Hi everyone, I’m a relatively new grower who is working with a new facility.
Although I have a background in basic chemistry, I’m having a hard time finding information on interpreting Tissue Analysis and changing the fertilizer sats to accommodate what the Tissue Analysis Says.
We are using HGV Bloom Mix on the standard ratios by the manufacturer. (I also got this liquid tested)
For example,from JR Peters Lab we got the following during week 5 flower half way through the light cycle (6 hours)
I also got the Second test showing C and N,
Nitrogen 4.17%
Carbon 37.04%
We are running an EC of 2.8 to 3.0, ph of 5.8
How do I use this information, to add salts to our fertilizer to adjust it?
(Using Calcium Sulfate, Nitrogen(urea), Potassium Sulfate, etc)
Any resources or help appreciated. How do I know any mineral is difficient?
I’m even willing to pay for a consultation to learn.
Thanks
There are definitely going to be people on the forum who can help, especially with an offer to pay for a consultation. Having said that, what did the lab who ran the analysis say?
Maybe I am fortunate, but the labs I have worked with that specialize in tissue analysis, sap analysis, etc…, labs that focus on this type of environmental testing, often have people on staff who are able to help understand the results and even provide guidance if you want to see something different from the results.
I’m not saying don’t look for help here, but if you are working with a testing lab, I would definitely see what kind of services they offer.
A quick browse on the JR Peters Lab website shows they offer various types of consultation services for plant nutrition.
Thanks for the reply, the lab gave me very broad ranges of low to high.
I’m thinking there are other documents or website where there are ideal ranges for plants.
I’m not even sure how, if we had to increase for example, Calcium by 100ppm to make it in range, does that translate to increasing the fertilizer by 100ppm Calcium via calcium sulfate for example.
I’m even thinking that foliar sprays with small ppm of salts may be a technique some people use.
Hi there. I’d check out the posts on here about hydro buddy. Its what I have used before and I think some other here so as well. Its open source and free.
I’m pretty sure this is the tool you are asking for. You can put in the tissue analysis and then what you want things to be… and then it roundabout tells you how much you might need to add of things.
I found it to be kind of like an amazing spreadsheet simulator…where I didn’t have to make all my own sheets. I feel like others reference it quite a bit as well - if you search the term.
Certainly, there are consultants for this - hopefully some will reach out to you about it. I don’t generally consult on this specific topic as people get real weird about their nutrients, even when I see deficiencies in the field. Most of the people I work with haven’t even gone to the level you have done here (no really… I cannot tell you how many people don’t test their water, runoff, or plant tissue…)
Good luck and please let us know where you end up and if this solution works or if you find a consultant that you really like. <3
How do your plants look? What is the problem you are seeing that makes you think you need to change the fert based on tissue analysis? If your plants look great, maybe these are the numbers you should always try to hit… for that strain. Means little to the next.
From my experience, almost all problems are environmental, irrigation strategy, or over complication.
No that is absolutely not how it works. You can’t force ions into the plant, you can make it harder or easier for some ions to be available. If you have plenty of Ca in your feed but the plant isn’t getting it into the tissue, adding more will do nothing, possibly make it worse.
Search the user @emdub27 on here. He has contributed a lot of great information on this forum regarding this topic.
To echo this sentiment, and while I am a novice at best when it comes to plant nutrition, there were a handful of books i had bought on Amazon to read to become at least well versed enough to have a conversation about plant nutrients and uptake. One thing that @dabgrow alluded to here is that there is often times not a direct relationship between availability in the soil and the amount your plant is uptaking.
Often times things such as pH, the elemental state of the nutrients, specific elements having effects on other elements, are all things that have to be balanced together.
@Cassin and @dabgrow have both provided solid suggestions. If it was as easy as seeing that the plant is deficient in X and you just have to add X into the feed to fix the problem, we would all be experts in plant nutrient eh? It’s definitely more complex than that and there are a lot of different variables to consider.
Thank you Zoraku, so far I bought a random book on agronomy on amazon, but if you guys have any suggestive reading material , please let me know.
The two things I’m looking into is 1) What is the ideal range of each mineral in a mature fan/water leaf plant during a certain week of growth. 2) How to identify deficiencies via visual inspection as well as ppm out of range of each mineral.
3)How to correct diffiencies via changes in fertigation salts, or alternative methods.
This seems like a very broad field, I would love to pay for a consultant, if anyone knows of anyone on this forum or elsewhere, please let me know or shoot me a private message.
Will update here on any info I discover with this topic.
Thank you
I haven’t seen him post in quite some time but honestly he’s already shared amazing information on this forum already. Not that Liebig’s law isn’t valid but my personal experience leads more to ratios of elements and Muldur’s chart. You don’t get something for nothing, there is always a give and take. A good example I see commonly right now in the industry is everyone trying to lower N in their tissue, the most common thing done is to lower or remove their Cal Nit only to find that their next tissue sample shows even higher N. Well, N is mobile and they negatively effected the Ca:K ratio. I have not seen good results and/or scalability of trying to replace that missing Ca, and N was really never the problem in the first place.
If this is your passion all the more power to you, just understand that the literature related to cannabis really isn’t there yet. The ROI on micro changes to your nutrient formulation really isn’t there. Hoagland and the variations that have stemmed from it work. HGV works great as is, as do other commercial lines. You really aren’t missing some secret. Be very wary of someone that tells you they can give you an answer. No two grows are the same and what someone else has researched or the numbers they shoot for probably don’t mean much to your grow. The journey is as important as the answer. You could find a consultant to guide you through that journey but do you really need that?
As a new grower you will get much farther probably spending your time reading up on something like Plant Empowerment and really understanding how to control your environment. Also EC management of your root zone and matching it to your environment. Build out a spreadsheet of all the known hydroponic formulations and I guarantee you’ll learn something, probably a lot! Good luck on the journey!