Are these NPK values OK for Coco?

[CaliWorthington]

Hello, first post here.

Super Nutrients SVA/B Veg has a combined NPK of 3.5-0.2-7.5.

SBA/B Bloom has a combined NPK of 3.0-0.2-4.0.

There is very little Phosphorus in this stuff. I think that's why old school OG Kush growers use it, OG doesn't like too much P. This way you can control the amount with PK boosters. It's also good for your myco population, since over 70 ppm of Phosphorus kills bennies.

The bloom formula seems reasonable, just wondering if the Veg has a little too much K?

Super nutes work well for me in Manna Mix, which is supposed to be a coco based soil. I don't know how much coco is in that soil though, I think there's more worm bedding.

I plan to use Canna Coco and buffer it first w/ CalMag (or Epsom salts) and some nutes, to hopefully avoid the yellowing that myself and others have experienced when transplanting into coco.

Here is the link to Super Nutrients if you're not familiar with them.

http://www.abfertilizer.ca/index.html

 

[Ziggaro]

IMO it's way too much K for veg and too little P all around. Maybe some hydroplex or something with a real high P:K ratio will help.
A lot of farmers might overuse P but you still need some for all stages of growth.
If you're buying bottles there aren't many good options for P boosters. Most of them are K boosters just as much more or than they are P boosters, and personally I'm pretty careful about adding extra K to my coco.
IMO the head formula #s (6/9) come pretty close to the ratios I have sucess with in coco. Even that might be a little high on the K, which might explain why some people need extra magnesium using the formula.
If I had to guess, since I've never tried it, I think Canna's is probably the closest thing to a perfect coco nute but needs extra cal (and maybe mag)

 

[CaliWorthington]

I agree, it's an extremely low amount of P. I wish there was some explanation as to why this is. Of course nobody is forcing me to use these nutes. Maybe I'll email them and ask why there's so little P.

I've never flowered with that brand, just done a little vegging. I've been using H&G for a few years now, Canna before that. I'm quitting H&G now I think, too strong. I'm trying to dial in a Nitrogen sensitive LA Master Kush hybrid, and the H&G is just too much for it. Some say their Nitrogen proportion is out of whack. Cocos is 10-4-10 and Soil is 3.3-1.1-5.9.

I've had plants develop deficiencies with Canna, and H&G always clears them right up. H&G is great for veg on most strains, but the plants seem to hit a wall for me in mid to late flower sometimes, maybe a lockout.

Saw a grow journal on another site where a guy did great on his first coco grow with something from the CA East Bay called Greenstone nutrients, might try that.

Their base for Coco/Soil AB is 6-5-6. The N and most of the K are in the A, and their chart calls for cutting amounts of A in mid to late flower. I like this concept better than the Dutch method of equal parts AB all the way through flower.

I do have a bag of MaxiBloom. Mabye I'll give that a shot at some point, it's pretty close to the h3ad's 6/9 I believe.

Thanks for posting

 

[Ziggaro]

I had really good results with HG but I agree with you and the others on the N. Too much IMO. Great for veg but always had bluish leaves in flower so I think also too little P.
I'm surprised to hear you had problems with canna, but I think it's a little weaker than HG and I don't think it has nearly enough calcium if using RO.
The 6-5-6 sounds pretty good though. Sometimes I think we'd do just fine on some jacks 20-20-20 and calmag. I like CNS lately especially the 3-1-2 for veg (3% calcium too).

 

[CaliWorthington]

I probably wasn't using enough CalMag with the Canna, now I know. I agree their ratios do look about perfect for Coco.

The water here is from a mountain well or spring, it's around 330 ppm. So I've been making RO for years and adding 3-5ml/gal GH CaliMagic. Recently I've been cutting the RO with carbon filtered though, for an EC of .25 ms or 183 ppm on my Hanna meter. Still need to add Cal Mag!

I was just looking at the Jack's site the other day too. I think the one to use is their Professional Bloom or something.

Since you said 6-5-6 sounds pretty good, I may go ahead pick up some of that Greenstone. I like how they list percentages and ingredients for the base nutes right on the product page. I already found a shop that stocks it in LA.

 

[michaelswines]

Great commentary...same experiences with Canna and H&G. For me, the solution for Canna was to add Nitrogen until roughly flower week 5. Cal-Mag is a given with coco and R/O water. I discovered no solution for H&G, as the chemistry is out of balance...too much nitrogen at wrong stages of the plant's life. One can always add nitrogen to a mix, but subtracting is not possible, the consequence, dark green/bluish leaves.

 

[stoned40yrs]

"Go see Cal"

 

[CaliWorthington]

Right on michaelswines, that seals it then, no more H&G base. I do like their Multizen, it's clean and only moves the pH down about 0.1. Bio-Cozyme works too though and is cheap. I also have a bottle of H&G Algen extract, it was expensive so I'll keep using that. I'm on the fence about Drip Clean, some swear by it, others say it holds onto nutes too much or something. I like Top Booster for half of week 5, not sure about Bud XL though. It maybe be extracting too much sugar from the leaf too early for my liking.

Good to know about using N until week 5 w/ Canna, in case I go back to it. I'm pretty well set on trying Greenstone now. Only thing is they use EDTA which ain't great for bennies. But in a coco grow I feel bennies are secondary to a healthy base for sure. Also some say Greenstone is watered down, but coming from H&G I think I can live with that.

BTW I read the other day that H&G was originally developed as a rose food. So now I think of Canna as Van De Zwaan's ganja line and H&G as the rose line.

I'm considering AN Big Bud Coco for my bloom booster, and then Overdrive. I've never tried the Hammerhead/MOAB combo, but I have used MOAB and don't like the taste of that much Phosphorus.

 

[CaliWorthington]

Yes stoned40yrs! Thanks for reminding me, but it looks like I need to hit a minimum post count or be approved before I can put a Cal Worthington avatar pic.

 

[CaliWorthington]

I got a reply from Super Nutrients. He said to start at half strength in coco and work your way up until the plant looks properly fertilized. Their product works well in all mediums, and contains all vital chemicals and trace minerals for enhanced plant production. Furthermore, he strongly recommends trying it with no additives of any kind, says they're not required with their formulation.

He didn't give any reason for why there is only 0.2 P, so I can only assume they feel that Phosphorus is barely needed by plants.

The "Valley Secret OG Recipe" that uses Super as it's base has a bunch of additives, so I don't know. I'm gonna keep mixing in what's been working for me.

Veg:
SVA/B 5-10ml/gal
CALiMAGic- 2-4ml
Rapid Start- 1ml
Algen Extract- 1ml
Vita Max Plus- 2ml

Didn't add Ful-Power, they already got enough humic when I tried to "go organic" last watering. That failed miserably, just gave them the above mix to recover.

Plants are in dixie cups w/ coco based Manna Mix soil, but I'm gonna flower in coco/perlite. I read that Bcuzz and Royal Gold don't have the yellowing problems that Canna does when you transplant into it. I'm feeling too lazy to deal with coco bricks. Might try one of the Royal Gold mixes, Basement or Tupur.

 

[AWDTERROR]

Super nutrients are great and cheap. The 5 gal is around 200$ for the set. I have since moved to Jacks but I was using,
SBA SBB CALMG+ Big Bud and Overdrive with great results.
Nothing bad to say about it.

 

[AWDTERROR]

Its odd though for SVA/SVB veg I had to work my way up from 2ml/g to 5ml/g but for flower I always had to start at 5ml per gal and work my way up to 15ml.

 

[CaliWorthington]

Super nutrients are great and cheap. The 5 gal is around 200$ for the set. I have since moved to Jacks but I was using,
SBA SBB CALMG+ Big Bud and Overdrive with great results.
Nothing bad to say about it.

Good to know. I'm not sure the N-P-K values I listed for Super Nutrients in the top post were correct. I thought you just added the values from bottle A and B. Now I've read that you're supposed to divide by 2 when different nutrients are combined.

So which Jack's formula are you using?

 

[AWDTERROR]

Good to know. I'm not sure the N-P-K values I listed for Super Nutrients in the top post were correct. I thought you just added the values from bottle A and B. Now I've read that you're supposed to divide by 2 when different nutrients are combined.

So which Jack's formula are you using?

I used the 1 : 0.67 ratio
360 Jacks / 240 Calnit = 600 from week 1-7
They yellowed a little bit around week 3 or 4 but im sure that could be fixed by bringing it up to 680/750 or bringing up the calnit. It was on a hungry strain. I still cant believe it but I averaged 2.4lbs(1070g) per light on my first test run with it on an og cross, and it definitely could have been better.
When using the old mix I maxed out around 1.8 with most and I have a sdxogxcdog cross that I have hit 2.0 with. I will also note that the Jacks trays were significantly better smelling.

I am going to do another test run with it running my 300ppm city tap water. I have been running my veg with jacks and tap water and it runs great. Also recently learned about vpd this year and been experimenting with vegging at 60-70+ humidity and my plants grow 2-4x faster depending on the strains. I want to start doing the flowering rooms like that until week 6 and drop it to 40 humidity.

 

[CaliWorthington]

I used the 1 : 0.67 ratio
360 Jacks / 240 Calnit = 600 from week 1-7
They yellowed a little bit around week 3 or 4 but im sure that could be fixed by bringing it up to 680/750 or bringing up the calnit. It was on a hungry strain. I still cant believe it but I averaged 2.4lbs(1070g) per light on my first test run with it on an og cross, and it definitely could have been better.
When using the old mix I maxed out around 1.8 with most and I have a sdxogxcdog cross that I have hit 2.0 with. I will also note that the Jacks trays were significantly better smelling.

I am going to do another test run with it running my 300ppm city tap water. I have been running my veg with jacks and tap water and it runs great. Also recently learned about vpd this year and been experimenting with vegging at 60-70+ humidity and my plants grow 2-4x faster depending on the strains. I want to start doing the flowering rooms like that until week 6 and drop it to 40 humidity.

Congratulations, that's quite a bump in yield! The Jacks looks like a great deal, big money maker and saver.

Another 1-part powder people seem to be digging is the Hydroponic Research Veg Bloom. It costs a ton compared to the Jacks, but does include some additives like humic/fulvic and aminos.

This picky strain is responding to the SVA/B, so I'm sticking with it for this run (unless things start going bad). I'm trying their advice of not using additives.

Still gotta use CALiMAGic though, since I've gone back to 100% RO. There is something imbalanced in the water here, not mixing in tap anymore.

And I'll still use AN Big Bud Coco and Overdrive, a little Carboload, probably not much else.

 

[AWDTERROR]

I have not used to but I have done some research on it and damn that price is horrible. The fulvic/humic powder is cheap as well as the aminos. The aminos are most likely just hydrolyzed whey protein, which is also cheap.

The SBA/B works perfectly fine with tap water even up to 300. I wouldn't waste water using R.O with it. Remember even the best wastes 1 gallon per gallon received. Most waste 2 or 3 per 1 gallon received. You can definitely use additives with and big bud and over drive really make it shine. If your not using any beneficial bacteria/mycorrhizae than the carboload is useless and expensive waste.

I don't know how big your place is but you should at least do a test tray or test plant with the jacks and don't add anything to it besides fulvic powder and Calcium-25(Calcium/triaconanol) foliar spray.

 

[CaliWorthington]

I have not used to but I have done some research on it and damn that price is horrible. The fulvic/humic powder is cheap as well as the aminos. The aminos are most likely just hydrolyzed whey protein, which is also cheap.

The SBA/B works perfectly fine with tap water even up to 300. I wouldn't waste water using R.O with it. Remember even the best wastes 1 gallon per gallon received. Most waste 2 or 3 per 1 gallon received. You can definitely use additives with and big bud and over drive really make it shine. If your not using any beneficial bacteria/mycorrhizae than the carboload is useless and expensive waste.

I don't know how big your place is but you should at least do a test tray or test plant with the jacks and don't add anything to it besides fulvic powder and Calcium-25(Calcium/triaconanol) foliar spray.

Too bad they (Hydro Research) don't have better breaks on quantity pricing. I'll try the MB dry nutes and Jacks first for sure.

My water is around 300ppm, but it's well or spring water. There's something in there that causes issues. I've tried half RO: half tap water, may go back to that instead of straight RO.

I do use Mykos, thus the Carboload and/or humic/fulvic.

 

[CaliWorthington]

I might order one of the mineral salts packages from Custom Hydro Nutrients, so I can try making my own formulas too. A basic package is about $40, a little more depending on which mag, P and K you choose.

I was thinking, maybe start with a variation of the standard 3-1-2, cutting the N and K by 17% for a 2.5-1.0-1.7.

 

[CaliWorthington]

Or maybe that would be too weak. Probably best to start w/ 3-1-2 and tweak from there. Maybe a 1.8-1.5-3 for bloom. That's a 40% cut in N, 50% increase in P and K.

 

[CaliWorthington]

I just read through the 30-page thread DIY Nutrients. Yosemite Sam has a couple recipes for coco nutes you can make with the basic small kit from custom hydro nutes. Ionic Coco Grow/Bloom ratios also look balanced and easy to copy.

I might still pick up the MB dry nutes (and maybe Jacks) too. I'll have enough nutes to try for the next year. Some of my strains don't care what you feed them, but that damn LA Master Kush hybrid has me on a mission...