Your Opinions, Please

[MJane'spoontang]

Hola everyone,

So, all of my plants as of now are in LC's mix #1 with coco and the dry fert recipe. Most of them are now starting to show defiencies (mainly NPK though a lil mag and cal). They have been in this mix since Feb 1, my question is...Do you think that the plants are eating up the nutes faster than the soil can break them down? Or do you think that the nutes in the mix are simply running out? OR do you think that there is not a big enough microherd to adequately get the job done?

Also, while it is nice to build your soil and sit back and watch shit grow, i'd feel more comfortable if i knew what i was giving my plants ( i'm also working with a bunch of strains and some of them got burned by this mix). So I am making the switch from dry ferts to guano teas.

My question for this is...If i still have some of the soil with dry ferts still in it, and some of the soil blank and waiting for nute teas, what dosage would you recommend feeding with?

thanks again for the help, everyone

 

[BurnOne]

Some plants need more food than others. Indicas mostly. I would suggest 1/4 strength teas to start with. Go up from there as needed.
Burn1

 

[MJane'spoontang]

cool thanks for all your help B1, so you think its just the plants sucking up the nutrients too fast? It's weird cuz i havent changed anything with my EWC tea, but now it just won't foam; so i was wondering if i was really getting enough BBs going.

 

[DrunkenMessiah]

If you are having trouble with nutrient availability there is a lovely natural fix. LC's mix and his subsequent advice on organic fert recopies are excellent, but a big issue with organic ferts is that they will not rapidly provide elemental nutrition for plant growth by simply being dissolved in moist medium. This is where microlife comes in! Mychorrhizae fungus spores and dormant pro-biotics added to a lovely organic mix such as this will supercharge your soil chemistry. The fungus will soon develop a mycelium network throughout the soil, completely inoculating your medium. All of this microlife forms a symbiotic relationship with the plant. You've got a lot of wonderful organic nutes in the medium. Lets take blood meal for instance; a good bag of it is usually rated around 12-0-0, that's twelve percent nitrogen and not much else. The other 88 percent of the fertilizer's mass is carbon-based organic 'stuff'. The fungus and micro-life feed on this stuff and in the process take up the elemental nutrients as well. Because Mychorrhizae fungus forms its fruit on the roots of the cannabis plant the nutrients, which the fungus is incapable of metabolizing, are passed on readily and rapidly. The contents of every square inch of the medium are made available to the plant regardless of it's root mass. Good, aggressive microlife populations yield bonus goodies like drought resistance and a vicious snarling secondary immune system as well. I am a huge proponent of organic mediums and the microlife that they spawn, especially when you've added to them the hydro trick of forced oxygen injection. Super-oxygenated organic soil teems with aerobic bacteria and mad fungus colonies that fuzz over the top of the medium. You've added coco coir to your medium which is actually necessary to make this work. I've outlined the process with pics and such here:

http://my.gardenguides.com/members/.../27/Our_Innovative_Indoor_Tomato_Garden_Diary

Though it is surely 80% similar to what you are doing, you don't have to go through such an overhaul to benefit from micro-life. You can get packages of dry Mychorrhizae spores from hydro shops, or you can go down to Lowe's and grab some of Espoma's Bio Tone Starter Plus. Its a basic organic fert (4-6-5 or something like that) that is packed with Mychorrhizae spores and various dormant pro-biotics as well. Any well-aerated organic medium can stand to benefit much from strong microlife

Good luck and happy gardening!

-DM

 

[spiral]

Have you transplanted at all, or have they been in the same container since Feb. 1? Could be there just rootbound. Nutrient problems are one of the first signs of being rootbound. I have had that problem before when using coco. The roots just explode through it. Just a thought.