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First Coco plant, am I doing things correctly?

T

TokeBloke

New member
Hello ICMag, I am new to the forum as you can see. This is my first grow, its barneys farm critical kush(fem). I was wondering if any of you could tell me if i'm going in the right direction. I only have the plant just to see if i could grow my own smoke.

I started the seed off in a 1 inch pot of coco then transplanted it into a 4 inch pot about a week ago. I have been feeding at a P/H 6.2 and an EC 0.8. Is this too high for this seedling? After watering the run off was EC 1.0.

The temps in the room are 26c lights on and 20c lights off.

Humidity lights on is at 50% and lights off 70%

Any help would be appreciated if you have the time.

Thanks TokeBloke

picture.php
 
C

Cereals

Member
She looks fantastic for your first grow!

Keep up the good work and ask around if you have any questions! :)
 
C

Cereals

Member
OOOOO pictures... :p I just read your actual post.

Your pH should be around 5.8, ideally.

.8 EC may also be a bit high for such a young lady - If I were you, I would take that .8 EC and cut it with RO water so the pH is around .4. Otherwise you may see some tip burn. She looks like she's getting big enough to handle that much soon though - if not already.
 
M

Medicgray

New member
Looks realty good. I agree to drop the ph to 5.8. As she matures you can up the EC. Let her tell you when. Watch the runoff. If it's over your feed then either losing water to the plant or evap. No changes needed. If EC is lower than feed. She's sucking all the nutes up and time to increase the feed. 0.1 at a time. Make sure you don't let the coco dry out or the runoff EC is not accurate. It's hard to overwater in coco, but it can be done. Really a matter of no root oxygen than water. Just give her a feed 1/day. When she matures 2-3 times a day are optimal, if under hps. Lots of water movement. Transpiration and evaporation. More feeds per day keeps the EC stable and no real salt buildup. Anyways just a rant. So far looking good
 
T

TokeBloke

New member
Thanks to all of you for the advice taking the time to reply. Apologies for not posting back sooner, i've been a bit busy.

I lowered the the pH to 5.8 and everything seems to be going fine. I also brought down the EC to 0.5, the run off is also coming out at EC 0.5.

I have transplanted her into a 6x8 inch pot.

Once again thanks to all of you for your help.:thank you:

Heres a photo update if you're interested:biggrin:
picture.php
 
O

opek

Member
Medicgray said:
Looks realty good. I agree to drop the ph to 5.8. As she matures you can up the EC. Let her tell you when. Watch the runoff. If it's over your feed then either losing water to the plant or evap. No changes needed. If EC is lower than feed. She's sucking all the nutes up and time to increase the feed. 0.1 at a time. Make sure you don't let the coco dry out or the runoff EC is not accurate. It's hard to overwater in coco, but it can be done. Really a matter of no root oxygen than water. Just give her a feed 1/day. When she matures 2-3 times a day are optimal, if under hps. Lots of water movement. Transpiration and evaporation. More feeds per day keeps the EC stable and no real salt buildup. Anyways just a rant. So far looking good
Click to expand...

I run 60 gallons worth of airstone in a 15gal res (waiting for next cycle to upsize the res) and if I watered more than 4 times a day during veg (weeks 4-6) I was seeing the plant curling down and looking overwatered... Though now that I type this out and think for a second maybe the EC was just too high for that many feeds?

Next time my plants look underfed I will just try upping the # of feeds per day instead of upping the EC. Jeepers!:blowbubbles:
 
Snow Crash

Snow Crash

Active member
Veteran
That's a little low but you didn't mention how much solution was used and collected, so it's hard to make any sort of conclusion just from the two readings. But, in most cases, a lower runoff ec indicates that the cation buffer (what the coco retains to maintain the CEC) is probably a little low. It could be repaired in just a feeding or two, so don't do anything too crazy.

At this stage a touch more Cal-Mag will help the media refill the cation buffer but it doesn't need to be a dramatic shift from your current levels. I'm not sure what nutrients are being used here, but an example would be change the rate from 2.5ml per gallon to 3.5ml per gallon of something like Botanicare Cal-Mag Plus. Moving from 0.9 to 1.0 and getting a solid 50% runoff for the next two feedings should allow the solution in the media to more closely match the solution you are using.

In most cases when the runoff differs from the solution used by more than 30% (1.0ec going in and either more than 1.3 or less than 0.7 out) then the answer is just more runoff. You never want to "high-low" a system. Just keep your nutrient ratios and strength dialed and consistent and use enough of that solution for the media to balance.
 
Femora

Femora

Member
TokeBloke said:
Hi just wondering if the EC goes in at 1.0 should it come out the same in the run off ? thanks
Click to expand...


Ya, thats optimal. That means that the plant use just about as much nutes as its drinking water. :)
But it will change during the grow when the plant start using more/less/other nutes in the solution.


Like Medicgray said;
If runoff has HIGHER EC then the feed: it means that the plant drink more water then eating nutes = it need less nutes = add some water.

If runoff has LOWER EC then the feed = Plant want more food / it drink less water compared to using nutes = add more nutes. (0.1-0.2 EC at the time, its just plain stupid to burn the plants by raising EC by .5 )


Keep a eye at the pH. It may drift when plants use different nutes at different stages of its life.
Try to keep it at pH 5.8, and its totally okay to let it drift +-0.5. (5,3-6,3)


Fem~

(Ya, im no expert if you look at my grows, but I know some theory.. I just have really shitty conditions at my growroom, lol!)
 
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