DIY Nutrients formulations, recipes, chemistry etc.

mullray said:

There's some lab analysis of Canna Coco. What I can guarantee you is if you were going to analyse it again the numbers would have changed because of sloppy mixing practices. Every one really needs to read this piece here. http://www.integralhydro.com/

On the right of the site you'll see some pictures attached to hydroponic related articles. Read "About Hydroponic Nutrients" . This guy rips apart the hydro industry by demonstrating the vast differences in claimed to be crop specific nutrition.

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Those sloppy mixing practices and variable formulation are second after high prices for being a good reason to make my own nutes.

Simply sat here at my desk with an accurate digital scale, a teaspoon, some 1 litre bottles, a pile of reagent grade salts, some distilled water and a measuring jug I am sure I can make more accurate formulations than the big cmpanies manage with their large scale production.

Rather than copying any one particular commercial nutrient, wouldn't it be better to devise our own formulation?

I suppose the difficulty is in finding accurate info on cannabis' feeding requirements.

Maybe that means we should copy products we know work well?

You're full of great info man.

I must run high K, come to think of it as I add loads of seaweed and molasses and those both have plenty of K. I keep my ph at 6.2 anyways from mid bloom as it makes N less available and I think it encourages less leafy buds and helps em ripen. I tend to get fans starting to fall off from about 40 days as I cut the N early, I've been agonising over whether the way I do it is right or not and whether I should try to keep em green longer, I often end up with harvesting plants with not many fans left as they starting yellowing long before I started flushing. I use citric acid for ph down and add lots of aminos and molasses so without knowing the exact reasons, I've been doing quite well on the chelation front I hope.

I'd love to do some side-by-side trials, I have been looking for ingredients for that PK booster recipe you posted, got the potassium hydroxide, off to the city today and will hunt down the sulphuric acid, phosphoric acid and ammnia I still need.

How about you come up with a formula you consider suitable for a 9-10 week indica, I am picking up cuts of pre-98 Bubba Kush and SourBubble today, maybe some others, I'll do the tests on them. I am cutting down half a dozen plants in about 10 days so I will get busy potting up and vegging out the cuts to replace them and I can start a trial once I've chopped those 6 in 10 days or so.

I would normally use this recipe, handwatering in coco:

First 2 weeks of 12/12:
Ionic Coco Grow (2-1-2)
Powdered humic/fulvic
Powdered seaweed
Powdered Aminos
Canna Bio Rhizotonic
Dutchmaster Silica
Superthrive

Weeks 3-6
Ionic Coco Bloom (1-1-2)
Powdered humic/fulvic
Powdered Seaweed
Powdered Aminos
Dutchmaster Silica
Dutchmaster Max Bloom (0-2-3)
Molasses

Weeks 7 and 8
Ionic Coco Bloom (1-1-2)
Powdered humic/fulvic
Powdered Seaweed
Powdered Aminos
Dutchmaster Max Bloom (0-2-3)
AN Hammerhead (0-9-18)
Molasses

Week 9
Molasses

Week 10
Water

As well as the Ionic Coco nutes I also have a set of Canna COGR Flores A+B I could use, other stuff I have:

Plagron Algo Bloom (1.5-13-14)
Vitalink Buddy
Atami Bloombastic
Chempak liquid seaweed feed (5-6-8)
Westland Nutri Liquid Organic (2-1-4)
Alaska Fish Emulsion (5-2-2)
Biobizz Fish Emulsion (6-2-4)
Formulex
Vitalink Plant Start
Bcuzz Coco Booster
Bcuzz Bloom Stimulator
Bcuzz Root Stimulator

That's what I have available to do side-by-side tests with, I filled in the request free samples form on the House & Garden website so I might get some of their stuff soon. I'm gonna visit the hydro store today and see what they have on the clearance shelf.

I'm keen to mix my own regime and trial it against a regime made up from the bottled stuff i have, so please fire away with the info!

I haven't got the cash for getting analyses, sadly, I am using Hercules Neopeat bricks, I find they work well, used maybe 50 of em in the last 3-4 years, I don't need to flush em after expanding, they aren't full of salt like some bricks. I tend to add 25% perlite as I get perlite for 75p for 5 litres from a shop 100m from my house and it makes the coco go a bit further.

The importer has a full tech spech for the Neopeat listed here:

http://www.neopeat.com/neopeat1.htm#tech

Technical Specification

Water holding capacity -600 to 700%
Nitrogen -0.50%
Phosphate -0.03%
Potash -0.25%
Organic Carbon 10 to 12%
pH -6.5 to 7.5 %
Conductivity -Less than 0.5 milli/mhos
C/N Ratio 1:0.02
Total Organic Matter -75 to 85%

Neopeat (Cocopeat ) Briquettes

Size of briquette 20 x 10 x 6 cms
Weight of briquette 650 gms
Volume 10 to 11 ltrs. (* after reconstitution) * Reconstitution Procedure : Place briquette in a suitable container. Pour 3 ltrs. of water per briquette of 650 gms. Allow the briquette to soak in the water. Stir until light and fluffy. Neopeat briquette is ready as planting media.
Loadability 12,000 nos of 650 gms briquettes in a truck.
Electrical conductivity Less than 0.5 milli mhos
pH Between 6 & 7
Moisture Content less than 20%
Organic matter 80.12%
Salt (NaCl) 0.10%
Organic Carbon 10.21%
Nitrogen as N 0.79%
Phosphate as P2O5 0.38%
Potash 0.49%

It's very similar to bagged Canna coco when expanded. I'll up the perlite percentage a bit, I am going to expand a brick tonight to do some repotting so I'll grab some perlite today. 5 litre bag of coco to one brick would be about right I suppose as a brick expands to 8-9 litres and I have about half a litre of coco left over to throw in.

I don't prebuffer will calmag I just charge the coco with formulex, seaweed, rhizotonic and a pinch of epsom salt, ec 1.0 ph 5.8, seems to work. Ocassionally I see a tiny bit of mag def in veg so I just add some epsom salts.

Corrected

Corrected

Avenger said:

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I stand corrected. Do not use sulfuric acid for batteries !!

I swear to God that is what the owner of Dyna-Gro told me was just fine to use. Even recommended it over "store bought".

Can't fucking trust anybody anymore!!!

thanks for pointing out my error ------------- CB

I dunno Cb, I posted that to show that they have low tolerance of impurities in battery electrolyte. The acs grade will no doubt be cleaner, but battery electrolyte is acceptable and is in fact the most used pH down adjuster in commercial greenhouse production.

What you want to stay away from is industrial or technical grade. It is not clean enough for our use.

mullray said:

Citric acid makes a great pH down. I use it in conjunction with inorganic fertilizers. It's also a good chelator so there is a double whammy (bonus potentiallY). Citric acid plays a key role in the Krebs cycle and is naturally present in plants (and all aerobic organisms). The guy from DynaGrow saying things like this is pretty indicative of the knowledge many of these guys have (i.e. not a lot). It's like saying you shouldn't use fulvic acid because its organic. A combo of mineral organic nutrition wins every time in my books.

Yes, happy new years everyone. May the force be with you.

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Really goes to show you how the nutrient business goes. Dyna-Gro is an old school, been there 20-25yr Company. Most of their business is w/ professional greenhouse growers. You would think they would know their shit, after that length of time.
Reminds me of what an old carpenter said once ---" he's done that for 30yrs. and still does it as badly today as he did then."

Didn't see, and could have easily missed it, but this is the link to HydroBuddy. If ya got it, kick the guy a few bucks. Very useful.

http://scienceinhydroponics.com/

tester said:

Coco A doesn't list any Mg content, nor magnesium nitrate, so there is no controversy.
Coco B is the one that lists Mg and Magnesium nitrate not Coco A.

Pictures of Canna's labels from here

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I am looking at my new, un-opened 5 liter bottle of Canna Coco A. On the lower right back label, it states: "Derived from: Calcium Nitrate, Potassium Nitrate, Magnesium Nitrate". The guaranteed analysis doesn't list any mg. However, there is clearly mg in the Coco A. Thus the "controversy" as you put it.

mullray said:

Bios also love the stuff so if you were running a sterile system (old school hydro theory) I could see the logic.

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What is the new school hydro theory?
CB

mullray said:

FM here's your coco grow formula. Do us a favour and let me advise what products to use during your grow and see if I can't increase your yields(i.e. You'll get bigger yields by maintaining a more consistent and less additive laden program). By the way I have high Ca in this formula . At about three weeks drop Ca to approx 4.3%. This is more teched up than any formula you'll find on the shelf so you have options in formulation. But I seriously recommend you try this as it is if you can (I've had one of my people test mix it and solutes remain in solution well). Use with Rhizo in early grow to help the plants settle in. Use potassium silicate at 30ppm (in solution from week 2). Cut out your massive array of additives and keep it simple early in the piece and I'll give you some feed when flowering time comes. Just my advice, but it always pains me to see growers using so many additives often not factoring in what it is they are actually adding in terms of macros, micros, sodium, chloride etc. You'll never find professionally trained Ag people using any where the number of things Mj growers do (just a tip).

Coco Grow A 1L
700g Demineralised Water
270.58g Calcium Nitrate Ca = 4.59 N = 3.219
52.63g Magnesium Nitrate Mg = 0.499 N = 0.573
17.78g Potassium Nitrate K = 0.688 N = 2.45
4.28g UAN (easy N) 42.5%w/w N = 0.182
0.75g Fe EDTA Fe = 99ppm
1.43g Fe DPTA Fe = 100ppm
5.0g Methionine

Make up to 1 Litre with demin. water

pH of Solution 5.55-5.65
Colour-light yellow

Coco Grow B 1L
800g Demineralised Water
29.755g Potassium Hydroxide flake 90% K = 1.86
79.59g Phosphoric Acid 81%w/w P = 2.03
3.71g Ammonium Nitrate (substituted 3.05g UAN) N = 0.129
66g Magnesium Nitrate Mg = 0.627 N = 0.72
61g Magnesium Sulphate Mg = 0.604 S = 0.793
0.3g Disodium Octoborate
0.08g Cu EDTA
0.9g Mn EDTA
0.5g Zn EDTA
0.05g Sodium Molybdate
0.0005g Nickel Sulphate
0.0005g Cobalt Sulphate
0.0005g Sodium Selinite
5.0g Thiamine mononitrate B1
0.2g Niacinamide B3
0.15g Riboflavin B2
0.15g Folic Acid B9
0.25g Tween 20 (I have Polysorbate 20, same thing I think)
5.0g Glycine

No Anti-Foam needed
Make up to 1L with Demineralised Water
pH of Solution 2.35-2.45
Colour-bright yellow

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Absolutely fantastic mate, that's exactly what I wanted!

I am gonna have to do some shopping as I don't have all of those ingredients. I have highlighted the ones I already have in red, I'm off to the garden centre in 15 mins to see what other stuff they have their, then after that I'll have to turn to the online world to order the rest.

Anyone seen this yet? http://greenleafnutrients.com/ they sell knock off nutes?!?!?! Who'd a thunk it.

I've decided on a bottled commercial regime to pit against the DIY formula in a side-by-side, the hydro store had Dutchmaster stuff on clearance and I picked up a full line-up for 22ukp for the lot.

Dutchmaster Max Grow (1-1-5)
Dutchmaster One Grow (4-2-6)
Dutchmaster Max Bloom (2-2-8)
Dutchmaster One Bloom (0-2-3)
Dutchmaster Silica (0-0-16) (although I have three bottles of it and two say 0-0-10 and one says 0-0-16, I have also had DM Silica with the same label from the same store that said 0-0-2, no idea if the contents differ in concentration, might just be different labels and same concentration, the contents look the same - mid-brown thickish liquid with some floaters unless you give it a good shake before opening.

I figured that was a simple basic regime, one bottle of nutes and one battle of additives for Grow and Bloom respectively plus silica. Should make for an interesting comparison I think. Looking at the NPK numbers on the labels, there is a lot of K in this regime. I winder how accurate the guaranteed analysis on the back of these things actually is?

I'm not sure on the K thing, all I know is what the labels say.

I will follow your instructions as close as I possibly can. I have a humic/fulvic blended powder, I suspect it's mostly humic as it's black. I've looked and looked for pure fulvic powder and not found any. The only fulvic I've seen is the ultra expensive 'honey' fulvic bottles like Grandman Enggy's, never used em, too expensive.

The only Trichoderma product I know of is Canna's Trichoderma powder, it's not too expensive. The bacillus subtillus is a new one on me, I'll have to see what subculture powders I can find, I know mychorrizae is available.

No way am I mixing the DM crap with your formula, it is strictly for using as a comparative base.

I would love to know how to make Si myself as it's one thing I've never been able to find a cheap alternative for, I used to use AN Barricade as it was super concentrated which made it cheap to use, but since they withdrew it I've been using the DM Silica cos I can get it for 4.25 a litre. I used to include greensand and diatomaceous earth in my soil mixes for Si, I often wondered if there was some way of making an Si solution from them.

Right, I've had brakfast, now I'm off to the garden centre to see what they have!

The only other things I tend to add to my regimes that you haven't already covered is seaweed and molasses, what are your thoughts on those? I have also had interesting results when I tried malt extract and raw sugar cane as sugar/carb sources.

There are some Ag stores nearby, I'll see what I can find, any particular brands or product names you know of?

I'll try that humic/fulvic thing later, what do I do - put 100g in a litre of demin water than add citric acid until the Ph drops to 1.0? Then some stuff will drop out of solution and float and I take a pic?

On the kelp, I wish I knew more about it, it's a local brand, an agri suppler who went bust in 2009 sadly, I guess it is just ascophyllum nodosum extract but how it was extracted I don't know, it's a fine dark green powder. I happen to have some cytokinins, I have 1 gram each of Brassinolide 0.1%, Triacontanol 85% and Benzylaminopurine 98%.

Well, I didn't find a lot of ingredients today, all I was able to pick up was Urea, Nitrogen Chalk and Sulphate of Potash. They have help yourself bins where you use a scoop to fill a bag and the only lanels on the bins were those three names and the prices, 1.20 a kilo for two of them, 1.40 for the Potash. Is the Urea the sort I need? I'm not sure if there are different types, this one is white and crystalline. The Potash I got because it will come in handy, I already have 200g of reagent grade potassium sulphate but I figured having some fert grade at hand might come in handy. I'm not even sure what the Nitrogen Chalk is, is it similar to calcium nitrate? It's brown round balls about 3-4mm in size, doesn't look particularly soluble. They had 25 kilo sacks of Yara Krista MgS and SOP I noticed, so if I do need any Yara stuff they will either have it or order it but I don't want to buy 25 kilo sacks if I can help it as I don't need even as much as a kilo!

mullray said:

I don't want to offend and appear like a smart arse but this needs to be corrected. Some Na has been demonstrated to be beneficial for C3's (e.g. tomatoes) in bloom (more about the quality and taste than anything). Here's somethng a friend wrote on sodium in hydroponics. In some plants (e.g. tomato), the presence Na has been demonstrated to partially substitute for K, thereby enhancing fruitset. In some plants over 90% of the required potassium can be replaced with sodium without any reduction in growth. It has been suggested that adding Na to a hydroponic nutrient solution (at 30 to 50 ppm in solution) during mid to late flower, enhances fruit quality.

But I agree with your key point, it is best to avoid high levels of sodium in solution. Sodium is not taken up by plants in large amounts and therefore tends to accumulate in soils and media. For this reason I would stress that only extremely low (minimal) levels of Na should be present in well balanced nutrient and additive formulations. This is particularly true for vegetative formulations. An excess of sodium at the root surface can seriously impact the uptake of other cations such as potassium; this can lead to disruption of membrane potential, cell turgor and the disruption of enzyme function.

For instance 200ppm of sodium is getting close to toxic for tomatoes. So fertilizers like sodium nitrate shouldn't be used in making fertilizers. You will however find sodium at very low levels in all nutrients as a result of contamination (reagents etc) and as a result of some micro elements eg. disodium octaborate containing sodium.

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Actually, what I wrote is completely accurate. Na is not an essential micro-nutrient for C3 plants. While it may be beneficial in very minute quantities, it does not meet the definition of an essential micro-nutrient: deficiency symptoms will become manifest in it's absence.

I'm sure a lot of you know this, and it may have been mentioned before, but - just in case:
You can create something similar to a weak gunpowder from ordinary grow room dust mixed with the wrong fertilizer.
Be careful where you mix, keep clean and think about how you're going to store it. Oxidizing agents and ammoniumnitrate most of all, shouldn't be stored in large amounts where anybody sleeps.

Stay safe

Mullray...out of curiosity what do you feel are ideal environmental conditions? Do you buy into the VPD theory? In a CO2 enhanced room running at 85 F I would have to be at around 70% RH. Honestly that scares me in flower. I keep it around 60% until maybe the last 3 weeks, then I back down to 40-50.

Also I have been looking at giving organic a try but I cannot for the life of me wrap my head around the NPKs that the good organic growers use...a bunch of P and not all that much K...at least it looks that way to me. Seems to me I could use some 3-2-2 chicken manure and some Diamond K K-Mag, some chelated micros and some gypsum and come pretty close to a good formula...albeit pretty high in S.

Anyways...I want to try the refined salt/organic route (I have been one of the old school sterile dudes). From scratch would you be willing to make a recommend for the organic part? I am assuming it involves making the media "live" but feeding with salts.

I am in coco. I use Sunshine Just Coir with nothing else in it. I have been debating whether or not I would need to add compost/ewc to that for the organic part or if I can just innoculate the coco itself. I have also debated perlite or pumice but I hate using those just cause disposal, well that and actually mixing it in is a bitch also. I am in 20 gal smart pots and watering close to every day as it is so I have justified not using either based on how often I water.

I am not entirely sure I buy into the cec of coco being all that important or influencing K, Ca and Mg as much as most think. No question coco has a pH influenced cation exchange capacity but it really does not have that much density which offsets the effect. I read a pretty good take on that by Bill Argos in Greenhouse Grower...I will try to find the article and link it.

Custom Hydro worked out a 3-1.2-6 formula for me. I was planning to use it post stretch but maybe I should back that down to 3-1.2-5ish.

I am also curious if you employee any PGRs. I already use citric acid for any pH down that I need (and yea I know it isn't a pgr). I was thinking of using crustacean meal for chitosan. I would mix that in the coco itself as it appears to be slow release. Do you have a take?

I am also curious about your take on ammonical N/urea? I use very low alkalinity water and the only ammonical N I use is what is in CaNO3. It makes pH control of the media easy as pie. Is that approach a good idea or am I missing out on something by not using more ammonical N?

Not that it means anything but I am enjoying this thread.

I happen to have 125ml of Chitosan sat here, got it for 2.99 on ebay a while back and never got round to trying it.

I too would be interested in any info on Chitosan and it's use.

On organics, the best natural (I don't like the term organic) fertiliser I ever used was Comfrey liquid. Comfrey grows everywhere here wild, I can pick as much as I can carry within 2mins walk of my house. You pick the Comfrey leaves, chop em up, stick em in a plastic bottle, put a very small hole in the lid of the bottle then sit it upsiide down in a bucket for a couple of weeks. The Comfrey turns into a thick foul smelling brown/green liquid and slowly drips out of the cap, you get just over a litre of liquid out of a two litre pop bottle stuffed with Comfrey. The liquid is then diluted and fed to the plants, it's very high in K and I found my plants loved the stuff.