Hello everyone. New member here, and first post.
I recently started dabbling in mixing my own salts. Last run went okay, but was running a mostly Sativa Blueberry hybrid that seemed to hate nutes in general. I think I was over feeding her, and the finished buds, although burnt to a nice grayish ash, had a very dirty flavor to them. I was hoping someone had a decent nute profile for dtw coco that they wouldn’t mind sharing. I appreciate all, and any help. Thanks in advance.
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Athena rips in coco, final answer.
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After Athena, (of course) Jack’s Classic Hydroponic works wonders. Get Cal Prime instead of ag grade Cal Nit if you can find it.
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Thanks for the info. Been hearing a lot about Athena lately. Will have to do some research on it. Been trying to get the Haifa cal prime for awhile now. I think customhydronutes has it back in stock.
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I just e-mailed Brian at CHN. He said it will be in stock some time in October.
Make sure you use the potassium silicate with Athena or you will be chasing pH.
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Welcome to the future @SeymourGreen! Great to see your first post is your very own thread, and a good topic, too.
I don’t know if you’ve seen these threads, but they may be helpful:
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@SeymourGreen What ratios did you run and what salts do you currently have on hand? Nothing is perfect in every situation. If you run cal nitrate as your sole N source (preferably cal prime when it comes available) and these ratios in elemental ppm you should be relatively close:
1N:2K
1Mg:2-3Ca
1N:.65P
I like Fe at 3ppm+, but that’s just a preference.
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I agree wholeheartedly.
If it isn’t blatantly apparent, I sell fulvic acid. The formulator who has been doing this for 40 years now suggested maxing out at 2.8 ppm Fe. There’s also 16 types (sulfate, humate, fulvate and attached to amino, complexor and organic acids) of iron in our product.
Plantprod has a chelated micro complex. I’m assuming EDDHA. They recommended 2.5 ppm Fe.
Of course, @emdub27 has ways to push EC by balancing Mulder’s chart. I’m convinced it’s going to be the next level of plant nutrition.
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All I really do is create a balanced mix for each scenario. I try to responsibly do that at the lowest ec possible. The way mulders chart should be used is to reduce, not increase, for instance, if you’re low in Ca, reduce the things that antagonize it. Everyone has different defol techniques and preferred environmental parameters that greatly influence morphology. I gave up trying to convince “Master growers” to use my techniques years ago and just adapt what I do to suit their style. I always error high on anything that directly contributes to cannabinoid or terpene synthesis, hence the higher Fe.
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I currently use Dynagro Protekt at 5ml a gal. Supposed to give me 35 ppm of K, and 52 ppm of Si, but when I measure it in a gallon of RO, it comes out to 65 total ppm. I’ve been wanting to try Power Si, or Grow Genius, but their so expensive. Will probably get the potassium silicate from CHN next order.
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I really appreciate the “less is more” approach. Hydroponic cannabis nutrients come from determinant totmatoes, so if you want to max out fertilizer output for yield, it makes sense for fertilizer sellers AND growers, right? That’s a dumb rhetorical question.
When I want to retire and sell my soul to an MSO, I’ll hire you for whatever price you want, brother. Your methodology just gives me peace of mind these days.
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I actually started turning down MSO’s recently and really anyone that’s not a “little guy” now. The new plan is for us little guys that have been doing this for years to watch the MSO’s fail, put our chips together and buy them up. The Chad’s moral compasses are so fucked that I’m just done dealing with them. I help everyone else get the COGS as low as possible, hoping as these crashes happen we will be able to weather the storm better because we are lean and mean without 17 executive salaries and dividends to pay.
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Let me know how to invest. Bonus points if you get a caregiver lobby going.
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Was running close to a 3-2-1 ratio with the Dynagro line, but probably closer to a 3-1-4 now with the salts, and Jacks 5-12-26. My profile right now for veg is,
N- 132 ppm
P- 41
K-171
Ca- 151
Mg- 77
S- 103
Si- 52
Fe- 2.8
The salts I have on hand right now are, Jacks 5-12-26
Envy Cal- nite
MKP
MAP
SOP
Mag- Sul
Ammonium Sulphate
Ca Edta
Chelated Micros
Jacks 20-20-20, and a crap load of other powders and liquids lol! Been using mostly salts recently, but just switched back to Jacks 5-12-26 for my NPK, and micros. Mostly because of a Mg deficiency I can’t seem to correct with the salts, and hoping the jacks helps me with that till I can order some chelated Mg.
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All ratios I’m talking about are reduced to elemental ppm. No obvious issues with that for veg, I would run a bit more K to get up to around 1.5K:1N. In reality you are adjusting the Ca:K ratio by doing that, and that is incredibly environmental dependent. As a rule of thumb in veg increase the K slowly, about 10ppm per week until you notice the new growth starting to be narrow and/or pale, once you find that point, back off the K by 10% and you will be very close to ideal. A brix refractometer can also help you find that point, you are looking for a blurry division between the 2 hemispheres, if you go too high on K that will go to a hard solid division implying a Ca problem, increase K as much as possible without “hurting” that blurry dividing line. You can add a sap pH meter and ec meter, but that may start to get too complicated, too quickly, a lot of articles you read about it are misleading, simply increasing K won’t always increase sap pH like the internets lead you to believe.
The P can come up to 60ish, not because there is a P deficiency, but because P helps to transport a lot of micros.
Approximately what did you run on the last bloom cycle that you were unhappy with? Most dirty flavor comments I run in to involve excess N and or K. It’s hard to explain, but you can directly control the color of the bud with Ca, N, and K. Just like leaves, healthy will be bright colors, not overly dark. If you overshoot N or K in relation to Ca you start growing the “leathery” leaves and darker hued buds that smoke like shit.
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I was using all salts, and at transition running
N- 100
P- 51
K- 151
Ca- 111
Mg- 60
S- 75
Si- 52
Fe- 2.1
Things were going fine until week 5, when I tried lowering N, and increasing P to around 80 ppm, and K, to about 190. They did not like that, and started showing what I considered a K excess. I cut N out completely by week 7 (I take this particular strain to 70 days.) and steadily lowered my P, and K. I kept my Ca at 125, my Mg at about 60, and tried to boost S to 100. I gave straight pH’ed RO for the last week. I could never get the leaves to properly fade, which I attributed to giving to much N for most of the the plants life. Funny thing is it tastes better in a bowl, and horrible in a bong.
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What did you use to maintain Ca while removing all N? When everything is on point they will fade without having to change nutes. In my personal spots (climate controlled, hps assisted dep) we run the same mix all the way through flower. It’s important to note that a K excess is also a Ca deficiency. I personally would want to see that Ca number up around 180ppm+. It’s harder to see a Ca deficiency in flower, but if your pistils aren’t bright white and your flower isn’t a bright color, you are probably Ca deficient. Even on dark strains like black domina you can tell when it’s right, it’s a bright black with hints of green, not a dull black.
The easiest way to learn this stuff is to set up separate buckets dwc or waterfarms and watch what different mixes do. Separate coco pots would work, but due to the cec of the medium, changes are slower to appear because the medium acts as a nutritional reservoir.
Get rid of the kno3 from the peters, replace the K with SOP and you will be moving in the right direction. Getting that Ca to N ratio higher will help the fade happen.
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I was using, and still use Calcium EDTA from Customhydronutes.com. I did just read recently though, that the Ca EDTA can cause uptake issues with chelated micros. It was brought to my attention that maybe Calcium Chloride would be a better option, but to only use a small amount in order to avoid to much Chlorine.
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