That’s the product I had analyzed and reversed for use in flower. Here’s the recipe:
1 Gallon 2:1 cal-mag supplement comprised of cytokinin-dominant kelp (Ascophyllum Nodosum), citric acid, magnesium chloride, calcium acetate, and magnesium acetate
Ca/Mg supplement (liquid concentrate)
Volume to prepare (final total volume in gallons) 1
Substance Name Amount(g)
(Make sure substances are completely dissolved before proceeding)
Addition order:
Kelp Extract Soluble Powder (Ascophyllum nodosum) 15 g
Citric Acid (77-92-9) 17 g
Magnesium Chloride (7786-30-3) 35 g
Calcium Acetate (62-54-4) 328 g
Magnesium Acetate (142-72-3 ) 189 g
3-5 ml/gallon final concentration drench or foliar
We used Kuo labs, who has very good service. Dr. Fernandez did the reverse analyses for us. I would like to support emdub to keep it F4200 local if he’s not too busy working his butt off.
It’s pretty easy to match the numbers using a combo of pekacid and mkp. Where I am stuck at the moment is that it remains stable in a jar test at 7.0 ph. Pekacid won’t do that, the phosphorous will react with calcium above 6.2ish pH. The only off the shelf product I know of that will do that is haifa grow clean, but that has significant ammonia in it and also won’t mix to 4 pH. @Medicine.grower lab doesn’t list NH4 testing, so I’m going to pull some samples and send them to think20 labs here. They do a lot of our r&d cannabinoid testing and offered some free tissue/fertigation testing. I’m reluctant to switch tissue labs because all of my data is from one lab.
One operator I work with that is trialing it switched ratios to 4 core, 5 bloom, 1 epsom. The tissue analysis wasn’t great on the 3/5 ratio, but I don’t own that data and an nda stops me from sharing it.
Have you considered the use of a co-monomer like itaconic acid? This could keep the mix shelf stable at differing pH. I used to work for a place that made itaconic acid polymers by fermenting corn, for dispersants, surfactants, and many other applications… Comes to mind when I read your last post.
I’m at 3.5 ec now under the hps and cmh, finally purple stems are 90% gone.
I’m going to keep an eye on my pwec and whenever that starts to rise up lower my ec.
I’m at day 4 of flower, feeding the 4 to 6.7 ratio. 60% veg 40% bloom.
What I’m starting to think is it depends on the pwec and not so much the feed ec, next time I refill my reservoir I think I’ll lower it to 3 then to 2.5 at the end of stretch.
What I see athena isn’t just paid advertising, I’m for sure not getting it anywhere close to for free.
I respect you guys and I don’t have the knowledge or background to fully understand all the different ratios required to grow good weed but this is working for me. I wish you guys could smell my room, the terps are definitely there.
That all being said athena is very much over priced. I’m still really interested in giving @emdub27 formula a try when you get the time to sort it out.
Here’s some Gary Payton at day 35, I ran 3.0 ec until the end of stretch and I’ve been at 2.5ec the last week. Only thing added is agt-50 once a week
I’m almost on the Athena Pro Line train. I have 2 people I work with doing their base, AGT-50 and Southern Ag Garden Friendly Fungicide instead of Cleanse. My buddy also wants to add Hygrozyme, or HyClean which I don’t see causing any issues.
Legally I have to say that I am being paid to promote Athena™ If anyone needs a promo code they can DM the local rep @ pattypan01 for 40% off any size order or for free samples
How much of the improvement would you attribute to your improved irrigation strategy? What do you think would happen if you used the same irrigation strategy with different salt ratios?
Nutritionally athena isn’t much different than HGV. They are both high potassium formulas that will pull good yield. My qualm with either in a commercial setting is that the K:Ca ratio is high. This antagonizes Ca absorption and limits our ability to add a meaningful amount (20ish ppm) of Si without antagonizing Ca further. Ca and Si are very important for pest and disease resistance and one of the ways we maintain in a strong plant that doesn’t need oil or soap sprays every 3 days even in the presence of high mite or pm pressure.
I have a functioning mix that hits the nutritionals exactly, but there is sedimentation upon mixing mainly due to SOP and it should not ever go above 6.0 pH to avoid precipitation. I have not figured out exactly what they are using to avoid precipitation at higher pH, that aspect is fairly important in large operations. I regularly measure high pH at the farthest emitter and find cal phosphate as well as iron sulfide in drip lines, so that tells me the average operator can’t correctly maintain pH.
You should try big time enzyme instead of hygrozyme if you like saving money and better products. Im a commercial distro for big time too. bigtimegardens.com
they put the micros in the cal nitrate so most growers dont realize they are buying a 17 dollar bag for 120 and only getting 25lbs instead of 50lbs…Yara Cal-nitrate plays really nice with jacks lineup of dry ferts
I attribute quite a bit of the improvement from my irrigation strategy but not all of it.
My buddy is runny all the exact same cuts as I am, he’s 10 days further into flower and the only 2 variables are he’s running jacks 321 and led vs my cmh.
He been following my advice on irrigation strategy and I think he’s doing a great job, but that being said he was here last night and said mine look nothing like that and he’s 10 days ahead of me.
I need a formula that mixes clean and don’t plug my drippers, happy medium for now is going to have to be purecal and athena bloom and veg.
I think by all the info you’ve dropped if I could ever get some cal prime and run that with the bloom it would be good a mix.
I’m currently having issues in my rockwool with low ph, looks like it could be pythium, next run will be the one lol
Fungal pathogens like pytium are the main reason I don’t like the athena ratios. Running a little hot on Ca with a healthy dose of Si goes a long way in preventing fungal outbreaks.
