Diary PCBuds mini-grow

[f-e]

The effect of low P is often young looking plants. They won't look ill right away, they just slow down.

I'm flying out the door, so have only glanced at your grow. That 4% P is oxide, so times 0.44 gives us a rather low P. The K is oxide, so times 0.83 and we have something like 10-2-11 which looks a lot of N. Half feed looks like you had too much...

Flying... coat... door... history

 

[PCBuds]

The effect of low P is often young looking plants. They won't look ill right away, they just slow down.

I'm just going to assume (in an effort to keep things simple), that the plant was deficient with everything, and the main deficiency was P, which effects a lot of other nutes.

Next plant, I won't wait 4 weeks to bring it up to full nutes.
That was just me not paying attention.
I was hesitating from going to full nutes because she didn't look mature enough.
Next time, I'll base it on time instead.

That 4% P is oxide, so times 0.44 gives us a rather low P.

I wonder if that 4% P rating is the actual percentage of phosphorus in the Maxigro and not the percentage of the molecule that contains the phosphorus?

Same with the N and K?

If you have a fertilizer with say 10/10/10, those numbers could be way different from what the actual NPK numbers are depending on what the sources are.


Same with my KoolBloom. I don't care how much oxygen is in the mix, and is it based on the number of those oxygen atoms, or the weight of those atoms ?

I want to how much phosphorus and potassium I'm getting.

It's farmers beware I guess?
You have to know how to read the numbers. Lol

 

[PCBuds]

This is the new feed chart that is shown on the General Hydroponics website.

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The good thing is that the nutes are geared towards cannabis growing, so I would think that the ingredients are correct and properly balanced ?



I was a bit confused with the old charts, because I sort of have a cross between a drain to waste setup and a reservoir setup, because I don't empty the bottom of the planter.

And then I added in KoolBloom as well as my homemade Potassium Silicate solution, and think that I was supposed to add all of the extra supplements ?

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[PCBuds]

All depends on if the nutrient is mobile or not.

https://www.canr.msu.edu/news/knowin...ient_deficienc

I skimmed through that link and it makes sense to me.

The way I figure, is that the new leaves on my plant are still very much alive and could recover, the older leaves are not so much alive and won't recover because they have dead tissue.

The older leaves may be supplying nutrients to the upper leaves, but they may be taking more nutrients from the plant than they are contributing it.
They are blocking light from getting to the buds and the root system should be able to get all the nutrients to the new growth. (now that I have some nutes in the soil. lol)


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I know that I said that I won't do any drunken gardening with this plant, but I'm going to go and remove some more older leaves. Lol...

 

[PCBuds]

I gave her a haircut...


Before...

After...

Holy Crap !!
I gave her a Brazilian !! Lol

 

[PCBuds]

She does look good now...
She's all buds and flowers.

 

[f-e]

I'm not sure what you mean by 4 weeks. I tend to talk 'weeks in flower' but I imagine you are looking at the feed chart. Either way, increasing feed at those times isn't typical. Your chart lowers it.

The available P&K in feeds is generally listed as an oxide equivalent. You have P2O5 listed as 4%. P2O5 is 2 P's to 5 O's. P2O5. My chemistry is only learnt from this hobby so could be wrong. However, it's certainly listed as oxide, not just elemental P. So only 44% of that p2o5 is actually P to be counted in ppm calcs.
The K is also listed as an oxide equivalent. K2O(1) so needs converting as 83% of that is actual K.

The only real reason to do this math, is to make comparisons to other feeds on the market, or that people are mixing themselves. I tend to have this link open a lot https://www.icmag.com/forum/marijuan...r-million-list



Edit: Switching to bloom helps steer your plant in that direction. It's what makes PK timing so critical (if mono-cropping). The ability to nudge them in the right direction. At just the right time.

 

[PCBuds]

I'm not sure what you mean by 4 weeks.

I planted my sprouted seed and waited until it had 2 full sets of leaves before starting the veg nutes at half strength.
Then I was waiting for the plant to get bigger and fill in before increasing the veg nutes to full strength.

Before I realized it, the plant was 4 weeks old and started flowering.
(it's an autoflower)

So, yeah,.. I messed up. Lol



Next plant, I'll wait for two full sets of leaves before starting the nutes at half strength, but I'll switch to full strength in a few days.

 

[f-e]

A good compost should get you through such a short veg stage. I thought you would just feed with bloom

What was it..
Grow 10-2-11
Bloom 5-7-12
It looks like you used too much N and not enough P with this plant. Which the feeds suggest to.
I don't think that Grow can work. If you used a 1ml per Liter you would have 100-20-110 which is low P for a plant trying to transition. 40ppm would be a better aim. However that 100N in a fresh compost is going to be high. You can see this in the plants. Are other auto growers using this?
I would think a 50/50 mix of the two would be a more reasonable profile at 7.5-4.5-11.5 with the aim to lower the N and raise the P.

Keep in mind the 100-100-200 baseline ratio, by which all others are judged. That 50/50 mix is still high N and low P

How much you use I can't comment on. I'm just looking at the ratio's within it. I'm not an auto grower, and surprised to see the need for feed so early.

 

[PCBuds]

How much you use I can't comment on. I'm just looking at the ratio's within it. I'm not an auto grower, and surprised to see the need for feed so early.

I just thought that you were supposed to do?
Start nuting as soon as the plant has two full sets of leaves?

I mix up 2 liters at a time and use 1/2 teaspoon of Maxigro or Maxibloom, 1/2 teaspoon of calmag, 1/2 teaspoon of Potassium Silicate solution, and now I started with the KoolBloom at 1/2 teaspoon as well.

Mixing equal amounts of Maxibloom and Maxigro is certainly easy enough to do.


This is from that link you posted, but I don't know how to make sense of the numbers ?
(actually, it looks like I'm using double the amount of KoolBloom than I should be?)

 

[PCBuds]

I just weighed a teaspoon of Maxibloom and got 5.8 grams.

I'm trying to get some reference.
They give dosing in both weight and volume.

 

[PCBuds]

The damn squirrels dug up my plant again.

They uprooted it this time. Lol

 

[PCBuds]

... Are other auto growers using this?

I have no idea.
I'm just kinda winging it. Lol

I didn't know that Autoflowers were nuted differently than Photoperiods.


I'm using a 50/50 mix of coco and perlite that I reuse for every grow after removing the roots.

I suppose I could add some KoolBloom to the nutes, right from the start as long as the K doesn't get too high ?



I have had some successful grows with the Maxibloom and Maxigro before, so I know it can work.
(although I'm sure things could be better if I knew what the hell I was doing. Lol)


I just wait until I see the flowers starting then switch to the bloom nutes.

 

[PCBuds]

She's not looking too bad.
I've certainly done worse. Lol

She's 17.5" tall now but I doubt I'm going to get anywhere near 400+ grams out of her.

Next plant...
I'll make sure that I fertilize it. Lol

 

[f-e]

My bad, I thought it looked like compost. You will need to get feeding as coco has... well I can't say nothing. It has some things missing though.

I'm not big on additives. Their PK at double dose might be just a hindrance. The K in the feed is over double the Calcium, and then you get more from the coco breaking down. It's a high ratio. Boosting the K further with the PK boost is getting out of hand. Calcium and Magnesium lockouts are almost certain. The K:Ca:Mg ratio is generally 4:2:1 but can be seen as high as 8:2:1 sometimes. Many in coco are lowering the K though, and raising the Ca when put beside the 4:2:1 example. Calcium equal to K has been known, as K just keeps coming off the coco as it decomposes. At which point the coco exposes cation exchange sites, so they keep the calcium high in the hope it's calcium that fills these sites up. It's all very involved, but in short, you probably don't need more P or K once using the flower food.

 

[PCBuds]

OK, Thanks f-e


I'll skip the KoolBloom then.
I was worried that I was adding stuff willy nilly without adding the complete set of supplements, and I do want to keep things as simple as possible.

The feed charts suggest that Maxigro, Maxibloom and Calmag give the plants everything they need so I'll just stick with that.

And my Potassium Silicate as my only supplement.


Do you know if the Potassium Silicate has any issues or if it interferes with other nutrients?

I mix 148 grams of the Potassium Silicate powder with 1 liter of distilled water, then use 1 ml/liter of that solution in my nute solution.
As per ReikoX's recipe.

 

[PCBuds]

The little shit heads.

They brutalized it this time.

I think this will stop them.
They are pretty crafty though.

 

[PCBuds]

She's looking pretty good but she's been 17.5" tall now for a couple days, so I think that she's done stretching ?

I guess that I don't mind a small plant because I don't smoke very much at all, but it is kind of a waste of space in my closet.
I wonder how much the strain has to do with her size ?

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[PCBuds]

The outdoor plant is doing okay, but she's quite sparse...

 

[f-e]

I'm not sure about the potassium silicate. I know it should go in the tank first though, and have a good mix around. People are talking about an hour. Calmag has similar mixing needs, but can't go first when pot-sil is being used.

Back to the spiky looking serrations, I may of picked up the answer in another thread. It can be a sign they are not drinking, due to excessive salt at the root. You have some marginal rolling, and even longitudinal folding that also point to water shortage. It's not the 'too dry' type where burning edges/tips are common, or limp plants. The water is present. They just choose not to take in as much as they could. As it's too salty.

Not a lot can push out P, but if anything, it's likely calcium. Which also pushes out Mg. I'm not sure it matters though, unless you are being a bit heavy with the calmag. Which carries some N usually, and we do see N toxicity. I think we spoke about that.


I see you like thermometers. I just got a new type. Temp and RH, displayed constantly. Beside which are the max&max values for each, displayed constantly. If like me you only ever care about min/max after a failure, and never reset them, these are good. The min/max displayed is only what's happened in the last 24 hours. There is no reset. I'm logging a pair from different sellers and see one reads 0.4C & 2% higher than the other. I'm yet to see them compared to the truth, but that's fairly close for $5 items
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/100...xp_id=ef9d850d-ec17-4738-9b6b-350bace27891-54
You may have to search a while, but I paid about $7 delivered