JollyRodger
Well-Known Member
Like I said man, no judgment or bashing from me. I have a similar upbringing. I was just trying to justify a random comment with a ton of links for interpretation from that other member. Peace
Ready to quit growing due to low quality & smell
No worries I’m not offended by any means! Crap if it wasn’t for auto correct I would most likely be ashamed to be on this forum to be honest! I just seen a title saying someone was ready to quit growing and seen that they had issues with Ppm in one of the texts and I just had to give some encouragement on why I use it. But to know my reasons for ppm in the data I get back can only be taught to someone using the same set up and nutrients that I use On the norm. Which I’ll list a few to prove my point on my usage of the ppm meter(Fox farm, botanicare,myco chum,great white, recharge, and the list goes on but if it wasn’t for a Ppm reading in my set up I’d be crazy almost! I run in live soils and have always and have never grown in any other method than soil so that’s why my imput only helps anyone using similar set ups.
JollyRodger
Well-Known Member
I use ppm only as an indicator of how much water to add to my reservoir. I use a stronger solution than most people would recommend on the internet.
Well I mean my upbringing wasn’t totally on a farm lol, but I’m sure you get my picture..a true Cherokee Indian basically if you wana get down dirty! I was raised one side by Arkansas people(you know there rep I’m sure lmao)! And the other half by river rat community’s like the Mississippi/Illinois riva haha! I really mean river I’m just making fun of my heritage lmao!! I have a couple friends left in my life due to a number of reasons one being the opioid crisis that a lot of uneducated normal people tent to dismiss going on. There for my reasons behind the cannibis community will always be strong because I too had my own battles. And it all started when I was young(hint very young)racing motocross and finding myself injured with a doc prescribing me loads of crap that only made my issues worse. It wasn’t until I was Tired of being treated like a patient my entire life that I had to come to terms of how it was all affecting my life and body all together. And then that’s when I became more of a conservative kind of person that takes care of himself and it’s really starting to make a blessing of a difference in my life. So now it’s just me the family, my amazing pit bull(girl) and my ladies of nature and I’m happy!! And of course I’ve got a couple friend here and there and can’t forget all you people lol!!Thanks for the comments @Moto258and no worries bout being a farm boy. I am a mountain man, prefer the company of my dog and wild animals to people
I grew up a carpenter and barely graduated high school , had not interest in school and education.
It wasn’t until I was in my late 20s, when I decided to go back to school, that I took an interest into the science (engineering) behind the work I did. Even after that, it wasn’t until my 40s when I started having chronic pain and took up growing that I took an interest in anything aside from engineering
Keep in mind, your upbringing, education and occupation generally says nothing about intelligence. You will find more high IQ people doing blue collar work than you will working in the sciences
I would love to live in the mountains where elevation is better for growing. I bet you have some amazing outdoor flower! Here I have to utilize indoor as much as I can in order to have the quality I prefer. The weather here is crap and mold just thrives on the plants I love to grow indoors and grow them outside. I seriously have strains I use just for my outdoor climate I have here in order to have success without problems at harvest! I’m thinking next season I’m going to try testing out forcing flower for the ones I’d like to grow outside that has tooo much resins and terps in its genetics to make it to harvest without mold!!
- Thread starter
- #86
SauronBlue
Well-Known Member
I have to admit, I have recently been looking at that title with some regret LOL but at the time, I wasn't even having ups and downs, it had been all downs as far as quality. I decided over a year ago to try to turn the bad results around by really devoting my time and money. I can't say I've fully won, the smell is still reducing day by day, but it's a marked improvement, so that's enough to keep me going. All I needed was a small win.
I completely understand what you're saying. I bought a ppm pen to check all that, I used to make my stronger solutions, then water them down to a different ppm for the younger veg. I was checking the ppm of water going in and out. I just kept getting advice to stop using it, as I was just going to confuse myself with too much data. I use mostly MegaCrop, which even the owner says to just go by the grams/gallon, and basically add more if they look too light and pull back if I burn more than the very tips. I'm usually at 6g/gal from a young age. Anything I try as a comparison, I just go by the label. I'm glad for the simplification where I can find it, but if I feel like I'm dialing in a good program, I'll try to get back into it
Thanks for the great info!Good morning Sauron,
Having read some of your comments on here, especially this last one, you’ve been lead to believe that growing cannabis is much more complicated than is really is, which often happens to hydro growers. Given some of the guys who hung out in the MegaCrop thread, and are no longer here, it’s not surprising.
First thing you need to “unlearn”, that many of those kinds of hydro guys push is:
- you can only control what you put in the soil, you can not control what the plant uses.
This applies to all forms of growing, hydro, soil, chemical or organic. Plants can not be force fed nutrients, they will only use what they need, you just need to be sure it’s there and available to them.
If you are growing with MC, just throw the ppm meter away, you don’t need it
This plant went in a hempy bucket (15gal) on July 4th at 8 inches tall. It was fed nothing but MC starting at 4.5g/gal and by August was getting 6g/gal until I harvested it in early October. Dry weight of 473g trimmed bud and another 280g of small bud and trim to make hash from.
You really don’t need a meter using liquid nutes either, but requires good math skills, preferably a good understanding of chemistry and the metric system as well.
Essentially, you want an excess of nutrients but in a balanced ratio. This holds true regardless of the grow style (soil, hydro, LOS or chemical nutes). Problems occur when something is out of balance in the ratios.
As I mentioned above, organic super soils are no different and the “type” of amendment, bat guano vs chicken shit doesn’t matter. Dry (desiccated) cannabis/hemp has a wt/wt ratio of the 5 primary nutrients of N:K:Mg:Ca of approximately 4 : 1 : 3 : 1.4 : 1 - these are good numbers to know when making your own feeds/soils.
So what that means is that for every 100g of bud, it contains 4g N, 1g P, 3g K and so on.
I‘ve made my own “water only” soils for years, and am currently working on an organic DWC hydro feed currently. The soils have worked great and the hydro, it’s still in the infancy stage so time will tell
Calculating what you put in your supersoil, I will use N as an example and bloodmeal as the source, it’s what I use and relatively cheap.
- decide roughly how big you want the plant to be, or more specifically, how much bud you hope to produce. You have to make some assumptions at this point, and knowing your plant/strain helps. For this step I assume 454g (1lb) of bud per 5 gallons of soil. You will need these numbers later.
- bud makes up approx 50% of the entire plant mass and 454g of dried bud would only weigh about 300g if all the water was removed, giving the desiccated weight of the entire plant 600g.
- nitrogen making up 4% of the entire weight means that we have used 24g of N to grow this plant. To get 24g of N from bonemeal (15% N) we need 24g / 15% = 160g of bloodmeal for every 5 gallons of soil as a minimum. I typically double this as the plant will use what it needs.
When making/using these LOS water only soils, the source of organic N (or other amendments) doesn’t matter to the plant, you just need to know the % of the nute in it. I use bloodmeal for N, but you can use any organic source of N.
I won’t go any further into the subject here, but when I start a new journal in a couple weeks, I will go into detail of working out nute mixes there if there is enough interest.
Back to commercial nutes, even that is not as complicated as many make it out to be. Dr. Bruce Bugbee, the head of Hemp/Cannabis research at Utah State University who also does research on botany and lighting for NASA uses Jack’s 20-10-20 in their research and do NOT get fussy about ppm.
This video of his is worth watching if you want to get a better understanding
Maximizing Cannabis Yields
Hope this helps simplify your thoughts on nutes, if you want to know more, reach out, I am always willing to help those who want to further their understanding
PS: these are girls grown this summer in my LOS that I only watered 4 times all summer, Mamma Nature supplied the rest
For a start, I wish I could get a pound out of a 5gal pot! I'm only getting like 2-3oz per plant in 5gal pots, but I get 10-12 plants under a 530w LED, so it adds up.
If I calculate the needed inputs based on that small amount of bud that I actually get, would I be limiting the plant's potential or would it be happier without the excess? I always feel like my plants get hangry with less than the max recommended nutes.
I have seen that video before, and at least one other from him, I've watched SO much on youtube and weedtube (which allows the cannabis content creators to monetize, unlike youtube). This video gives a lot of info about balancing inputs, and a bit on building a soil, but do you know of anything that can explain how to tell what an additive or supplement will do to change a nute mix? Not how to build a whole soil, but if I add a pk booster, do I want to reduce the other nute level to make room; or, if I add silica, myco, humic, kelp, terp booster, and sweetener, how would I know when I've pushed it too far, and how to balance things out? Not that I use all that, but if I wanted to? I only add what I think I need, and right now that's silica, myco, and terp. One thaing that I've gotten rave reviews about is winter frost from new millenium for boosting crystals at the finish.
The Celt
Well-Known Member
Morning @SauronBlue ,
When mixing organic soils, I base my mixes on what is “possible” and double it rather than what I will get. Basically, I am ensuring that the plant will not run out of needed nutes before I harvest. This works fine for organic soils, but cannot be applied to hydro and this is where the “balance” comes in.
This balance requires a level of chemistry above high school chemistry and is why few people attempt to create their own nutrients for hydro. This chemistry also includes the chemistry happening local to the roots (immediately next to the root).
As much as I don’t want to give lectures, I will give a basic chemistry lesson to help understand why hydro can so easily go south when you don’t follow the directions of the manufacturer.
Hydro nutrients are salts, specially treated which we can cover later, but salts none the less. Salts, like table salt, are compounds that when added to water, separate into ”free” ions.
- example: NaCl (table salt) & H2O (water) = Na+ & Cl- & H2O which is salt water, water that now has free Sodium and Chlorine ions floating around in it and if you evaporated the water, the ions would re-combine forming salt.
So, when we add the nutrients, we are adding salts that separate into their free ions in solution (water). Our 5 major nutrients for plant growth are:
Nitrogen (N), Phosphorus (P), Potassium (K), Magnesium (Mg) and Calcium (Ca)
Now picture a kids “ball pit” with 5 different coloured balls. This is your bucket of water and each of the coloured balls is one of the above nutrients. If there are equal numbers of each colour, our plant won’t grow or will have serious problems, we need that balance I spoke of because some of these balls have a greater attraction to the roots than others - this is the “lockout” that is spoken of. Also, the plants “wants” more of some colours than others, and if it’s not there, we get deficiencies.
Further the above by adding a 6th ball to represent our medium, water. Water is always our medium, even in soil, when doing the chemistry. Use blue as the colour of our water and any other 5 colours for the nutes. This will help with understanding ppm.
In our ball pit, we have 1 million balls, if we have 1 red ball and the rest blue, the red makes up 1ppm.
There are 2 different balances we need to be concerned with, the first being the ratio of our 5 coloured balls to the blue balls (enough tittering and whispering in the back
). This is your total ppm and when the level of coloured balls gets too high, we get nutrient burn. The easiest way to explain nute burn, is to compare it to someone drinking salt water, they become dehydrated.
Back to the balance between our 5 major nutrients. Of these, it is K, Mg and Ca that are of most concern to us. These 3 are attracted to the roots by a similar mechanism, as ions (the form needed by the plant) they are positively charged with both Ca and Mg having a 2+ and K being 1+. Therefore it takes 2 K ions to equal 1 of the other two, so to have an equal balance between them, you would need 2 K balls, 1 Ca ball and 1 Mg ball. This would give each nute an equal chance of being attracted to the root. Now because the plant doesn’t use them in equal amounts, we can‘t have them equal in solution. In general, for every 2 Ca, we need 3 Mg and 8 K balls in solution. It’s the balance of these 3 that cause the majority of def/lock out issues.
This is why adding PK boosters to a high K feed like MegaCrop can go south in a hurry.
The actual processes are much more complex than I laid out above, but it gives a basic understanding of why issues occur.
Now back to this:
” if I add silica, myco, humic, kelp, terp booster, and sweetener, how would I know when I've pushed it too far, and how to balance things out?”
A lot of question there, and no “one fits all“ answer so I will do my best.
- silica - depends on the form it’s in - often it’s in the form of Potassium Silicate which means you need to be mindful of the potassium (K) being added and the effect on pH. The silica it’s self is not something that affects the above mentioned balances.
- mycos - can be added to any medium but gain the most benefits in organics. They will also not affect the balance but could reduce the phosphorous requirements.
- humid acid - is again more for organics. Basically, anything not in a salt form, needs to be broken down by micro organisms to be made usable by the plant.
- kelp - again, more for organics.
As for terp booster and sweetener, that depends on what is in them that can throw off that K:Mg:Ca ratio or pH, too much K in it and problems can occur.
Hopefully the above gives you a basic understanding of what takes place at the roots of our plants, regardless of the medium they are grown in.
Now back to organic soils and why they tend to be much more forgiving than other methods.
All the amendments we put into the soil, contain the required nutrients, but they are locked up in forms the plant can not access. We have to rely on microorganisms (bacteria, fungi, etc) to break it down into usable forms (ions). Because this process is not instant, takes weeks and months, we can load the soil up with much higher nutrient levels than can be done with salt form nutrients so long as we maintain the above mentioned balance.
Aside from the slow process of breaking down the nutrients, the plant has the ability to adjust the pH immediately around the root allowing it to regulate what nutrients to absorb. You can still get nute burn, but it’s usually associated with over watering that affects the plants ability to adjust pH around the root.
Hopefully that covered your questions without wandering too far off into the wilderness which I am prone to doing
When mixing organic soils, I base my mixes on what is “possible” and double it rather than what I will get. Basically, I am ensuring that the plant will not run out of needed nutes before I harvest. This works fine for organic soils, but cannot be applied to hydro and this is where the “balance” comes in.
This balance requires a level of chemistry above high school chemistry and is why few people attempt to create their own nutrients for hydro. This chemistry also includes the chemistry happening local to the roots (immediately next to the root).
As much as I don’t want to give lectures, I will give a basic chemistry lesson to help understand why hydro can so easily go south when you don’t follow the directions of the manufacturer.
Hydro nutrients are salts, specially treated which we can cover later, but salts none the less. Salts, like table salt, are compounds that when added to water, separate into ”free” ions.
- example: NaCl (table salt) & H2O (water) = Na+ & Cl- & H2O which is salt water, water that now has free Sodium and Chlorine ions floating around in it and if you evaporated the water, the ions would re-combine forming salt.
So, when we add the nutrients, we are adding salts that separate into their free ions in solution (water). Our 5 major nutrients for plant growth are:
Nitrogen (N), Phosphorus (P), Potassium (K), Magnesium (Mg) and Calcium (Ca)
Now picture a kids “ball pit” with 5 different coloured balls. This is your bucket of water and each of the coloured balls is one of the above nutrients. If there are equal numbers of each colour, our plant won’t grow or will have serious problems, we need that balance I spoke of because some of these balls have a greater attraction to the roots than others - this is the “lockout” that is spoken of. Also, the plants “wants” more of some colours than others, and if it’s not there, we get deficiencies.
Further the above by adding a 6th ball to represent our medium, water. Water is always our medium, even in soil, when doing the chemistry. Use blue as the colour of our water and any other 5 colours for the nutes. This will help with understanding ppm.
In our ball pit, we have 1 million balls, if we have 1 red ball and the rest blue, the red makes up 1ppm.
There are 2 different balances we need to be concerned with, the first being the ratio of our 5 coloured balls to the blue balls (enough tittering and whispering in the back
). This is your total ppm and when the level of coloured balls gets too high, we get nutrient burn. The easiest way to explain nute burn, is to compare it to someone drinking salt water, they become dehydrated.Back to the balance between our 5 major nutrients. Of these, it is K, Mg and Ca that are of most concern to us. These 3 are attracted to the roots by a similar mechanism, as ions (the form needed by the plant) they are positively charged with both Ca and Mg having a 2+ and K being 1+. Therefore it takes 2 K ions to equal 1 of the other two, so to have an equal balance between them, you would need 2 K balls, 1 Ca ball and 1 Mg ball. This would give each nute an equal chance of being attracted to the root. Now because the plant doesn’t use them in equal amounts, we can‘t have them equal in solution. In general, for every 2 Ca, we need 3 Mg and 8 K balls in solution. It’s the balance of these 3 that cause the majority of def/lock out issues.
This is why adding PK boosters to a high K feed like MegaCrop can go south in a hurry.
The actual processes are much more complex than I laid out above, but it gives a basic understanding of why issues occur.
Now back to this:
” if I add silica, myco, humic, kelp, terp booster, and sweetener, how would I know when I've pushed it too far, and how to balance things out?”
A lot of question there, and no “one fits all“ answer
so I will do my best.- silica - depends on the form it’s in - often it’s in the form of Potassium Silicate which means you need to be mindful of the potassium (K) being added and the effect on pH. The silica it’s self is not something that affects the above mentioned balances.
- mycos - can be added to any medium but gain the most benefits in organics. They will also not affect the balance but could reduce the phosphorous requirements.
- humid acid - is again more for organics. Basically, anything not in a salt form, needs to be broken down by micro organisms to be made usable by the plant.
- kelp - again, more for organics.
As for terp booster and sweetener, that depends on what is in them that can throw off that K:Mg:Ca ratio or pH, too much K in it and problems can occur.
Hopefully the above gives you a basic understanding of what takes place at the roots of our plants, regardless of the medium they are grown in.
Now back to organic soils and why they tend to be much more forgiving than other methods.
All the amendments we put into the soil, contain the required nutrients, but they are locked up in forms the plant can not access. We have to rely on microorganisms (bacteria, fungi, etc) to break it down into usable forms (ions). Because this process is not instant, takes weeks and months, we can load the soil up with much higher nutrient levels than can be done with salt form nutrients so long as we maintain the above mentioned balance.
Aside from the slow process of breaking down the nutrients, the plant has the ability to adjust the pH immediately around the root allowing it to regulate what nutrients to absorb. You can still get nute burn, but it’s usually associated with over watering that affects the plants ability to adjust pH around the root.
Hopefully that covered your questions without wandering too far off into the wilderness which I am prone to doing
- Thread starter
- #88
SauronBlue
Well-Known Member
That didn't wander from the point at all, and was really easy to understand. I guess the answer to my question is that there is no simple way. The only reason I ask is because I keep hearing that one product from this line is GREAT, and one product from another line, but the manufacturer can only tell you how to mix it with their own line. I'm guessing that if I knew the NPK of the additive and how much ppm it added (say, so many ppm per g/gal added), then I'd be in a good place. I guess it's about time I got a truncheon.Morning @SauronBlue ,
When mixing organic soils, I base my mixes on what is “possible” and double it rather than what I will get. Basically, I am ensuring that the plant will not run out of needed nutes before I harvest. This works fine for organic soils, but cannot be applied to hydro and this is where the “balance” comes in.
This balance requires a level of chemistry above high school chemistry and is why few people attempt to create their own nutrients for hydro. This chemistry also includes the chemistry happening local to the roots (immediately next to the root).
As much as I don’t want to give lectures, I will give a basic chemistry lesson to help understand why hydro can so easily go south when you don’t follow the directions of the manufacturer.
Hydro nutrients are salts, specially treated which we can cover later, but salts none the less. Salts, like table salt, are compounds that when added to water, separate into ”free” ions.
- example: NaCl (table salt) & H2O (water) = Na+ & Cl- & H2O which is salt water, water that now has free Sodium and Chlorine ions floating around in it and if you evaporated the water, the ions would re-combine forming salt.
So, when we add the nutrients, we are adding salts that separate into their free ions in solution (water). Our 5 major nutrients for plant growth are:
Nitrogen (N), Phosphorus (P), Potassium (K), Magnesium (Mg) and Calcium (Ca)
Now picture a kids “ball pit” with 5 different coloured balls. This is your bucket of water and each of the coloured balls is one of the above nutrients. If there are equal numbers of each colour, our plant won’t grow or will have serious problems, we need that balance I spoke of because some of these balls have a greater attraction to the roots than others - this is the “lockout” that is spoken of. Also, the plants “wants” more of some colours than others, and if it’s not there, we get deficiencies.
Further the above by adding a 6th ball to represent our medium, water. Water is always our medium, even in soil, when doing the chemistry. Use blue as the colour of our water and any other 5 colours for the nutes. This will help with understanding ppm.
In our ball pit, we have 1 million balls, if we have 1 red ball and the rest blue, the red makes up 1ppm.
There are 2 different balances we need to be concerned with, the first being the ratio of our 5 coloured balls to the blue balls (enough tittering and whispering in the back
Back to the balance between our 5 major nutrients. Of these, it is K, Mg and Ca that are of most concern to us. These 3 are attracted to the roots by a similar mechanism, as ions (the form needed by the plant) they are positively charged with both Ca and Mg having a 2+ and K being 1+. Therefore it takes 2 K ions to equal 1 of the other two, so to have an equal balance between them, you would need 2 K balls, 1 Ca ball and 1 Mg ball. This would give each nute an equal chance of being attracted to the root. Now because the plant doesn’t use them in equal amounts, we can‘t have them equal in solution. In general, for every 2 Ca, we need 3 Mg and 8 K balls in solution. It’s the balance of these 3 that cause the majority of def/lock out issues.
This is why adding PK boosters to a high K feed like MegaCrop can go south in a hurry.
The actual processes are much more complex than I laid out above, but it gives a basic understanding of why issues occur.
Now back to this:
” if I add silica, myco, humic, kelp, terp booster, and sweetener, how would I know when I've pushed it too far, and how to balance things out?”
A lot of question there, and no “one fits all“ answer
- silica - depends on the form it’s in - often it’s in the form of Potassium Silicate which means you need to be mindful of the potassium (K) being added and the effect on pH. The silica it’s self is not something that affects the above mentioned balances.
- mycos - can be added to any medium but gain the most benefits in organics. They will also not affect the balance but could reduce the phosphorous requirements.
- humid acid - is again more for organics. Basically, anything not in a salt form, needs to be broken down by micro organisms to be made usable by the plant.
- kelp - again, more for organics.
As for terp booster and sweetener, that depends on what is in them that can throw off that K:Mg:Ca ratio or pH, too much K in it and problems can occur.
Hopefully the above gives you a basic understanding of what takes place at the roots of our plants, regardless of the medium they are grown in.
Now back to organic soils and why they tend to be much more forgiving than other methods.
All the amendments we put into the soil, contain the required nutrients, but they are locked up in forms the plant can not access. We have to rely on microorganisms (bacteria, fungi, etc) to break it down into usable forms (ions). Because this process is not instant, takes weeks and months, we can load the soil up with much higher nutrient levels than can be done with salt form nutrients so long as we maintain the above mentioned balance.
Aside from the slow process of breaking down the nutrients, the plant has the ability to adjust the pH immediately around the root allowing it to regulate what nutrients to absorb. You can still get nute burn, but it’s usually associated with over watering that affects the plants ability to adjust pH around the root.
Hopefully that covered your questions without wandering too far off into the wilderness which I am prone to doing
You, like many, say MegaCrop basically has it all, but then what about all the additives in, say the AN line? Do the plants not benefit from having different ratios depending on their current needs? How can a one-part nutrient adapt to these changes from seedling to late bloom? Is there no benefit to those nute plans that "cause" the plant to react by changing the ratios or adding supplements? People in universities, like Bugbee from your video, seem to prefer very simple nutrients, but dispensaries go with super complicated schedules. Sorry to abuse your teaching instincts LOL
The Celt
Well-Known Member
Morning @SauronBlue I take no abuse
Here’s a personal story that might help you understand the reason behind all the different products and claims by those manufacturers of nutrients:
In my late teens, I took up fly fishing and fly tying. At one point, I started selling flies to a local shop. When I took the first order in, the old fella, that owned the store, asked me to put more hackle on the dry flies. I asked him why, thinking that they would become too bushy.
His reply - “when you tie flies to fish, any old fly will catch fish. When you tie flies to sell, you are trying to catch the fisherman, not the fish”
The same holds true for all those nutrient companies, their products will all work, but their main focus isn’t growing plants, it’s making money. To do that, they have to convince growers that their product is somehow better than the product on the next shelve over. That is the simplest answer and for the most part true.
Some companies do have better products than others, but it is more in the way the nutrients are “packaged” and the form they are supplied, rather than the ratios of the various components.
As I said previously, nutes for hydro are supplied in “salt” form which dissolves into ions that the plant can use. The problem with salts in solution is they can interact and cause all sorts of unwanted chemical reactions. To get around this is where the “packaging” comes into play. The salts are “chelated” to prevent these interactions. Think of it as a shell around the salt that prevents it from being able to interact with other salts but is able to be absorbed when it comes in contact with a root.
Now if you want to play with mix & matching different products, you still can but you may get unexpected interactions like pH swing.
I don’t remember off the top of my head what the ppm are for each of the 3 primary nutes are, but 150 ppm N seems to come to mind. If that is right, then Dr Bugbee is using 150 ppm N, 75 ppm P and 150 ppm K.
So, here I have some Fox Farm I bought years ago and never used
3 - 2 - 6 refers to the NPK as you know, but that is actually the percentages of those 3 in solution.
3% N, 2% P and 6% K. So now if I want to make a feed with 150ppm N, here is a rough and dirty approach that is close enough for most cases.
In its concentrated form, it contains 3% N which converts to 3000ppm (each 1% is equal to 1000ppm) To get that down to 150 ppm, I need to dilute it 20x (3000/150 =20).
So if I add 5ml of concentrate to 995ml of water, I get 1 litre of 150ppm N, 100ppm P and 300ppm K.
Now if you were using dry salts to make feed, it becomes MUCH more complicated and is why few people outside corporate labs attempt it. It requires a solid understanding of organic chemistry and associated math skills. It’s too much work to bother with when companies already have products that work.
For the most part, I will stick to organic grows, they are much more forgiving and easier/cheaper than bottled nutes
I take no abuse Here’s a personal story that might help you understand the reason behind all the different products and claims by those manufacturers of nutrients:
In my late teens, I took up fly fishing and fly tying. At one point, I started selling flies to a local shop. When I took the first order in, the old fella, that owned the store, asked me to put more hackle on the dry flies. I asked him why, thinking that they would become too bushy.
His reply - “when you tie flies to fish, any old fly will catch fish. When you tie flies to sell, you are trying to catch the fisherman, not the fish”
The same holds true for all those nutrient companies, their products will all work, but their main focus isn’t growing plants, it’s making money. To do that, they have to convince growers that their product is somehow better than the product on the next shelve over. That is the simplest answer and for the most part true.
Some companies do have better products than others, but it is more in the way the nutrients are “packaged” and the form they are supplied, rather than the ratios of the various components.
As I said previously, nutes for hydro are supplied in “salt” form which dissolves into ions that the plant can use. The problem with salts in solution is they can interact and cause all sorts of unwanted chemical reactions. To get around this is where the “packaging” comes into play. The salts are “chelated” to prevent these interactions. Think of it as a shell around the salt that prevents it from being able to interact with other salts but is able to be absorbed when it comes in contact with a root.
Now if you want to play with mix & matching different products, you still can but you may get unexpected interactions like pH swing.
I don’t remember off the top of my head what the ppm are for each of the 3 primary nutes are, but 150 ppm N seems to come to mind. If that is right, then Dr Bugbee is using 150 ppm N, 75 ppm P and 150 ppm K.
So, here I have some Fox Farm I bought years ago and never used
3 - 2 - 6 refers to the NPK as you know, but that is actually the percentages of those 3 in solution.
3% N, 2% P and 6% K. So now if I want to make a feed with 150ppm N, here is a rough and dirty approach that is close enough for most cases.
In its concentrated form, it contains 3% N which converts to 3000ppm (each 1% is equal to 1000ppm) To get that down to 150 ppm, I need to dilute it 20x (3000/150 =20).
So if I add 5ml of concentrate to 995ml of water, I get 1 litre of 150ppm N, 100ppm P and 300ppm K.
Now if you were using dry salts to make feed, it becomes MUCH more complicated and is why few people outside corporate labs attempt it. It requires a solid understanding of organic chemistry and associated math skills. It’s too much work to bother with when companies already have products that work.
For the most part, I will stick to organic grows, they are much more forgiving and easier/cheaper than bottled nutes
MotaMan420
Well-Known Member
How about just treating the thing as what it is a damn weed.. How many times do we attack our backyard weed and it keeps coming back and back again... same with this weed .. Feed it , water it, and harvest it..
I started with and still use my 600 W and just added 3 side lites 52 w each for a total of 756 w and last year was my best with an 81% gram / watt return.. I use Fox Farm - Ocean Forest - I just started using Natures Pride nutes - they are a topical for the soil..
I usually do not fertilize till flower -- if plants are crappin out it could be genetics of the seed.. But I keep it as simple as possible and it my grows are great... I harvest in April and here it still is cool so I hang my harvest in my garage with a fan on them, takes around 10 days for the final ok to pull off of strings...
Snip buds offs store in jars - in freezer... I have not one problem using this system and I smoke delicious buds all year long ... The less bullshit used the less headache .
MotaMan
I started with and still use my 600 W and just added 3 side lites 52 w each for a total of 756 w and last year was my best with an 81% gram / watt return.. I use Fox Farm - Ocean Forest - I just started using Natures Pride nutes - they are a topical for the soil..
I usually do not fertilize till flower -- if plants are crappin out it could be genetics of the seed.. But I keep it as simple as possible and it my grows are great... I harvest in April and here it still is cool so I hang my harvest in my garage with a fan on them, takes around 10 days for the final ok to pull off of strings...
Snip buds offs store in jars - in freezer... I have not one problem using this system and I smoke delicious buds all year long ... The less bullshit used the less headache .
MotaMan
The Celt
Well-Known Member
Very much the same reason I grow in LOS @MotaMan420 . So long as my watering system is working (that’s Mother Nature outdoors) it becomes a set-and-forget grow and I can be away for weeks and not worry about my plants.
- Thread starter
- #92
SauronBlue
Well-Known Member
I've gotta say, I hate this kind of comparison and over-simplification as a reply to people having issues. Cannabis may grow "like a weed", but unlike random dandelions in your yard, we actually care how they grow, not just that they survive. I let the humidity rise, I'll get mold and can't smoke the buds; I let the heat rise and I'll get larfy popcorn buds; I let light leak in, I'll get hermie's with reduced yield and quality and worthless seeds; too cold, too much or too little water or nutes, etc. All of these scenarios have a surviving plant, but we aren't just looking for the plant to survive, but to harvest many potent buds as well. I wish everyone would stop with how simple it all is , BECAUSE IT IS NOT, or I'd have to be a moron to be here asking questions, like a great many of us are, or there would be no need for these forums, other than to show off. It's minimizing of our issues and just dismissive in my opinion. You've managed to get your regimen streamlined, and that's great for you, but one thing gets out of whack and you'll be trying to fix it, no matter how "complicated" the answer is. You could do everything right, but have no cal-mag in your water or bad ph and have everything literally die, so I just don't see how people expect everyone to have an easy go just because they themselves were lucky enough to stumble on the right combination early. And every little variable like how humid your area is, what your water composition is, what media and strain you use, etc. will have an effect on those results. What is basic to accomplish in Arizona might take lots of effort to simulate in Maine. Believe me, if I had an easy time over any of the last decade, I would not be looking past my success to needlessly comlipicate things, and if I did, I would know how to easily get back to basics, but other people's basics are not working for me. I have added thousands of dollars of equipment over time because starting off with a simple setup did not work, I needed heat control, then humidity control, more light, and on and on. It has been anything but "simple" for me to get quality bud out of any of these plants. Worthless, harsh, weak, larfy, loose popcorn buds; now those are simple
@The Celt, You are a true gem, I feel like I owe you a consulting feeMorning @SauronBlue
Here’s a personal story that might help you understand the reason behind all the different products and claims by those manufacturers of nutrients:
In my late teens, I took up fly fishing and fly tying. At one point, I started selling flies to a local shop. When I took the first order in, the old fella, that owned the store, asked me to put more hackle on the dry flies. I asked him why, thinking that they would become too bushy.
His reply - “when you tie flies to fish, any old fly will catch fish. When you tie flies to sell, you are trying to catch the fisherman, not the fish”
The same holds true for all those nutrient companies, their products will all work, but their main focus isn’t growing plants, it’s making money. To do that, they have to convince growers that their product is somehow better than the product on the next shelve over. That is the simplest answer and for the most part true.
Some companies do have better products than others, but it is more in the way the nutrients are “packaged” and the form they are supplied, rather than the ratios of the various components.
As I said previously, nutes for hydro are supplied in “salt” form which dissolves into ions that the plant can use. The problem with salts in solution is they can interact and cause all sorts of unwanted chemical reactions. To get around this is where the “packaging” comes into play. The salts are “chelated” to prevent these interactions. Think of it as a shell around the salt that prevents it from being able to interact with other salts but is able to be absorbed when it comes in contact with a root.
Now if you want to play with mix & matching different products, you still can but you may get unexpected interactions like pH swing.
I don’t remember off the top of my head what the ppm are for each of the 3 primary nutes are, but 150 ppm N seems to come to mind. If that is right, then Dr Bugbee is using 150 ppm N, 75 ppm P and 150 ppm K.
So, here I have some Fox Farm I bought years ago and never used
3 - 2 - 6 refers to the NPK as you know, but that is actually the percentages of those 3 in solution.
3% N, 2% P and 6% K. So now if I want to make a feed with 150ppm N, here is a rough and dirty approach that is close enough for most cases.
In its concentrated form, it contains 3% N which converts to 3000ppm (each 1% is equal to 1000ppm) To get that down to 150 ppm, I need to dilute it 20x (3000/150 =20).
So if I add 5ml of concentrate to 995ml of water, I get 1 litre of 150ppm N, 100ppm P and 300ppm K.
Now if you were using dry salts to make feed, it becomes MUCH more complicated and is why few people outside corporate labs attempt it. It requires a solid understanding of organic chemistry and associated math skills. It’s too much work to bother with when companies already have products that work.
For the most part, I will stick to organic grows, they are much more forgiving and easier/cheaper than bottled nutes
I guess I assumed that, like medicine, the NPK numbers were a percent of the "active" ingredients, and that they would be suspended in water (why I hear people say they like dry nutes; more powerful, not paying for water). The math is a little off, 1% of a million is 10k, so the ppms you listed would be x10. The directions are to add 2-3tsp (10-15ml) to a gallon of water, but the math says closer to 2ml/gal. But can a solution even be 1m ppm? Wouldn't it have to be less to allow for some water to be part of that total ppm, or it would be thicker and thicker solution, until it was a complete solid at 1m ppm? I can't imagine that I could calculate each bottle of nutes I have as 1m ppm per g, before adding to water. Some seem like they're mostly water. In my head, I was thinking of adding 5ml to a gal or a l, and record the increase.
Maybe I'm just a difficult student, but I'm having a bit of a time with nutrients that are already in fully soluable liquid form, to easily mix and test (for ph, ppm), I can't get around my stumbling blocks to see how it can be easier making a mix of a bunch of powders, that then have to react with the soil (with varying levels of solubility, time to release or become active [slow bone meal]), Which then sits in the soil, with no way to measure what's left (I assume the heavier you water, the faster you deplete the nutes by washing them away) or what reaction happened after you add water (how did it affect ph, what ppm is the water grabbing from the soil and carrying to the roots). It seems exponentially more complicated than having a mix in my hand that I can check all the details of, know they are available now for absorption, and only worry how it will hold up over the next few days, until I reset the medium with a new batch, rinsing away any mistakes from the last feeding by getting good runoff.
I did an experiment to test the math against a couple of simple nute lines lines I had lying around, but it probably only highlights how much I don't get it. I have some flora duo a and b, when combined they have a grow ratio of 16-5-22 (when mixed 3 parts a to 1 part b). The water I used was 127ppm, the nutes themselves came up to 2500 ppm, but it was weird, as it was hovering at 1300, then shot up, but it stayed there after stirring around, so w.e. When 5ml of this is mixed into 1l of water, the solution came to 900ppm. I would say that 5ml of this added 775ppm, or 155ppm/ml total, so wouldn't I measure 16% of that as my total nitrogen ppm added, or 25ppm? But then, that can't mean 2.5ml(1kml/l), because I only put in 5ml of total nutes, so I'm just down the rabbit hole again.
The BC Grow/Boost was just as confusing. I don't have any 1-part liquid nutes, and my brain is now too tired to even consider trying to calculate MegaCrop's dry formulaI get what you mean about adding bells and whistles to add to the sticker price, and while in many (non-cannabis, real-world)cases, you may not get as good a value with the extras, but it's not like they contribute NOTHING. Are you saying that all the extras, like terp boosters, trichome boosters, sweeteners, vigor enhancers, stem hardeners; all of that stuff is just useless junk? It would seem that if there is a finite amount of ppm before you hurt or over-burden the plant, then anything not NEEDED or at least DESIRED by the plant is actually detrimental to the process, so what I'm hearing is that 90% of what people are buying is counter-productive to growing quality cannabis.
I personally can’t reply back to anyone that wants to seem like they have an attitude! It’s like why get on here and waste your time if it wasn’t for a passion and an opinion that’s positive to help spread the word for cannibis not the other way around! This place is for passion/art/and a belief that cannibis is what it truly is. Also if this plant was like a normal weed everyone on earth be tossing seeds everywhere they went. And let me tell ya I’ve done that more than I’d like to admit and not once did one come back up like weeds would grow on the norm.(maybe a few made it lmao but still if the soil wasn’t fertile like some no till farms I know of have then chances of getting cannibis cup quality Is veryyy low!! In my opinion that is but I also treat growing as art and like I’ve mentioned many times before that this is also a way of life to some of us, and to have let down in the gardens mean a let down of many patients that depend on this gift of nature! That’s no fun!! Keep up the passion everyone reading this we really need that kind of atmosphere around here especially with all the crazy crap going on in this world! No more negativity gezzzzz lol!I've gotta say, I hate this kind of comparison and over-simplification as a reply to people having issues. Cannabis may grow "like a weed", but unlike random dandelions in your yard, we actually care how they grow, not just that they survive. I let the humidity rise, I'll get mold and can't smoke the buds; I let the heat rise and I'll get larfy popcorn buds; I let light leak in, I'll get hermie's with reduced yield and quality and worthless seeds; too cold, too much or too little water or nutes, etc. All of these scenarios have a surviving plant, but we aren't just looking for the plant to survive, but to harvest many potent buds as well. I wish everyone would stop with how simple it all is , BECAUSE IT IS NOT, or I'd have to be a moron to be here asking questions, like a great many of us are, or there would be no need for these forums, other than to show off. It's minimizing of our issues and just dismissive in my opinion. You've managed to get your regimen streamlined, and that's great for you, but one thing gets out of whack and you'll be trying to fix it, no matter how "complicated" the answer is. You could do everything right, but have no cal-mag in your water or bad ph and have everything literally die, so I just don't see how people expect everyone to have an easy go just because they themselves were lucky enough to stumble on the right combination early. And every little variable like how humid your area is, what your water composition is, what media and strain you use, etc. will have an effect on those results. What is basic to accomplish in Arizona might take lots of effort to simulate in Maine. Believe me, if I had an easy time over any of the last decade, I would not be looking past my success to needlessly comlipicate things, and if I did, I would know how to easily get back to basics, but other people's basics are not working for me. I have added thousands of dollars of equipment over time because starting off with a simple setup did not work, I needed heat control, then humidity control, more light, and on and on. It has been anything but "simple" for me to get quality bud out of any of these plants. Worthless, harsh, weak, larfy, loose popcorn buds; now those are simple
@The Celt, You are a true gem, I feel like I owe you a consulting fee
I guess I assumed that, like medicine, the NPK numbers were a percent of the "active" ingredients, and that they would be suspended in water (why I hear people say they like dry nutes; more powerful, not paying for water). The math is a little off, 1% of a million is 10k, so the ppms you listed would be x10. The directions are to add 2-3tsp (10-15ml) to a gallon of water, but the math says closer to 2ml/gal. But can a solution even be 1m ppm? Wouldn't it have to be less to allow for some water to be part of that total ppm, or it would be thicker and thicker solution, until it was a complete solid at 1m ppm? I can't imagine that I could calculate each bottle of nutes I have as 1m ppm per g, before adding to water. Some seem like they're mostly water. In my head, I was thinking of adding 5ml to a gal or a l, and record the increase.
Maybe I'm just a difficult student, but I'm having a bit of a time with nutrients that are already in fully soluable liquid form, to easily mix and test (for ph, ppm), I can't get around my stumbling blocks to see how it can be easier making a mix of a bunch of powders, that then have to react with the soil (with varying levels of solubility, time to release or become active [slow bone meal]), Which then sits in the soil, with no way to measure what's left (I assume the heavier you water, the faster you deplete the nutes by washing them away) or what reaction happened after you add water (how did it affect ph, what ppm is the water grabbing from the soil and carrying to the roots). It seems exponentially more complicated than having a mix in my hand that I can check all the details of, know they are available now for absorption, and only worry how it will hold up over the next few days, until I reset the medium with a new batch, rinsing away any mistakes from the last feeding by getting good runoff.
I did an experiment to test the math against a couple of simple nute lines lines I had lying around, but it probably only highlights how much I don't get it. I have some flora duo a and b, when combined they have a grow ratio of 16-5-22 (when mixed 3 parts a to 1 part b). The water I used was 127ppm, the nutes themselves came up to 2500 ppm, but it was weird, as it was hovering at 1300, then shot up, but it stayed there after stirring around, so w.e. When 5ml of this is mixed into 1l of water, the solution came to 900ppm. I would say that 5ml of this added 775ppm, or 155ppm/ml total, so wouldn't I measure 16% of that as my total nitrogen ppm added, or 25ppm? But then, that can't mean 2.5ml(1kml/l), because I only put in 5ml of total nutes, so I'm just down the rabbit hole again.
I get what you mean about adding bells and whistles to add to the sticker price, and while in many (non-cannabis, real-world)cases, you may not get as good a value with the extras, but it's not like they contribute NOTHING. Are you saying that all the extras, like terp boosters, trichome boosters, sweeteners, vigor enhancers, stem hardeners; all of that stuff is just useless junk? It would seem that if there is a finite amount of ppm before you hurt or over-burden the plant, then anything not NEEDED or at least DESIRED by the plant is actually detrimental to the process, so what I'm hearing is that 90% of what people are buying is counter-productive to growing quality cannabis.
MotaMan420
Well-Known Member
The bad attitudes -- geeeesh -- what I was trying to just say when we complicate things then they get out of hand.. I use cal / mag , just started silicates (great results) .. But once again only when I see problems ... I don't have fancy gizmos , thermometers, humidifiers -- nothing just old time -- and I do good -- If I can grow u can too....
If ya start out with good soil then things should be fine for a while.. again maybe bad genetics with seed.. I had two white widows from same seed lot .. one grew like shit --nothing helped.. now I'm growin the second one now and it's doin great.. and it's all the same , haven't changed..
Used to grow in hydroponics in the 80's .. set it and forget it.. plants grew way too big for my basement at that time.. so dirt it was.. Take a step back , do it simple and then see if you have problems..
MotaMan
If ya start out with good soil then things should be fine for a while.. again maybe bad genetics with seed.. I had two white widows from same seed lot .. one grew like shit --nothing helped.. now I'm growin the second one now and it's doin great.. and it's all the same , haven't changed..
Used to grow in hydroponics in the 80's .. set it and forget it.. plants grew way too big for my basement at that time.. so dirt it was.. Take a step back , do it simple and then see if you have problems..
MotaMan
Kiss=Keep it simply soil
Exactly!
MotaMan420
Well-Known Member
Just one more thing --- I just want to ask everyone to be safe with this virus shit goin on ..
MotaMan
MotaMan
- Thread starter
- #97
SauronBlue
Well-Known Member
My reply may seem like a bad attitude to you, but I feel I made a well-explained point. I'm asking for help, and MANY times when I see people reply in any forum, there is this air of superiority in some of the answers, like the people asking are too dumb to get out of their own way and can't see that it's so easy a child could do it - that seems like a bad attitude to me. To assume that we are just complicating things for no reason is an unreasonable assumption, and the "advice" of keeping things simple doesn't actually give any useful info. Now, if the follow-up to that statement was a simplified checklist of the bare necessities to hit in order to have a good, potent harvest, then I'd consider it reasonable advice, whether or not I agree. "Feed it, water it, harvest it" does not make up even a simplified instruction, it's just a joke, and not one that's funny if you're actually struggling with REAL problems that you're trying to fix. And what is complicated to the average person with some houseplants is not even scratching the surface in the complicated world of growing quality buds, so who decides where the line is between simple and complex? I didn't go out on day 1 and buy some uber-complicated grow setup, with every add-on and the most complicated nutes; as I said, I started off very small, with a 3x3 tent, a 600w HPS light, a very basic starter nutrient pack and some soil. I added things only as I realized I might need them to get to the next level, then the next- all the while just looking for a good result. If this advice was that good, I'd have had the best results at the most simple point, but I didn't. Things have gotten better and better as I've complicated things more and more in my search for the combination that will unlock the results I'm searching for. Exasperation, frustration, maybe, but not attitude. Just because I don't agree with you does not mean I'm giving you attitude.
PS.If a thermometer is a fancy gizmo, then there's no way I can get as simple as you and have any success, because my very first issue was too much light/heat frying my plants. Even now, I need to keep an eye on my temps bc they can get too high after hours with the lights on and ac off (ac on lowers the higher temp that pushes growth with CO2 and also sucks the CO2 out of the room), and too cold after hours of ac at night, so I've even got to adjust the timers to allow for that - ac complication plus timer complication to simply keep them growing at a healthy rate
The Celt
Well-Known Member
I feel your frustration mate and you are right, my math was off 10x, blame it on the smoke
See if I can ease some of it
When I refer to organics and LOS (living organic soil) we are relying on microbes to break down the nutrients needed. Without getting too technical, plants absorb nutrients differently in organics than they do with bottled/chemical nutes.
Biology lesson next
In the case of manufactured nutes, these are absorbed as salt ions and this is where burn can happen. Nutrients are absorbed through osmosis. For those that don’t remember or didn’t take high school biology, water will always move from a purer source to a impure source. So when the concentration of nutes in the plant cells is lower than the tank, water (and nutes) move into the cell. If the concentration is too high in the tank, it causes too many nutes to enter the cells and literally dehydrates them, nute burn.
This is why you cannot put enough nutrients into your reservoir, all at once, for the complete grow.
Now in LOS, a very different process is used to absorb nutrients and is why nute burn in organics is rare. The process for nitrogen uptake was only recently discovered/proven and I will go over its process.
It’s been long known that plants share a symbiotic relationship with certain bacteria and fungi (mycos). It turns out that for the nitrogen process, the plant actually “breeds” these bacteria in organic systems. The roots release an enzyme that attracts these bacteria and the root actually sucks them in. The root cells are designed in such a way that they can pull the bacteria through the cell wall, but contain them in a space between the wall and the actual cell so they don’t hurt the cell. In this space, the cell releases an acid (might be a base) that dissolves the outer layer on the bacteria shell containing N which is absorbed by the cell. At the same time it breaks up the bacteria’s genetic material and at some point ejects this genetic material back into the soil where it grows (multiplies) into more bacteria. I recently read the paper and watched an electron microscope video of the process, was quite interesting.
As this process involves no salt ions, it’s rare to get burn in organic grows.
In regards to terp boosters, sweeteners, etc, one of the main components in these are often carbohydrates (sugars) and they do provide benefits. Plants do use sugars, especially during flowering, but again it can be over done. I really don’t know the process by which sugars are absorbed, so I wonder about their use with non organic feeds, I really don’t know as I have, until this year, always grown in LOS.
Other “bloom” supplements are mostly PK boosters with high levels of K and little no N. This is fine if the K doesn’t climb too high and cause MagCal issues. Plants do use more K when in flower but they still need the N. As long as the plant is growing, it needs N. Nitrogen is a component of chlorophyll.
The reason MegaCrop works as a one part, start-to-finish feed is because it has very high K, but not high enough to cause lockout issues in a buffered medium like ProMix. You can add PK booster, but I am not sure you gain anything by doing so. You can also add the terp boosters, sweeteners etc, but again, not being an organic medium and because I don’t know if organics are required for the plant to make use of them, I can’t tell you one way or the other if they make a difference
I’ll end it there for now, getting quite fried and likely to start rambling If I missed anything or you have questions, give a shout, I’ll do my best to help before my meds mess too much with my ability to type
and you are right, my math was off 10x, blame it on the smoke See if I can ease some of it
When I refer to organics and LOS (living organic soil) we are relying on microbes to break down the nutrients needed. Without getting too technical, plants absorb nutrients differently in organics than they do with bottled/chemical nutes.
Biology lesson next
In the case of manufactured nutes, these are absorbed as salt ions and this is where burn can happen. Nutrients are absorbed through osmosis. For those that don’t remember or didn’t take high school biology, water will always move from a purer source to a impure source. So when the concentration of nutes in the plant cells is lower than the tank, water (and nutes) move into the cell. If the concentration is too high in the tank, it causes too many nutes to enter the cells and literally dehydrates them, nute burn.
This is why you cannot put enough nutrients into your reservoir, all at once, for the complete grow.
Now in LOS, a very different process is used to absorb nutrients and is why nute burn in organics is rare. The process for nitrogen uptake was only recently discovered/proven and I will go over its process.
It’s been long known that plants share a symbiotic relationship with certain bacteria and fungi (mycos). It turns out that for the nitrogen process, the plant actually “breeds” these bacteria in organic systems. The roots release an enzyme that attracts these bacteria and the root actually sucks them in. The root cells are designed in such a way that they can pull the bacteria through the cell wall, but contain them in a space between the wall and the actual cell so they don’t hurt the cell. In this space, the cell releases an acid (might be a base) that dissolves the outer layer on the bacteria shell containing N which is absorbed by the cell. At the same time it breaks up the bacteria’s genetic material and at some point ejects this genetic material back into the soil where it grows (multiplies) into more bacteria. I recently read the paper and watched an electron microscope video of the process, was quite interesting.
As this process involves no salt ions, it’s rare to get burn in organic grows.
In regards to terp boosters, sweeteners, etc, one of the main components in these are often carbohydrates (sugars) and they do provide benefits. Plants do use sugars, especially during flowering, but again it can be over done. I really don’t know the process by which sugars are absorbed, so I wonder about their use with non organic feeds, I really don’t know as I have, until this year, always grown in LOS.
Other “bloom” supplements are mostly PK boosters with high levels of K and little no N. This is fine if the K doesn’t climb too high and cause MagCal issues. Plants do use more K when in flower but they still need the N. As long as the plant is growing, it needs N. Nitrogen is a component of chlorophyll.
The reason MegaCrop works as a one part, start-to-finish feed is because it has very high K, but not high enough to cause lockout issues in a buffered medium like ProMix. You can add PK booster, but I am not sure you gain anything by doing so. You can also add the terp boosters, sweeteners etc, but again, not being an organic medium and because I don’t know if organics are required for the plant to make use of them, I can’t tell you one way or the other if they make a difference
I’ll end it there for now, getting quite fried and likely to start rambling
If I missed anything or you have questions, give a shout, I’ll do my best to help before my meds mess too much with my ability to type
Hey that wasn’t meant to say you had the bad attitude buddy I was just pointing out seeing the post before yours just seemed like it was a frustration someone having. I actually was hearting your text to show proof of good attitude you had showing your frustration with people that want to say growing is as easy as growing grass! So don’t get me mixed up with calling you out I actually wasn’t trying to call anyone out when I see frustrations in the air when it comes to growing cannibis I just try to help change the air some because if you grow weed you should have a blessed life and happy. All love here guys so don’t think I’m trying to poop on anybodys parade now gezz. Lol like I’ll say again all love here guys!!!!
Break it down.