Preach
2 Likes
If I can find 500 lbs of sorbitol, I’ll run it on 1 house for 2 months at 8ml per gallon. Ironically I’m already currently running agsil at 20ppm SiO2. The house next door would stay on agsil, so it should be a pretty fair comparison.
7 Likes
@emdub27 I just had one of the first batches I made of this gel after 3 weeks. I would test a small amount under the conditions you are going to use and verify it can remain stable before making any large amount of it.
2 Likes
I had a kilo of sorbitol, so I made 3500ml. I did a foliar of it yesterday at 10ml per gallon (same rate as AB Yellow) on about 7,000sf of flower canopy and about 2,000sf of veg canopy. It perked the plants up just like AB yellow does.
I’m enthusiastic about trying it in a continuous drench at 20ppm SiO2 because I’ve never had the opportunity to test that high of a concentration of silicic. I fill stock tanks once a week, so I should be able to work around a 3 week gel time. It looks like I found sorbitol for about $2 a pound, so $1k to test for a full flower cycle, I can stomach because even of it improves yield by half a percent, I’m ahead.
8 Likes
@emdub27 Great to know your foliar went as expected 
What value did you set the pH to when spraying? Also, did you use any additional adjuvants?
I look forward to hear about the stability of the sulfuric acid solution.
4 Likes
I did several phytotoxicity tests on Friday. As expected simply diluting it with water and 80/20 surfactant caused some burning due to the acidic nature. pH corrected to 6.4 ( where I foliar most things to not disrupt sap pH) there were no issues. Also tested a tank mix of silicic and soluble kelp that mixed to 8.4 pH the higher pH did not appear to reduce efficacy.
Edit: also used 80/20 surfactant at 6.4 pH and with the kelp rank mix.
5 Likes
Exciting to see someone else testing it large scale.
Would adding some glycerol or carnitine HCL prevent the 3 week gelling ?
What surfactant did you use (polysorbate 20?) i have used it before but even at small % it foams up so much !
Awesome, i didnt want so much ppm of P from using Silica. What ppm is the Sulfuric acid adding when using it 8ml / Gal ?
Have you tried increasing the strength so less is used per Gal?
@danielfp if you were to increase the strength of your blend what would you change? Why the sorbitol Vs Carnitine HCL + Glycerol ?
Thanks
1 Like
I’m pretty sure Aptus uses PEG400 as an emulsifier when a buddy had it analyzed.
1 Like
My test res gelled in two days and the ph dipped to 5. My ec was 2. I used phosphoric to make my stock solution and used it at only 200ml to a 50gal res. Maybe it’s cus I still had agsil in there too for ph adjustment?
2 Likes
Surfactant used was tractor supply 80/20 wetting agent. I’m a cheap bastard and it’s $20 a gallon.
My chemistry knowledge with Si is not strong enough to speculate on how to make it more stable. I do know that polyvalent cations like boron are used as stabilizers in some formulations like PowerSi.
At 10g of Sulfuric to 700ml, the addition of S is about 12 ppm when used at 10ml per gallon.
I setup all dosers to run 1:100, so I have no intention to make it any stronger. I would actually need to dilute it to inject it.
I have not jar tested with a fertigation solution yet. I’ll probably set one up later today.
I did an experiment this morning foliar feeding with a hose end sprayer set at 2oz per gallon. For a total volume of roughly 1000ml, I added 160ml of the Silicic stock solution, 50g Cal Acetate and 25g KNO3. Silicic mixed in first, cal acetate and KNO3 were pre dissolved and added together. It mixed water clear to 6.3 pH with no additional pH correction. I observed no precipitation or anything else alarming, it was applied to Veg about an hour ago.
3 Likes
I’m using power so next round
I’ve got some Jar tests going.
All are using @danielfp sorbitol silicic formulation with sulfuric acid instead of phosphoric.
Nothing exotic is in the mixes, just edta chelates, CaNO3, MgNO3, KNO3, MKP, MgSO4, and SOP.
-
My existing veg water right after all dosers which already contains agsil 16H at 12.55ppm Si with 10ml per gallon Silicic stock added. That mixed to 5.8pH.
-
My existing veg water minus the existing agsil with 10ml per gallon silicic stock There is already some sulfuric in the B tank. That mixed to 3.5pH and I left it there.
-
My existing veg minus agsil and sulfuric with 10ml per gallon silicic stock. That mixed to 4.0pH. I corrected the pH to 5.8 using KOH.
4 Likes
@The_Lone_Stiller Silicic acid will gel very fast at high concentration at a pH of 4-8. Stable concentrated Si solutions only exist at either high pH (>11) or low pH (<2). At high pH you have mainly silicates and in very low pH you can have stabilized silicic acids. The moment you take the pH into 4-8, prepare for some fast gelling.
@DIYGuy I cannot get Carnitine HCl where I am, reason why I decided to change to sorbitol instead. Since sorbitol is pretty easy to get for anyone, I thought that would be interesting. Carnitine is available with a variety of anions, so it can make things more confusing.
The choices of potential stabilizing agents are large, you can definitely improve on stability by using Carnitine, although the mixing order and preparation would change (you can see that if you look into the other SOPs).
2 Likes
If you want to DM or email me your address, I’ll send you anything you need for free (within reason, LOL). I think you wrote you can’t get sulfuric acid, either? Not sure if you would want me to ship you sulfuric acid. But, I could check your country’s dangerous good (hazmat) shipping rules because it’s probably allowed in specific volumes, concentrations, and shipping methods.
1 Like
Where are you located ?
How does Sorbitol stabilize it and have you tried adding some Glycerin/Glycerol to the sorbitol to enhance the stability ?
So if i was to use Carnitine HCL instead or Sorbitol or with it (is HCL the best one?) I could make a jar test of a few variations and report back which keeps stable for longer if you can help design the experiment. The Carnitine HCL is much harder to get than other anions but i got a kg to play with) what amount and in which order would I do it? I tried @Flowerman SOP but it went cloudy and separated during mixing.
Interesting the one i got online was PSI Mono Silicic Acid (Mono silicic acid additive sourced from Holland, manufactured with a new process that makes it 30% more effective than any other mono silicic acids … thats their marketing crap…) they dont even list what is in it, or any concentration at all, but when i mix it with some DI the pH goes up ! and has a starting pH i think from memory quite high, above 6 thats for sure. So would that mean the Si species is mainly silicates ? Are the low pH stabilized silicic acids better?
@emdub27 I will try the next batch with 10ml of Sulfuric acid and see in a jar test which stays stable the longest. I also dont want to be adding 40ppm of P when using Si, i may also switch my pH down to sulfuric as well as im running 36ppm of S and 30ppm of P in Vege but in flower S is at 87 - 97 and P 53 to 65 so i have room for more S and keep P low.
That tractor water wetter, how many ml per gal of water do you add when making the mix of kelp and SI ? Do you use it only for foliar spray with kelp + Si or for every foliar and res ?
I have not foliar sprayed Daniels Si yet but will add some KOH to bring pH up to 6 (will this destabilize the Si?) or can the plants handle the 2pH Si mix
80/20 surfactant is a pretty standard wetting from any ag supplier, i just buy it at tractor supply because its the cheapest. Usage rate is going to be roughly 5-10ml per gallon. I use 80/20 with almost all foliars, never for drench.
Using the silicic stock at 10ml per gallon foliar without correcting pH gave me some interveinal necrosis. Nothing horrible, but I wouldn’t do it again.
Sulfuric is quite dense, I added it by mass, 10ml would overshoot 10 grams. I work with pretty much everything by mass.
3 Likes
@Ralf Thanks a lot for your offer! I am currently in Spain, shipping of strong acids is quite restricted - it is illegal to ship this to residential addresses as well - and products like Carnitine HCl are just hard to source (I haven’t had much luck except from chemical suppliers).
I’m good with you guys carrying out experiments since I know it can be way easier for you to source things in North America.
1 Like