There’s no direct answer to that. I generally start at 1Ca:1N and work from there. It’s pretty dependent on environment, typically the higher your vpd is, the more Ca you need in solution.
Sulfate really isn’t very antagonistic, so you can error higher on it.
I hate to keep asking questions in @Medicine.grower thread so let me apologize first but can I ask when and how can I start lowering Ca in flower? My Ca is at 227 ppm 4th week of flower. My K:Ca ratio is 1.3:1. I was of the mind that as I raise K in flower, I had to increase Ca and Mg to avoid antagonization. I worry about over accumulation of Ca (as well as my low brix.) contributing to bland flavors in my final product. I am running a 4-3-1 K:Ca:Mg ratio of that info is of any use. Thanks in advance and sorry again to keep asking questions here.
It’s hard to comment without tissue data. What you have in solution does not directly correlate to what the plant may or may not be absorbing. For example, Ca may be high enough to antagonize nitrate and therefore itself, but that’s hard to diagnose based on the data we have. You can test for it by slowly creeping up the Ca until you see purple petioles and narrow/whitish looking new growth, preferably in veg.
If you look at tissue data on flower material you will see that Ca is very low in the flower material. The needs of the plant change during flower and it is not necessarily necessary, lol to maintain the same cation ratios as veg.
Is there a reason you’re worried about excess Ca compared to anything else? I’ve never intentionally overapplied Ca during flower to see what would happen. I can tell you that if any of the macros are overapplied, terpenes suffer, I have data for that.
It’s because I consistently grow visually healthy plants that taste like absolutely nothing. I was speaking to a popular scientist who holds a phd in plant nutrition on another forum and he suggested an excess Ca accumulation in plant tissue being the culprit. He said my high Ca mix and the possibility of my media (coco) holding on to Ca, maybe causing a slight S antagonism. He suggested the more S I can get into the plant tissue, the more flavorful the end product will be. He also said that would be hard to achieve at a pH lower than 6.5. Like you, he said that none of that can be made for certain without tissue samples. I unfortunately do not have access to that.
Sounds like a hidden hunger situation, but I’m a lowly production hort guy, not a PhD. How big are your leaves? I need more data to comment further, like full nutritional profile. Within reason, the absolute value of any individual ion is less important than the ratios between ions. IME try to keep S around half of Ca and you’ll never see S issues. S doesn’t necessarily mean an abundance of flavor, if it did you wouldn’t be seeing 1.8% terpene flower grown on Athena(high S).
As long as you have some time you can figure out a pretty close to ideal NO3:Ca ratio on a veg plant. Do what I said above to find the upper limit. To find the lower limit slowly lower Ca until you start seeing stupid stretch and/or hollow stems. Somewhere between those limits is ideal.
Here’s a few recent pics from my gallery. I will have to get the actual profiles to you when I get home.
I’m in coco. Temps and Rh are 83/60 lights on start of week 4 of bloom. Lights out they’re at 78/55 if that’s any help.
Also wanted to add 3 plants in 1gal pots under a 250 watt Timber led with cree cobs. I do deal with high runoff pH and Ec as bloom progresses.
Based on appearances you’re not insanely off. They look just about like most plants when I first encounter them under led with purple petioles. I’ll look at the numbers when you get them.
Is smell and taste your only issue? Could be a dry and or cure problem.
Sorry for the late response. Long night at work and an hour drive back home but here are my profiles:
Veg:
N-156
P-30
K-222
Ca-170
Mg-55
S-74
Si-15.2.
beginning of week 4 of bloom I’m running
N-102
P-35
K-297
Ca-227
Mg-75
S-99
Si-0.
I’m also running 0.17gr of custom hydro nutes chelated micro mix for both mixes that put my Fe at 3.2 ppm. Can’t remember what the other micros came out at without plugging the numbers into hydro buddy first.
Taste and flavor, I would say, are my biggest issues. I thought it was maybe a dry/cure problem myself but, I have a climate controlled tent set for 60/60 and everything drys real nice in about 16 days. I used to use jars but go the turkey bag in a 5 gal bucket with a grommet lid route nowadays for my cure. The current cultivar I’m running now of Purple Poison Cookies seems to taste better with out the cure. Not sure why that would be.
Are you using any additives or just a basic 3 part salt mix?
I’ve been mixing up my own formulas using what I have on hand to hit targets. Currently I have,
Mg nitrate
K nitrate
MKP
MAP
Grow Clean
Mg Sulfate
SOP
Ca Acetate
Ca Nitrate.
Going to pick up some Cal Prime or Yara if I can find smaller bags. Also I Ca Edta but rarely use it.
I prefer the saltganic mix or whatever
But I’d be adding some microbes, humic/fulvics some carbohydrates and prob a compost tea product and you’ll get a lot better Terp profile
Some strains do taste/smell better uncured. Depends on the exact terpenes involved. Some are better unoxidized, some are better oxidized.
You are definitely pretty aggressive on the Ca. My personal grow is running less S relative to everything else than you are, so i woukdnt spend a lot of time there. Ca is pretty out of whack with N. I’m not to work yet, but I’m fairly certain that every custom mix I do ultimately settles around .8-1.2Ca:1N. I’m positive that they never go above the Ca ti N ratio that calprime is, I think it’s 1.35 or so. Don’t be scared of N, a healthy flower tissue analysis has almost as much N as K. I generally run the same N number all the way through a cycle.
Run flower P at about 60.
Time that potassium bump later. Going to 3K:1N is usually going to make the plants want to finish, but with Ca that high I’m not sure what it would do.
I would honestly encourage you to rework your numbers without Cal Acetate and work from there.
In general we use cal acetate at key points in some spots, but never for continuous fertigation. It can
I’ve never heard of the saltganic mix. What is that exactly? A blend of salts and organic inputs? I do use fulvic at 1 ml per gal throughout the whole grow and will usually dump some bennies in the hole when I transplant. I did make a few foliars out of some of the salts I have in hopes of isolating whatever ones increased my brix but, none seemed to have done that for me. 
My S is always high because of having to use the SOP and Epsom to fill my K and Mg values. I did get the K and Mg nitrate to fill some of those values and lower S but, they don’t leave much room for the Ca nitrate. I’ve always been of the mind, and just from talking to some people here, that N contributes to unpleasant flavors and, should be dropped almost completely by week 6 of bloom. I’ve been using the Ca Acetate to make up the Ca I lose from the Ca No3.
I’ve been running a 1.3:1 K:Ca ratio just because it seemed to be working for me. I’ve been running a 1.4:1 K:N ratio, mostly in the veg mix, because it gets me 7 pronged leaves. I can never seem to hit 9 or, 11 prongs.
Do you think I would be better off running my veg mix numbers and just tweak the P and K as I progress into bloom? I’m also not sure when I can start dropping Ca. Any suggestions on the ratio of K:Ca I can keep in bloom?
Sorry if I’m digging a little to deep. 
Yea organic inputs to more or less feed the roots but a lot of those things will help your essential oil production.
Obviously will depend on medium but there’s variations like salt feeds most of the week and teas on the weekend etc.
I personally think Athena recommends a bit to high of an ec. I Max out at like a 2.5-2.6 mid flower and have friends that run even lower with great results
Old habits are hard to kick but I’ll always use something like liquid budswel in any nutrient mix I run. But it’s the things like that to me that make the difference.
