The Hempire Strikes Back!

[Bearded Budz]

Like I said I m not too familiar with the Hempy set up and or how it s nutrient take up specialties work but I ll throw whatever info I have your way if it can help in any way. When I contacted my nutrient line co. they advised me to ph water before adding nutrients. They said not to worry about the climb in ph after adding, it should even out in the medium..... TDS sounds a little low as well esp considering whatever you add for ph ing up and down adds to the TDS, which from what I ve heard should be added to that plants recomended TDS for a feed. I ve read most plants handle well in the 1200 - 1500 ppm range.... A guy should be able to look up recomended ppm ranges for feeding on the specific strain you are growing. I personally feel you might need to boost your nutrients but and ph first but like I said, the whole Hempy thing throws me for a loop, and intrigues the hell out of me! I hope there might be a tid bit of info or validity to what I ve said here and that my help you out. Good luck buddy, you ll get this!!

 

[lexort420]

It looks good to me too Lex, though I use a different nutrient system than you.
What are the homemade ph+ and ph- that you use?

Homemade ph up is a decent bit of baking soda put in distilled water in a little dropper bottle. Ph down is simply apple cider vinegar put in a dropper bottle

 

[lexort420]

All seems good.
I would expect your ph to rise a bit over the next hours. Mine does.

You guys all had me thinking and i had wanted to put it lower and let it rise but in the first adjustment I overshot 5.8 which was what i was gonna try.

 

[lexort420]

Like I said I m not too familiar with the Hempy set up and or how it s nutrient take up specialties work but I ll throw whatever info I have your way if it can help in any way. When I contacted my nutrient line co. they advised me to ph water before adding nutrients. They said not to worry about the climb in ph after adding, it should even out in the medium..... TDS sounds a little low as well esp considering whatever you add for ph ing up and down adds to the TDS, which from what I ve heard should be added to that plants recomended TDS for a feed. I ve read most plants handle well in the 1200 - 1500 ppm range.... A guy should be able to look up recomended ppm ranges for feeding on the specific strain you are growing. I personally feel you might need to boost your nutrients but and ph first but like I said, the whole Hempy thing throws me for a loop, and intrigues the hell out of me! I hope there might be a tid bit of info or validity to what I ve said here and that my help you out. Good luck buddy, you ll get this!!

Im not sure if phing the water before in my case would be a good idea since i mix the nutes into distilled water and i haven't been able to even get a reading that was stable in distilled water and thats before adding anything lol. In the matter of my ppms i kinda just feel with smaller amounts of ppm i can feed almost every watering i say almost cause i usually give them just cal mag water when flushing and i flush when i feel salts possibly could be building up or some other paranoid reason lol.

 

[lexort420]

The final verdict is in cause i had my sleep and just now checked the batch of nutes after letting them sit while i sleep.
Oddly the ppms went down slightly PPM 710 and the ph is slightly higher but barely lol PH 5.92 so its barely different from when i went to sleep this morning. Before i slept PPM was 715 and the PH was 5.91 so you can see there hasn't been much change. Is that ph ok? You all had me second guessing myself lol

 

[Weaselcracker]

With my sativas I don't go higher than 750 ppm at max, and I'm thinking I could go lower. Cheesy the solo cup plant only maxed out around 720 as well- though she got constant feedings.
Seems like we both need to get some side by side experiments going. So far my cloning efforts this summer are mostly failing.

 

[lexort420]

With my sativas I don't go higher than 750 ppm at max, and I'm thinking I could go lower. Cheesy the solo cup plant only maxed out around 720 as well- though she got constant feedings.
Seems like we both need to get some side by side experiments going. So far my cloning efforts this summer are mostly failing.

Ya i think side by side experiments are probably called for lol. Im still waiting on the clones i took to root but i think i took them on the 22nd so i suppose its still earlyish i guess. What do you think of my ph? I don't want to feed sally that batch til im sure its ok.

 

[Weaselcracker]

Hard for me to give you a decisive answer. That's why the side by side idea came to mind right away. 5.9 seems like a decent, middle of the road ph level. It's what I've generally fed my plants at for the last year or so, sometimes 5.7 or 5.8. Mostly they did well with that except when it pushed it to the low end and stayed around 5.6/ 5.7 for too long. But I'm growing in soilless- which supposedly has lime added- which tends to make the creep upward towards 7. From what I saw with my solo cups in coco and in perlite - the same thing happened without the lime. So I think you should be able to start low and expect a nice ph range to develop- as Tead points out. With my Mama Thai I don't seem to be able to start the range at such a low point.
I can't tell you much helpful info besides vague gibberish like this and more questions ???????? until I get to do some side by side testing- which should show very clearly how the plants react to different ranges.

 

[Tead]

Put up a cup of water ph'd to something in the mid 5 range.
Check it morning and night for the next 5 days.
Record your readings.
I did, and was somewhat surprised.

 

[lexort420]

Put up a cup of water ph'd to something in the mid 5 range.
Check it morning and night for the next 5 days.
Record your readings.
I did, and was somewhat surprised.

Alright i will do just that. Since i use distilled shouldn't i add something since it has nothing in it? And since im sure sally won't be able to wait the 5 days for me to experiment do you think 5.9 is a alright ph to give her? Its lower then what screwed her up.

 

[Tead]

Alright i will do just that. Since i use distilled shouldn't i add something since it has nothing in it? And since im sure sally won't be able to wait the 5 days for me to experiment do you think 5.9 is a alright ph to give her? Its lower then what screwed her up.

It's higher than I start, but ya know... that's my water and my world and all.
I start at 5.5 and drift up to about 6 over the 3 day cycle.
Osmos are different and drift the other way... but not quite as much.

 

[lexort420]

It's higher than I start, but ya know... that's my water and my world and all.
I start at 5.5 and drift up to about 6 over the 3 day cycle.
Osmos are different and drift the other way... but not quite as much.

What confuses me the most is the drift you speak of. Is that checking the runoff or is that before even watering? Sorry my brain ain't working with me lately.

 

[Tead]

It starts with a pretty high drift rate, but tapers off over time.

 

[lexort420]

It starts with a pretty high drift rate, but tapers off over time.

I feel like a dummy some days lol. So you ph to 5.5 because it drifts up from there? So how do you figure out what ph to ph at so it drifts through the proper range? I always thought that if i ph'd to 5.5 for example that i would cause certain nutrients to not be available to the plant like for instance calcium and magnesium since the charts show around 6.0 for their abosorbtion. See thats why i try to ph at around 6.0 so i dont lock stuff out. So for the experiment you suggested i do should i just ph plain distilled and watch it from there day and night for 5 days? I wanna be sure i understand correctly so i can learn this lesson.

 

[Weaselcracker]

Hey Lex- if I can jump in and give my 2c and then Tead can fill in the rest in the morning after he does his six am half-marathon or whatever?

I believe Tead is saying you should mix up a container full of nutrient mix and ph it as you normally would - just don't feed it to the plant- use it for testing purposes.
If your plant needs feeding now then just mix up a double size batch and save half for testing to see if the ph of it changes over time as it sits on your shelf.


Yes - the ph of the mix drifts upwards in the pot after you feed it to the plant.

The ph of the mix can drift upward even outside the pot- ie- in the mix container if you just mix it and leave it.

Why does it drift?
I don't know.

I'm finding my mix to stay stable overnight - but it's safe to say that as a general rule the ph of the nutrient mix will drift upwards over time.

I feel like a dummy some days lol. So you ph to 5.5 because it drifts up from there? So how do you figure out what ph to ph at so it drifts through the proper range? I always thought that if i ph'd to 5.5 for example that i would cause certain nutrients to not be available to the plant like for instance calcium and magnesium since the charts show around 6.0 for their abosorbtion.

Tead is saying that he adjusts his nute mix to 5.5.

I start at 5.5 and drift up to about 6 over the 3 day cycle.

.

It looks like you've sort of answered your question there. Yes - at a ph of 5.5 many nutrients are not available- but they become available as the ph rises. There is no one ph level that even works for all nutrients- though 5.8 seems to be as close as it gets.

The natural upward ph drift means that all nutrients should be available over time.

As to why your current ph routine doesn't seem to have been working out for you-
I'm not sure.
Maybe problems with the testing methods/ the meter? Maybe just a strain with different needs? Maybe a completely separate issue like feeding levels that are too high or low?

 

[Tead]

So for the experiment you suggested i do should i just ph plain distilled and watch it from there day and night for 5 days?

As I recall, I used nutrients and all the normal pieces of my feeding mix. You might consider testing both.
I'll be curious to see how different your results will be with a base of distilled water.

So how do you figure out what ph to ph at so it drifts through the proper range?

After I did the test, I looked at the chart and decided I liked the absorption rates some things at 5.5 and other things around 6.
While my main target remains 5.8, that exact number is on the very edges of some nutrient uptake ranges, so I start lower to get a good amount of uptake for those nutrients and then drift over 5.8 to do the same for nutrients on the other side.

 

[Tead]

Tead can fill in the rest in the morning after he does his six am half-marathon or whatever?

Am I that predictable?
I would add one thing. The testing really just shows PH in a non-active configuration. Plant uptake, temps, humidity, the size of your left nipple all seem to have some effect to varying degrees on these numbers... I honestly just have no way to get a handle on that actual number, so I decided to ignore it. I sometimes wonder if the PH doesn't actually vary at different levels of the pot.

 

[lexort420]

Well thought i would throw some pictures up lifes been a bit hectic for me lately and have been unable to do the test tead suggested i did notice however the ph does move up significantly after a day or two. Sally is looking a bit rough still its odd that her lower newer leaves are better shades of green but her tops are a mix of pale lime green to yellow. The two clones rooted so thats something lol

 

[Tead]

What's your magnesium situation? If memory serves... a mag def is one of the issues that hits the top 1/2 of the plant but lower growth appear normal.

 

[lexort420]

What's your magnesium situation? If memory serves... a mag def is one of the issues that hits the top 1/2 of the plant but lower growth appear normal.

Should be plenty of mag in the nutes i give them only thing i could think was the ph was locking it out. I been putting the ph to 5.5-5.6 and in about roughly 2 days the ph is up to 6.0 so far that has been what i have been able to observe with my nutes ph. I am glad you stopped by tead i do have a couple things i wanted to run by you cause i been researching my butt off. First i wanted to know your take on watering like do you give a dry period or ever let your hempy get light? I was thinking maybe that might be a problem on my end and i still stick to water when the container is light (aka dry) which the more i thought about it the more i realized that since hempys can't be overwatered maybe its meant to be wet all the time and from there that got me questioning if that is the case how often should i water. Second thing i was wondering was just more in general cause im curious, do feel as though your 2L is rootbound? Just curious on your findings i would figure hempys would be somewhat like airpots and air-prune the roots but im not familiar enough to be certain.