Crop Steering in coco. How to determine optimal EC?

[LJ farming]

I run coco with precision fertigation, have been for a couple years now.
Input EC of 3 is fine, but outside of stretch I don't like to see runoff EC higher than 4.5 or so mid to late flower. During stretch I like to stack EC pretty hard, up in the 8 to 12 range depending on strain, but with a big big P2 after the last p1 to get that media EC back to a resonable number.
I found that I almost never have to raise input EC, but rather shorten the duration of P1s to stack higher.Since you are getting in to this, how good does it feel when your overnight dryback comes in tright on target? Its like, yeah, I'm THE MAN! lol

Hell yea bud I fuck around with it but I definitely am not the man. Plus I run open end tubing no high pressure or emitters and I doubt I can ever do it properly how I run but the plants definitely all get the same amount.

Peace

 

[BigF]

Hell yea bud I fuck around with it but I definitely am not the man. Plus I run open end tubing no high pressure or emitters and I doubt I can ever do it properly how I run but the plants definitely all get the same amount.

Peace

I have done it with open lines, but the tough part there is finding a timer that will let you do shots in seconds instead of minutes. Used to use a Nearpow timer to do it, but programming that thing was insane. Now using .5 gph drippers from Lowes with a 50 dollar aquarium pump. Still not really satisified with it, but its workable.

 

[Ca++]

$20 high pressure pumps https://www.icmag.com/threads/3-phase-pumps-the-latest-thing.17939901/
$20 timers to the second https://www.icmag.com/threads/1-second-interval-timer-plug.379675/

 

[LJ farming]

I have done it with open lines, but the tough part there is finding a timer that will let you do shots in seconds instead of minutes. Used to use a Nearpow timer to do it, but programming that thing was insane. Now using .5 gph drippers from Lowes with a 50 dollar aquarium pump. Still not really satisified with it, but its workable.

I run a $40 Autopilot timer that goes down to seconds and a max of 8 events per 24 hours. All of my veg, clone, moms and every other timer I use look and function exactly the same but they don’t go down to the second and cost $12. Exact same factory in China IMO but the Autopilot has 12 more cents in engineering.

I tried to order the same Autopilot for a back up a year or so ago and they were discontinued. There are a couple other brands that can do it but I will have to go back to timer kindergarten when I have to switch and that’s a bitch!

I definitely would like to PM you or we can talk on here BIgF. I only try to dryback for 14 hours but I think perhaps I ram unnecessary P 3-8s. I run 1 gallon pots. I make sure I get runoff on the first and last feed (P) however I give them and extra small shot up to 6 more times per lights on cycle?????

I’m chopping this down in 3-4 days.

Peace

 

[BigF]

I run a $40 Autopilot timer that goes down to seconds and a max of 8 events per 24 hours. All of my veg, clone, moms and every other timer I use look and function exactly the same but they don’t go down to the second and cost $12. Exact same factory in China IMO but the Autopilot has 12 more cents in engineering.

I tried to order the same Autopilot for a back up a year or so ago and they were discontinued. There are a couple other brands that can do it but I will have to go back to timer kindergarten when I have to switch and that’s a bitch!

I definitely would like to PM you or we can talk on here BIgF. I only try to dryback for 14 hours but I think perhaps I ram unnecessary P 3-8s. I run 1 gallon pots. I make sure I get runoff on the first and last feed (P) however I give them and extra small shot up to 6 more times per lights on cycle?????

I’m chopping this down in 3-4 days.

Peace


View attachment 19160975 View attachment 19160976 View attachment 19160977

Girls looking solid.
Yeah would love to chat more about the strategies involved. Love this stuff!
I got a raspberry Pi to control a power brick that i want to use for down-to-the-second pump timing so i can go back to open lines. Have been writing software long long time, but don't have the electronics experience to plug this thing in right. Plug it in backwards, and boom Fried Pi. Its a 50/50 chance, but I haven't wored up the nerve to do it yet. For like 2 years now lol.

 

[BigF]

Stacking P1s yesterday

Hempy buckets and drippers

Big Bud Bowling Pin Boof Bomb in the making, this pheno will definitely NOT be The One.

Flower Family Portrait - Perpetual means always something new and something near harvest

 

[LJ farming]

What kind of sensors do you use to get the substrate EC value? I only measure runoff EC and Ph if I see a problem beginning with the plants. It would be nice to know before a problem starts but I’m definitely not buying a $3000-$5000 of sensors and monitors to achieve it. Ha

I would guess that I waste a lot more nutrients than necessary however once a one gallon pot in coco is root bound you can’t overwater it and I would rather be safe than sorry. Depending on grow cycle stage I will run between 10-30 gallons per day to 80ish 1 gallon pots. When running Jacks and having my own well the cost of the nutrients and water each grow is pretty much insignificant. Maybe $100 each grow. Electricity is about $2000 per grow cycle including perpetual veg, dry and cure room, and clone room. When everything goes as planned I have hit 2 - 2 1/2 per light numerous times. However when 1 or 2 things don’t go as planned or get overlooked it will go down to less than 2 per light and is typically not correctable once the plants are in the bloom room.

Currently my true dry back happens from 2 hours before lights out until 1 1/2 hours after lights on. So a 15 1/2 hour period.

Peace

 

[BigF]

What kind of sensors do you use to get the substrate EC value? I only measure runoff EC and Ph if I see a problem beginning with the plants. It would be nice to know before a problem starts but I’m definitely not buying a $3000-$5000 of sensors and monitors to achieve it. Ha

I would guess that I waste a lot more nutrients than necessary however once a one gallon pot in coco is root bound you can’t overwater it and I would rather be safe than sorry. Depending on grow cycle stage I will run between 10-30 gallons per day to 80ish 1 gallon pots. When running Jacks and having my own well the cost of the nutrients and water each grow is pretty much insignificant. Maybe $100 each grow. Electricity is about $2000 per grow cycle including perpetual veg, dry and cure room, and clone room. When everything goes as planned I have hit 2 - 2 1/2 per light numerous times. However when 1 or 2 things don’t go as planned or get overlooked it will go down to less than 2 per light and is typically not correctable once the plants are in the bloom room.

Currently my true dry back happens from 2 hours before lights out until 1 1/2 hours after lights on. So a 15 1/2 hour period.

Peace

I am using the Growlink sensor, older one I bought like 3 years ago. It was around $800 at the time I think. But its only one sensor, so I move it around to different plants, but obviously can't cover all. It is possible to get in the ballpark with some observation. For example, if it takes P1 shots to produce runoff, I know the EC didn't stack very high. If it takes 12 shots, EC probably stacked super high. So by watching the girls I can get close by eye.
I have been running Athena Pro line for about 3 years. Cost per mixed gallon comes in around 18 cents according to them.
2 hours before lights out for last P2 sounds pretty good. Precision fertigation is pretty fun and rewarding!

 

[zfyq]

What kind of sensors do you use to get the substrate EC value? I only measure runoff EC and Ph if I see a problem beginning with the plants. It would be nice to know before a problem starts but I’m definitely not buying a $3000-$5000 of sensors and monitors to achieve it. Ha

I would guess that I waste a lot more nutrients than necessary however once a one gallon pot in coco is root bound you can’t overwater it and I would rather be safe than sorry. Depending on grow cycle stage I will run between 10-30 gallons per day to 80ish 1 gallon pots. When running Jacks and having my own well the cost of the nutrients and water each grow is pretty much insignificant. Maybe $100 each grow. Electricity is about $2000 per grow cycle including perpetual veg, dry and cure room, and clone room. When everything goes as planned I have hit 2 - 2 1/2 per light numerous times. However when 1 or 2 things don’t go as planned or get overlooked it will go down to less than 2 per light and is typically not correctable once the plants are in the bloom room.

Currently my true dry back happens from 2 hours before lights out until 1 1/2 hours after lights on. So a 15 1/2 hour period.

Peace

You can build a DIY sensor from parts from china and some open source code for like $50
Then use that to control smart plugs to irrigate down to the second.
I've been using the comwintop THC-S sensor to crop steer for a couple years now, using home assistant as the base, have spent like a few hundred bucks on the automation stuff, and that includes media sensor, reservoir automation with ph and dosing, co2 sensor, fan control etc.
Its just that there still aren't turnkey diy solutions you can just pop on an sd card and be growing, theres still a ton of customization.
https://github.com/kromadg/soil-sensor if you wanna start digging in on the diy sensor stuff.
Growlink, aroya, pulse, trol, etc etc are all functional and pretty good and turn-key, but you really pay for the convenience.
Edit: a growmie just released this, it might be worth taking a look at. https://github.com/JakeTheRabbit/HA...blob/main/docs/comprehensive_documentation.md

 

[BigF]

You can build a DIY sensor from parts from china and some open source code for like $50
Then use that to control smart plugs to irrigate down to the second.
I've been using the comwintop THC-S sensor to crop steer for a couple years now, using home assistant as the base, have spent like a few hundred bucks on the automation stuff, and that includes media sensor, reservoir automation with ph and dosing, co2 sensor, fan control etc.
Its just that there still aren't turnkey diy solutions you can just pop on an sd card and be growing, theres still a ton of customization.
https://github.com/kromadg/soil-sensor if you wanna start digging in on the diy sensor stuff.
Growlink, aroya, pulse, trol, etc etc are all functional and pretty good and turn-key, but you really pay for the convenience.
Edit: a growmie just released this, it might be worth taking a look at. https://github.com/JakeTheRabbit/HA...blob/main/docs/comprehensive_documentation.md

Whoa that software documentation is impressive! May have to give that a spin.

 

[TapRackBhang]

You can build a DIY sensor from parts from china and some open source code for like $50
Then use that to control smart plugs to irrigate down to the second.
I've been using the comwintop THC-S sensor to crop steer for a couple years now, using home assistant as the base, have spent like a few hundred bucks on the automation stuff, and that includes media sensor, reservoir automation with ph and dosing, co2 sensor, fan control etc.
Its just that there still aren't turnkey diy solutions you can just pop on an sd card and be growing, theres still a ton of customization.
https://github.com/kromadg/soil-sensor if you wanna start digging in on the diy sensor stuff.
Growlink, aroya, pulse, trol, etc etc are all functional and pretty good and turn-key, but you really pay for the convenience.
Edit: a growmie just released this, it might be worth taking a look at. https://github.com/JakeTheRabbit/HA...blob/main/docs/comprehensive_documentation.md

This is some nice work! Any idea what kind of hardware he's using? sensor/arduino? etc.
I've been using the conwintop sensor for a while also, but would like to give this code a run if I can on the same hardware.

Thanks for sharing man.

 

[alegz]

This is some nice work! Any idea what kind of hardware he's using? sensor/arduino? etc.
I've been using the conwintop sensor for a while also, but would like to give this code a run if I can on the same hardware.

Thanks for sharing man.

its unfinished code, some files missing. Even in first versions his automations lacks of transition from p2 to p3.
As a base you will need some Home Assistant server, thc-s, and any smart plug/relay,
Im low in programming and simply modify another code from github, which utilizing Node-RED+HomeAssistant. https://github.com/Killerherts/nodeRed-HA-GrowingFunctions
But at least, his code fully working, just a lot simplier..

 

[zfyq]

This is some nice work! Any idea what kind of hardware he's using? sensor/arduino? etc.
I've been using the conwintop sensor for a while also, but would like to give this code a run if I can on the same hardware.

Thanks for sharing man.

That screenshot is all my own system, running the conwintop sensors too. A series of temp/rh/co2/ph/ec/water level sensors, from one esp32 per tent.
I haven't tried his stuff out yet but its a little easier to share than my current setup, and has better documentation than my stuff.

I setup my THC-S ESPHome firmware to be able to do most of the steering irrigation work on device to offload creating more helpers/templates in home assistant and offload automations to the device.
It's not 'finished' and has some bugs here and there but it mostly works pretty well to grow stuff for me
https://github.com/jeemers/Homegrown-Assistant/blob/main/ESPHome/THCS-steering.yaml is my THCS ESPHome firmware. I have a bunch of other stuff on that github too like ph doser and an all-in-one controller - but its pretty outdated at this point.
When compiling you have to specify which pump/solenoid entity in HA the switch should control for irrigations.
This handles p0/p1/p2/p3 and transitions between them.
p0 starts at lights on
p1 starts after either p0 dryback or overall p3 dryback target has been met
then p1 does up to X shots every Y minutes until it looks like field capacity has been reached - there are some bugs in my field capacity detection but it works 99% of the time.
p2 starts after either we get to FC or we run out of P1 shots - if we are vegetative we will give all the p1 shots, if generative, we switch to p2 as soon as we know we are saturated.
p2 just watched VWC and if it dip below target p2 dryback and a minimum p2 interval has passed it will give a shot.
p3 starts at p2 window close time.
It will give an emergency p3 shot in the dark if VWC gets near wilting level set by the user.

I'm pretty happy with it, enables me to leave the house for a week or two at a time without stressing about plants getting fed.

 

[zfyq]

its unfinished code, some files missing. Even in first versions his automations lacks of transition from p2 to p3.
As a base you will need some Home Assistant server, thc-s, and any smart plug/relay,
Im low in programming and simply modify another code from github, which utilizing Node-RED+HomeAssistant. https://github.com/Killerherts/nodeRed-HA-GrowingFunctions
But at least, his code fully working, just a lot simplier..

Yeah his stuff is great too, we conspired on the steering and control logic side, and went different paths for the coding.

 

[Ca++]

There is truth in the idea, that the more complicated things get, the more things will fail. I have lost about 40% this run, to relays, pumps and solenoids. I'm now taking feeding tech out, that relies on pH and EC sensors, and centering my sights on passive monitoring with that kit.

I'm about to switch back to a simple float, that tops up the tank, at certain times of the day. With the power to the fill solenoid, also powering speed adjustable dosing pumps. That's about it.
This will be a bit like guesswork, but most of us making up a bucket one day, know the same bucket will need the same amount of feed and acid the next day. Like making tanks, and knowing how many cap fulls. It's repetitive enough, That you can mix this way, and use the pH and EC probes just as notification.
I have used $10 dosing pumps in the past to achieve this, and applied small adjustments every few days. Running a week was no problem, in a dtw setup.
The maintenance this reintroduces isn't a bad thing. My 40% loss would be greater, had I relied on the kit more. Complacency controls are needed..

 

[DunHav`nFun]

There`s a lot to be said for the K.I.S.S. logic.....I did this shit for 30 + yrs indoors and out with no more than common sense and listening to the old heads to produce consistently run in and run out , so I really don`t understand what all this crop steering shit`s about.....

I mean where`s the application shown to produce results comparably to the equipment expenditure ?......Just sayin.....I`ve preached DTW Coco for yrs cuz it`s the easiest babyshit setup there ever was for pumpin out the dank on a regular basis all the while "keepin it simple".......

Go look at my bro LJ Farming`s setup in grow diaries pullin 2/2.5lbs per 680 watt LED`s strain dependent EVERY run in smaller square plastic pots fed multiple times during lights on......

My 2 cents from all them yrs......

Peace.....DHF.......

 

[LJ farming]

There`s a lot to be said for the K.I.S.S. logic.....I did this shit for 30 + yrs indoors and out with no more than common sense and listening to the old heads to produce consistently run in and run out , so I really don`t understand what all this crop steering shit`s about.....

I mean where`s the application shown to produce results comparably to the equipment expenditure ?......Just sayin.....I`ve preached DTW Coco for yrs cuz it`s the easiest babyshit setup there ever was for pumpin out the dank on a regular basis all the while "keepin it simple".......

Go look at my bro LJ Farming`s setup in grow diaries pullin 2/2.5lbs per 680 watt LED`s strain dependent EVERY run in smaller square plastic pots fed multiple times during lights on......

My 2 cents from all them yrs......

Peace.....DHF.......

Bro Science DHF!

Ole heads just don’t know!

It can’t be done without the latest and greatest new fancy shit!

Also it’s definitely impossible to do with open ended tubing and a $40 timer!

Bro Science

Peace

 

[Ca++]

Crop steering, and automation, are two different subjects.
There is nothing new about either. Only a greater number of known methods. Leading us to gather them all under a heading, to make it a specific conversation.

The first crop steering method I learned, was using the lights 12/12 to make the plants flower. It's proven very effective, and better automated than by hand.

I'm not sure EC based steering, the topic title, has really got merit. Though feed profile surely has.

 

[LJ farming]

When growing indoors absolutely everything you do is crop steering! YOU AND ONLY YOU AND YOUR EQUIPMENT CONTROL/STEER THE PLANTS!!

The pioneers that went indoors a minute or 2 ago taught us this!

If anything is wrong it’s the indoor grower caused it! If anything is right the indoor grower cause it. Hence everything done indoors is CROP STEERING!

Mic drop!

Peace

 

[LJ farming]

Bro Science DHF!

Ole heads just don’t know!

It can’t be done without the latest and greatest new fancy shit!

Also it’s definitely impossible to do with open ended tubing and a $40 timer!

Bro Science

Peace

DAMN you DHF! My plants look like hell on day 29! Why didn’t you teach me about (CROP STEERING) we need to have a serious talk soon and I think I should not tear the solar panels off any more.

Wait am I crop steering when I defoliate

Sorry about the early Mic drop.

Peace