“Rules of Thumb” for Soil Feeding?

[fastrak1]

“Rules of Thumb” for Soil Feeding?

What is your personal “Rule of Thumb” for feeding in SOIL?

I don’t really know how to ask this in a concise manner so unfortunately I must ramble on…

BOG says on page 62 of his book…”I feed them once weekly and a large plant in a 4 gallon pot can handle half a gallon of this bloom feed mix per week.” Looks like this comes out to be a 1 to 8 ratio of pot size to amount of nutes feed (4 gal. pot to ½ gal nutes) i.e. 1/8

OK…at least that is a start of a “Rule of Thumb”…i.e. 4 gal. pot = ½ gal. of nutes…correct…1 to 8…
I water with RO water pH 6.0 and pH adjust to 6.3 with the nutes…I water until I get the suggested 10% runoff…Watering I get…use enough to get a 10% runoff and let it dry out until the next time…simple…I can do that…and it really works…

I use SunShine Mix BX4…AN 2 Part Nutes…I follow the AN Calculator with all of the products listed on the calculator…they work great…and I seem to stumble through…however

HOW…do I feed with other container sizes…What’s the “Rule of Thumb” there…can I take this 1/8 ratio and apply it to the other pot sizes that I use…

For instance…When I am feeding my “rooted clones” they are in 1 qt. pots (appx 1 liter)…how do I apply this principle…How much liquid would I start out with to start with the AN calculator…Should I mix up 1/8th of a Liter (125 ml)…is that the way to zero in on this rule of thumb in soil? Does it work that way?

In Veg I transplant to 2 gal. pots…do I follow BOG’s rule and feed them ¼ gal…( 1 Liter of nutes)…turns out that’s about what I do…but purely by trial and error…I know…that works too! But do I simply mix up my 1 liter according to the ppm I am going for and feed the 1 liter directly...or do I put it in some additional water so that it will saturate the entire pot...if I did that it seems like the opposite of going for the particular ppm on the calculator...help!

My last transplant is to 5 gal pots…am I looking at 2 ½ liters of liquid to start with for this size pot?…

I know you people with the “green thumbs” have something in your heads that work…you just don’t have to think about it…

It seems like this is a non-issue with hydro…whatever the size of your reservoir I guess that gives you the amount of liquid to start off with…10 gal. Reservoir…10 gal. of water to start…SOIL…I don’t know...Soil guy here...so far...

How about it guys and gals…tell me how you get your “Rules of Thumb” for Soil Feeding?

How much liquid do you start out with to plug into the AN calculator…in relation to your pot size?

fastrak1

 

[campbeas]

are you serious?r

are you serious?r

keep your ratio's the same and mix more. feed them what they need

 

[Maj.PotHead]

my rule of thumb for soil watering

i water till it starts to drain when it stops draining i lift container. this is my plants approx full watered weight, every day i lift container you'll feel moisture level in pot. when it feels light and empty i water again, a a freshly transplanted plant 3-4 days is what mine takes from 1st water to get another watering. after about 1.5wk they require watering every other day,i was feeding ferts every other watering during flower after 1st 2wks stretch. i make sure my waters PH is 6.5 for veg and most of flowering 6.3 at end of flowering.

my soil Fox Farm Ocean Forrest
veg nothing added except 1 time a wk 1/4 tsp seaweed extract 1/4 tsp diamond necture

flower FFOF and
1tblspn blood meal/gal soil
2tblspn bone meal/gal soil
2tsp dolimite lime/gal soil
i mix this for 4-5 days every time i pass the soil before use

 

[fastrak1]

My Original Question should have been...

My Original Question should have been...

I think my Original Question should have been...

For Soil Grows using the AN calculator...

How do you determine the Reservoir Size?

 

[Maj.PotHead]

ah i see says the blind man


How do you determine the Reservoir Size?

this thread should maybe be moved to the hydro section and not indoor grows soil

 

[demonseeder]

I don't think you see quite yet, blind man

I think what he's trying to say is, he goes here: http://www.advancednutrients.com/nutcalc3public/ and since he's growing in soil he's wondering what to plug in the reservoir size on the table in order to get his chart.

 

[Guest]

Well i would set it at the size container you are using for mixing your nutes?

 

[LeroyAngus]

"demonseeder" nailed it...
It is a soil issue...
The AN calculator works great for hydro...but...
With soil you have to somehow determine on your own how much you are going to feed for the week...
Here is one solution...
AN wants you to feed, feed, water all in one week...
The reservoir size for soil would be the amount of full strength nutes you plan to feed for the entire week...
Mix it up in that size and then feed it however you like throughout the week with at least ONE TIME of WATER ONLY
Then you have to individualize it for your grow room (temps, humidity, soil mix...)
Somehow you have to figure out how much total liquid your plant at that point in its life cycle in your room is going to drink and still be thirsty in about 2 days...
That will be the "magic number" for you to enter into the AN calculator for the reservoir size...
You want to use something so that you can feed the plant one time...wait two days and feed it the rest plus maybe some more water...and then be able to still feed it Water Only the last time...and then be able to start over...

It's not something that you can simply say...Oh...I have a 10 gal. reservoir and so I am going to mix up 10 gals...

I THINK...

 

[jaykush]

OK…at least that is a start of a “Rule of Thumb”…i.e. 4 gal. pot = ½ gal. of nutes…correct…1 to 8…
I water with RO water pH 6.0 and pH adjust to 6.3 with the nutes…I water until I get the suggested 10% runoff…Watering I get…use enough to get a 10% runoff and let it dry out until the next time…simple…I can do that…and it really works…

this depends on strain and wont work with every plant. some like it more some others. if you go with that schedule for everything youll probly have some burned plants.

rule of thumb for soil? let the plant tell you what it wants.

 

[LeroyAngus]

For us non-intuitive folks

For us non-intuitive folks

There seems to be One Consistent Factor that comes up again and again...

There are those people who want to figure it out…so that they can repeat it…and there are those with that natural intuitive sense who will simply tell you that they just listen to their plants…

Even these natural intuitive folks (green thumbs to the rest of us) in fact end up feeding their soil based plants approximately 1 to 1 ½ liter of nutes per 5 gallons of soil…they intuitively then water these 5 gal. pots 2 more times with about the same amount of pHed water…they interpolate that information intuitively downward for all of their other size pots including their clones…

So I think the place to start is *** "ONE (1) LITER" *** for a 5 gal pot as my starting point...

This 1 Liter Figure can be used to plug into the AN calculator and scaled downward for other pot sizes...

3 liters total of liquid per week for a 5 gallon pot of soil

1 liter of Nutes…followed by 1 liter of water…followed by 1 liter of water…for a 5 gal pot and go from there…

Sometimes you will probably find it to be as little as 750 ml or as high as 1 1/2 or even as high as two (2) Liters but I'll just bet that ONE (1) is a fairly good place to start...

This turns out to be a really good STARTING POINT to then tweak your program UP OR DOWN with strains and environmental factors

 

[Hotgurl]

When watering about 1/5 of what you apply should come out the drainholes. You want runoff everytime. No runoff = use weaker ferts. Alot of runoff = stronger ferts

 

[Guest]

Runoff is important,but you can get plenty of runoff and still be doing a poor job.You must have 100% saturation all the way through with no "dry spots" in the pot,the only way I know of to do this is to really take your time.Dont just quickly pour the water through.