Greetings all! Let's take a look in on my Doug's Varin on day 11.
Side view:
Oblique:
SaugaView®:
As I mentioned, it got its first nutes yesterday at 1.125g equivalent. For those who want a deeper dive into what that means, read on. If not, skip it! Here goes...
I mix my nutes from a combination of products to hit certain targets for the macro and micro nutrients as the plant grows. The ratio of these nutes pretty much stays the same from birth until late flower, so what changes is the concentration rate. It's based on the nitrogen ppm from the Greenleaf element calculator, raising the ppm of nitrogen (and therefore everything else) as the plant ages. So when I say 1.125g/gallon equivalent, I'm going from a base what of MC provides for N at 1.125g/gallon. That's 29ppm of N, and that number wasn't picked specifically. It's just my 4.5g eq. cut twice with plain water! I don't like mixing lots of different dilutions I'll hardly use, so I just add water to my standard mixes.
As the plant gets older, I'll raise that ppm pretty quickly until I get to a 4.5g/gallon equivalent for veg, which is ~116ppm of N. My plants happily stay there until flip.
So now you're wondering what the other nutrient amounts look like and I will try to channel my nute mentor
@MrSauga:
I'm looking to hit a 5-1-5 NPK ratio, with Ca at 50% of K, Mg at 50% of Ca, and sulfur at 10% of N. All these numbers are measured in ppm.
So using an example of 4.5g/gallon eq. (116ppm of nitrogen), I am aiming for 116-23-116 with Ca: 58, Mg: 29, and S: 12. (I never hit these exactly, but I try to come as close as I can with what I have.)
To this I add 50ppm of monosilicic acid (in veg), which is the most easily absorbed form of silica.
This mix is accomplished using:
MC v2
Ammonium Sulfate
Magnesium Nitrate
TPS calmag (0-0-0)
DutchPro Silica
And it's calculated using a piece of free software written by a PhD in nanoscience and nanotechnology. PM me if you're interested in more details on
that!
If I were growing in soil, I wouldn't need the Ammonium Sulfate (which is providing ammoniacal nitrogen), but because I'm in ProMix (peat-based), nitrate nitrogen alone raises the pH of that medium over a shorter time. I'm adding ammoniacal nitrogen to counteract that effect. [For more info on that, see the link in my signature:
Do we need to pH adjust our nutrient solutions?.]
NB: there are others here who follow a similar path with slightly different ratios, but we're all of a belief that plants do best with ratios that tend not to follow the traditional ones used by many fertilizer manufacturers. This is not to say you cannot grow big beautiful plants using their nutes. Many here have and have won OTM awards with them, including our sponsor that VG will be using here: Prescription Blend. Folks really like that lineup!
You take me so seriously!
Jeez! Rural living at its finest (or is it just for stealth?).
Was just 33* other nite LOL
it looks like both infants are having the best start.
2 bales of Pro Mix!
