The very first question I ask is, what is my starting watering schedule for high EC mix?
Very Important! Germinate seeds then wait 7 to 14 days to water again. Very Important!
I weigh each solo cup before I water it. Nothing gets watered before weighing (so simple).
I take my turkey baster and put one plunger (50ml) of water in the bottom of a plastic cup.
I sit the solo plant with holes in the bottom into the (50ml) of water and bottom water. (Finished).
That’s how I start & grow seeds in a High EC 6.8 or ppm 3400. I call them Loaded Guerrilla Rounds.
To find the perfect weight, just weigh dry, and then weigh wet, and you have your weight range.
This watering method also reduces temporary water wilt, and without nutrient loss AT ALL.
my pissed off opinion
You know what pisses me off, more than anything these days. Watching on forums, newbie’s spending lots of money on nutrients, lights, tent, soil and most of all GOOD SEEDS, only to waste it, because they don’t know what they’re doing. Then, "some stupid mother fucker" tells them to put cal-mag on their grow, to fix it. I see it all the time! I wonder if people selling that stuff takes advantage of people. This is my last grow, it’s for the newbie! I think this is the easiest kind of grow! For anyone wanting to learn? photos coming
I've had to bring up the cal-mag dose to 2 mi per gallon. Rain pH dropped a little. I've been using rain water for many many years. The only reason I chose rain 1st over all other water sources is because rain water is the best and easiest to work with for me. I've used them all!!!
Plants are now taking rain water at full capacity. Found a couple of males, 8 more to go!
Rain water is now at 10 mls per 24L or 6 gal. with cal-mag dose. WATER ONLY
I copied and pasted from out door thread.
I ain’t no expert, just a beginner, but, I want to share something I learned. All bottle nutrients are going to have an effect on the pH of the substrate. Why? When plants take up fertilizer, they emit hydrogen and hydroxyl/bicarbonate ions into the growing medium! Most especially nitrogen!! There’s 3 different kinds of nitrogen: (nitrate), (ammonium), and (urea). Each one of them do something different to the pH. When Nitrate nitrogen is taken up by the plants, it release OH or bicarbonate in the substrate and will raise pH. When plants take ammonium nitrogen in, the plant releases H and drops the pH. Urea doesn’t do anything to the pH at first, but, the bacteria in the substrate will transform the Urea to either of the two, and then raise or lower the pH in time, that’s called nitrification. The larger the plant, the more fertilizer is used and therefore the faster the PLANT can change the pH of the growing medium.
Calcium can be locked out because pH drop from excess ammonium nitrogen. I see what looks like growers adding calmag+ especially calmag with Nitrate nitrogen to fix it, which doesn’t work very well. Almost kill the grow, start over, and do the same thing again not knowing it was the ammonium that was causing the calcium problem.
If I started with a complete substrate in beginning, and see calmag deficiencies in a grow, then, most of the time, the plants were fed too early and it’s just the drop of the pH due to high ammonium nitrogen. I moved to using low dose feeds during veg and flowering..
A nitrogen molecule is a nitrogen molecule and it doesn’t matter if it is pH perfect, or general pH nutrients. Also a nitrogen molecule that comes from Organic source is the same as a nitrogen molecule that comes from synthetic source when the plant uptake processes are final. The only difference between the 3 types of nitrogen is the way it becomes available and how it effects the pH.
Here are those same two plants from up above, brought back from the dead, with another plant that was germinated at the same time. Same genetics. Over-water them one time its taken all this time to recover. The over-watering error costed me that much growth.
Forgot to mention up-potted to 1 gal (4L) pot. Will up- pot to a 5 gal (20L) in about 10 days. Then change from organic to synthetic low dose feed using GH nute.
The up-potting to 1 gal pots, helped to speed up the grow a little but still slow. I love rain water organic grows! Best smelling and tasting buds. However, its as slow as a one legged dog in water. That's one reason for the upcoming switch from organic to synthetic! Getting ready for the switch! Plants are already stinking!
photo period is 20hr on 4hr off.
Just rain water with a little cal-mag only, since the beginning of seed sprout.
I have 2 choice’s at this point. I can keep growing organic rain water only , or switch to synthetic nutrient feed. Since, I want to speed things up and maximize root growth for stinky sticky buds. I’m going to switch from organic to synthetic. Time to start using my finishing substrate. Peat mix with MYCORRHIZAE.
If I were to keep going with organic mix, I would have to DROP the cal-mag and only run plane rain water. The problem with using calmag in a complete organic mix is the accumulation of hydroxyl/bicarbonate ions into the growing medium. Remember that each ion has its own chemical and physical property. Each one affects soil and plants differently and some ions are more toxic to plants than others. The accumulative effect of calcium will kill the microbe population as well as cause an imbalance of nutrients which will eventually cause nutrient lock-out. .