The Myth of Low N

[desertsquirrel]

Both of our work speaks for itself, fatman, ill leave it at that.

This is the only post i have ever addressed you in so im not sure what the rest of your "attacks" are meant to refer too.

ill just put you on ignore and try to forget about the damage your causing to other peoples needed medicine.

(btw with 24 hour surveillance of each plant, seed to sale directly broadcasted to the state mmj facilities in denver i dont think a few pics are going to matter).

 

[desertsquirrel]

desertsquirrel,
I took a glance through your posts and couldn't find an answer to this. When bottom watering coco, how often do you flush the media for salt build up? I am dealing with what I believe to be nitrogen toxicity issues in ebb and flow coco. I decided to flush some plants and checked the runoff. My truncheon meter read over maximum EC for it's scale >3.6 EC I believe.

no question 3.6 is way too high. i would flush that.

however i never flush in the sense of producing run-off, i do however water with pure hospital grade, 0 ppm, r/o water for the last 2-3 weeks. And if i see a hint of burn, sub in a pure r/o watering as opposed to a feeding.

 

[YosemiteSam]

I am another coco grower who does not water to run off.

I am also a serious calcium user...at times my calcium is higher than my N. I think I can honestly say that every single time I have increased calcium I have seen improvement. I tend to relate it to K and Mg more so than N. Currently running 3:2:1 on those. But looking at going less K and more Ca in veg. My current flower formula is K:N 1.75. That allows me to use CaNO3 as my only source of N...so my Ca is actually higher than N in flower.

Is it the best...no fucking cliue. But I guarantee I try to improve every single grow. Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't. I have very little fear of experimenting though.

Gotta say the Under Currents with the 35 gallon plant pots definitely have my interest When they hit 100 gallons I will have no option but to give them a shot. Stacked vertical lights here I come.

 

[dgr]

And if i see a hint of burn, sub in a pure r/o watering as opposed to a feeding.

And still bottom fed? Sorry for repeating questions. I'm just really trying to figure out how to keep bottom feeding coco with E&F and reduce/prevent/eliminate salt build up.

I've tried:
Maxibloom 7g/gal

N Total 92.5
P 121.0
K 214.9
Mg 64.7
S 74.0
Ca 92.5
Fe 1.84941

H3ad:

Nitrogen N Total 79.3
Phosphorus P 51.8
Potassium K 92.1
Magnesium Mg 35.7
Sulfur S 23.8
Calcium Ca 79.3

Among other ratios. Granted, my tap water is 0.3 EC but I can't imagine that causing such high EC in the media and doesn't account for the nitrogen toxicity. My media is well flushed before use and the plants aren't flipped straight to flower when potted up.

Sorry for the off-topic in this thread but it seems like you aren't encountering a salt issue in coco while only bottom feeding.

I'm about to convert to drip if I can't figure this out. It seems like it would keep a better check on salt build up.

 

[desertsquirrel]

And still bottom fed? Sorry for repeating questions. I'm just really trying to figure out how to keep bottom feeding coco with E&F and reduce/prevent/eliminate salt build up.

I've tried:
Maxibloom 7g/gal

N Total 92.5
P 121.0
K 214.9
Mg 64.7
S 74.0
Ca 92.5
Fe 1.84941

H3ad:

Nitrogen N Total 79.3
Phosphorus P 51.8
Potassium K 92.1
Magnesium Mg 35.7
Sulfur S 23.8
Calcium Ca 79.3

Among other ratios. Granted, my tap water is 0.3 EC but I can't imagine that causing such high EC in the media and doesn't account for the nitrogen toxicity. My media is well flushed before use and the plants aren't flipped straight to flower when potted up.

Sorry for the off-topic in this thread but it seems like you aren't encountering a salt issue in coco while only bottom feeding.

I'm about to convert to drip if I can't figure this out. It seems like it would keep a better check on salt build up.

Start a thread on the subject with some pics, room conditions, etc. This is not enough info to do a diagnosis with.

 

[habeeb]

Desert squirrel i have been looking at the bottom feeding "autopot" system, dont know if you know it. It looks very promising, its gravity fed so no electricity.

I used the auopot for veggies ( had plants in other pots at the time ) and they work great.. that is until you have to re-ues the pot

there hell to get the media out of, and the bottom layer you use, and clean the root mat thingy.. complete hell to clean up.. it's easy to start but it's a nightmare once your done using the pot.. also to clean the valves, and pot tray, and pot... to much work for what? thee hardest part of the whole system is separating your bottom layer ( hydroton or perlite ) and the top media, because you have to scoop out till you start to reach the bottom layer, then the bottom layer has all your top media in it, so then you have to find a way to clean it out of your bottom media with some sort of sifting plan, then the root mat thing is basically worthless as it's got roots all tangled through-out, so you have to pick out roots of it, and then let it dry out.. I think it's a good idea if you need something like that, but there is so many easier ways to clean up after a grow, that this plan fails in that point, it grows great plants though otherwise..

I wanted to have a low key system, but I find nothing beats hand watering at the end of the day.. just enough interaction and time with the plants, easy to drop some nutes and swirl the water and feed


bottom line. now I have stacks of auto pots sitting around everywhere..

 

[Coco_nuts]

Thanks habeeb i think you saved me from a lot of maintenance. I really loved the auto feed idea tho, water consumption controlled by plant needs, no electricity etc. I hand water everyday and enjoy it im just worried about when i need to go away in the future.

Edit:

what if i somehow manufactured a tray with a side area where the valve could lie, seperated from the rest of the tray by mesh or whatever, and then just let the roots grow out of the pot, will be like an auto swamp thingie. Could call it swamping. Then after harvest you could just lift the pot out of the tray, with the roots dangling , prune the roots off and dump the coco. Clean the pot, put new coco in and place back into tray. This kinda happened when i had a tray with no drain, i handwatered daily and about a cm of water would collect in the tray, roots came shitting out the sides of the pot and growth accelerated. Never got root rot because the plants used the water daily so that when i watered again the roots where lying there moist ie not lying in deoxygenated water.

 

[habeeb]

^

I wanted a system to where I could step away if need be.. besides hydro

the system works great as said, it's clean up that's the problem. I'm not sure if you could mix a 50/50 perlite coco blend and loose the root mat and the bottom layer.. this I would have to do more digging into, there is some users who do autopots, craven AU, and someone else I know of. maybe a better answer for them

making a tray somehow seems like alot fo work ,and will still need to be flooded as that's thee only way to get the valve to close up ( shut off water ) and once it lowers again, it will open back up flooding again..

you can look up flood size on the website, or if I can dig a little I believe it was around a 1/2 inch, which is alot of water to be sitting on the bottom. ok found it, it's 20mm for the US version ,and I believe 30mm for the "orignial" MK valves. US being the blue valve, and the australia one being the black one..

I do know someone and talked to them about flooding levels. they use to use party cups, and had there own tray, and said they never got root rot.. I'm not sure how much I like this idea though to be honest. I've never seen our plants like sitting in water, but there is many cases that could be "ok", as in high leaf to pot size, high heat situations where they drink alot, and coco fiber where they can saturate more is seems then peat..

all in all, could this work if you take a long trip or need to step away, sure I guess some tweaking with media, and trying to lower the flood level, or coming up with who knows what.. I guess it can be done, but your really going against the grain to keep a plant in sitting water. the problem is that the system does not allow the media inside the pot to dry out ever, as once the media is fully saturated it will flood the tray, then the valve will shut off so you have fully loaded media and it sitting in water,, oncce your media dries out a little it will soak in the sitting water, once the sitting water is soaked in and levels drop.. boom.. you have a flooed tray again, and thus you really never get a wet / dry cycle, but as I said coco is the best way to go if you want to use this system, as coco likes to be more wet then dry...

hope I didn't go round and round... I took months to think how to improve an autopot, but really couldn't come up with much.. I came up with trying to lower the flood level (little rubber piece on the valve ) or getting more air/flotation under the valve. then I've thought or ways to try and time the water so it won't even come on if it wants to flood, but that involves I would guess to be electronic valves for the tubing which I know none of.... to me to complicated at the end of the day.. I think if a team of people were to sit on it for a year and re-design it, it would be replacing alot of hand watering..


have you looked at blumat? they have new sensors that are suppose to be better.. but they have a down fall which I guess can happen at any time iss they can not turn off and flood the whole wate rout of the system from one sensor that won't close.. which would defeat the purpose of stepping away if you have to check on it..

there is also the earthbox which is a wick system? you could get a flood valve on the inside bottom hooked up to a tank of nutes.. I don't like this system as it would be so heavy dry, and even dry I'm sure it could way a lot... I don't like lifting heavy things around which is why I liked the auto pots because they have individual containers

flood tray with a huge reservoir for catchment I think is the best option. get some drip emitters on a timer, and play with it for a couple weeks before you go..

as said before, if you need to go away and this is live or die with the plants, ok use the system, it works.. but when you need to clean it up is when it goes very sour and south.. I loved it when my veggies were in the system, they grew so huge, and very simple, fill the res and add nutes and stand back.. but when time came to clean it up.. that's when I vowed never to touch them again. it was so time consuming having so many they sat for weeks, and took me forever to clean them up.. and remember all the vales are hooked together by tubing which makes it worse as some are so stuck on you have to cut the tubing form the outside and then you need to replace it....... oh man

oh man, nature I guess is a hard thing to control inside.. and it seems the more we try and make it easier, then more complicated it can get.. as back to my statement, I'm back to hand-watering till I find something I think is worthy to add

 

[dgr]

habeeb, Coco,
You should look at the PPK. https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=138004
Seems to address the issues you are talking about. It reduces the flooded media reservoir to a few cubic inches and removes the need to have a different mixture in an attempt to lower the perched water table. The final design doesn't happen until the middle of the thread. Here is a post on what seems to be the currently evolved design.
https://www.icmag.com/ic/showpost.php?p=4206430&postcount=1547

 

[Dkgrower]

Big up. I really enjoy reading this tread.

I really would love to see some organic soil grow bud compared to a hydro bud, i think that there will not be much diff, what do u pepol think...


One friend off mine have always used a allround fertilizer with the NKP ration off 5-1-4 and in midflower he add P and he is getting good results....

 

[desertsquirrel]

Big up. I really enjoy reading this tread.

I really would love to see some organic soil grow bud compared to a hydro bud, i think that there will not be much diff, what do u pepol think...


One friend off mine have always used a allround fertilizer with the NKP ration off 5-1-4 and in midflower he add P and he is getting good results....

Thanks dkg im glad you liked it.

My coco grows are about 75% organic want me to post some pics?

 

[Dkgrower]

Pls do that Squirrel and sorry fore my poor english what i was thinking off is a leaf analyse from plants grown in a organic soil medium and then some from a hydro system..

Bom Shiva

 

[staff11]

Uncle Benny says keep those plants green, all the way through. There is my input for the day, and no, I am not UB. But every piece of advice I have ever read or gotten out of him has helped me and my yields in staggering ways.

The whole cutting out of N through flower has always been a myth. I am no genius, I have no science degrees or anything like that to back up my claims.

I just know it works.