ca deficiency with brown measels. In one of my other threads, someone alerted me that I started it about a week too early anyways, but still, until I confidently iron out my calcium concerns, I'm not going to repeat this test. Once the K:Ca:Mg ratios are worked out, I can get screwy again. Me thinks I will go back to my original targets, maybe even lessen the Ca and P.

 

[Grandpa Tokin]

Thanks for the info guys! A lot of it I'm like a dog watching tv but some is getting into my head!

^^^This! Deer in headlights up here. But, I can’t look away...

 

[Skybound]

^^^This! Deer in headlights up here. But, I can’t look away...

It's trying to find the happiest combination of 5 variables (N-P-K-Ca-Mg). Sulfur I always want high and my silica and micros generally stay the same, but when you make nutes from salts, you can control your elemental ppm. In the pursuit of finding the most healthy elemental targets, I figured that high brix was right in line or along the way to finding the best nute combo, so this thread is like a side topic to the other thread about using Hydro Buddy. All in all, at this moment, I'm no longer confident high brix is doable in hydro, or in some regards even desirable. Just a few hours ago Graytail and Conradino had a fantastic dialogue about high brix on Con's journal, and I was able to learn a few valuable nuggets of info that helps me better understand the differences.

 

[Grandpa Tokin]

It's trying to find the happiest combination of 5 variables (N-P-K-Ca-Mg). Sulfur I always want high and my silica and micros generally stay the same, but when you make nutes from salts, you can control your elemental ppm. In the pursuit of finding the most healthy elemental targets, I figured that high brix was right in line or along the way to finding the best nute combo, so this thread is like a side topic to the other thread about using Hydro Buddy. All in all, at this moment, I'm no longer confident high brix is doable in hydro, or in some regards even desirable. Just a few hours ago Graytail and Conradino had a fantastic dialogue about high brix on Con's journal, and I was able to learn a few valuable nuggets of info that helps me better understand the differences.

I’m all about finding the best, but I’m also lazy and I know it. That’s one of the reasons why I went DWC in the first place. It’s so easy for me now that I really don’t even think...I just do. You put the science back into the equation for me. I love reading your journals. You’re a freaking scientist...I’m an old dude in a barn.