LED feed demands

Devoted2rolling said:

No troll zone, because I..

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Are you going to explode now?

Two weeks of LED use, and your own set of unfixed problems enable you to fix all LED grows because we all know nothing.

I hope it's true.

My plants eat quite a bit of Boron. It's something aired on the forum in the past. There consumption rises as they mature. Seen in the useless laboratory testing that all professionals do.



Weren't you telling us it was Calcium that was being kept from us last month?
You should try P for more nodes. Its most responsible for the plants frame (often seen as bushyness)

They got their first watering today. Hitting the deficiency hard. Me and mom don't fuck around with sick plants. We better pray to the weed gods that our top secret fertilizer works lol..




Or maybe the plants will do the praying?



Ears of corn by morning.



Doc B signing out

I have been looking at Ca, and finding I don't need huge amounts, even in coco.

It started in Canna Terra, using Plagron, which we can just think of as Canna's feed, for how minutely different it is. Neither contain Ca or enough Mg to bother telling us. I have 280ppm calcium carbonate at the tap, giving an ec of 0.3 - 0.4 as these feeds expect. It wasn't enough.
I got to 50ppm Ca before things seemed right. In part, I wanted the 40ppm N it bought, or I might of got away with a little less.

Skip a grow, and I'm in to coco. Only.. I have no coco feed, so I'm still using the terra, with the calmag as before, to get 50ppm Ca. I chose 50ppm as that's what Ionic put in coco. Through veg and into bloom without a hitch. This feed should be used at 5ml per liter max, and I'm having to use 8ml to keep up. Yet still just 50ppm Ca. Plus my tap Ca, which is a bit of an unknown factor. It didn't work with soil feeds though, so I'm saying it's not a lot of use.

Moving along, the Plagron ran out, so I finished some florabloom, then moved to Canna actually for coco. I noticed the bottle gives double the P of the terra feeds. It also gives double the Ca, at around 115ppm. Can you guess what happened? P deficiency. I had that Coco food from it's 4ml max, up to 8ml per liter (each of A&B) and it made no odds. I had to put another 20ppm of P in, and frankly I'm still loosing leaves, though mostly to N, and it's like 250ppm N. A week later, I'm on the dregs of some ionic coco I found. Should be 7ml but I'm using 10ml bloom, plus 1 or 2 of grow, and though my P is back down to terra levels again, it's no longer deficient.


Following this appalling lack of shopping, causing me to use 4 feeds from various substrates, I have come full circle to where I knew I would find myself back. Flowering with Ionic Grow, and PK boost to make it a higher N bloom. It's 50ppm Ca seems quite adequate (which is 50ppm at the bottles 7ml), and doesn't push the need for P beyond reason. The Mg is wrote on the bottle, but not listed in quantity. So I know it's low, but rarely causes issue, and I'm ready for it anyway. I think I feel happy again, but what really matters here, is that I'm using really quite low levels of Ca, by any measure. With greater levels, just causing me P problems.

Some time back, I scratched upon the fact that antagonism isn't about the plants choices, but rather it's directly between the competing things. A case of who is bigger, in atomic weights. Now as I don't weigh it my liquid feeds, but rather, add them volumetrically, I create a problem. I might add 10% of something by volume (ml) but I'm not looking at the weight. PPM is weight. I won't be far off, but I'm not blind to this failing. If I knew more, I would be looking at why I doubled both Ca and P but it wasn't enough P. I guess its as simple as 65ppm more Ca beat the 40ppm more P (iirc) which is why the 20ppm more P I added, squared things up. Effectively, a Ca ratio rule for my grow was uncovered.


I don't want to go on, with talk better left for my sleepless nights (it's 5am) but I know the Ca info is worth sharing, and has been asked for in the past

Interesting observation. The ec of my tap water got higher lately (ofc I suspect motly Ca) and I noticed some deffs which might as well be P. I will see if they fix with heavier nutes or I need to fix the ratios as well.
Btw, you can check water analysis on the website of the water supplier, usually. They are mandated to do them and publish them, at least in Europe.

exploziv said:

Interesting observation. The ec of my tap water got higher lately (ofc I suspect motly Ca) and I noticed some deffs which might as well be P. I will see if they fix with heavier nutes or I need to fix the ratios as well.
Btw, you can check water analysis on the website of the water supplier, usually. They are mandated to do them and publish them, at least in Europe.

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Yes, I had a moan about the heavy treatment of my water, and how my ale was not coming out the same after a source swap. They came out and got some. Used there lab, and a second for confirmation. I said I was interested in carbonates and sulphites, and got 4 sides of A4 printed paper as the results. They were listing levels of byproducts from treatment, that I had never heard of. The online report for my area seemed quite detailed, but they listed dozens and dozens in my personal report of that day.

Looking at the numbers in play, they didn't seem particularly sensitive to the taps carbonate. Though the lower P numbers we are advised of these days, won't quite work for me. I do need 50-80 in my recent mashup of feeds. Pretty much guided by Ca it seems.
I really don't know if calcium carbonate should compare equally to calcium in other forms. It doesn't seem so. As my 280Ca just needs about 30P to correct it, presuming it was ever going to be alright at about 35P in RO. Which is a real quandary, as I do need to feed everything heavily. Perhaps I have a greater battle with my tap than I realise, but it's only moderate to hard, and in the expected range for the feeds I have used. Ca was lacking, using soil of two decent types. It's hard to place, and thread upon treads have argued for and against tap Ca's availability. Though it's ability to lock out, is another issue perhaps.

Meh.
I can only speak of my findings, but wish I knew a bit more of the science.

One question, is your tap hard water the kind it deposits Ca on the sinks and taps or not? I have experienced both, and now I have higher EC and it's probably mostly Ca, but no stains at all. I am gonna search for a place to test my water as well, to know what I am starting with, as the local analisys doesn't tell me much, even if they should test in detail as the law says.
Thank you for posting your findings.

I'm not chiseling if off the taps, no. Just heating elements collect some.

I use the same nutrients regardless of what I grow in or lights being used. Soil, coco, hydro, HID, LED, etc... The plants all grow without any issues. I never use calmag as the nutrients already have ample amounts plus I use tap water so no need for added Ca even with coco or hydro.

Most issues are usually caused by too much of something. Too high of an EC, too much Ca from calmag, too much P/K from bloom boosters, etc... I run around 1.5 - 1.7 EC maximum and that's during early flowering when the needs are the most.

The overfeeding of any plant food can cause nutrient deficiencies.

The only times I have ever had nutrient issues is the few times I added stuff that wasn't needed.

WingzHauser said:

Don't use calmag? Not trust worthy.

Too much pk? Prove it. Oh wait. I recognize your name. You're a regular ass talker. Just making shit up like always.

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Enjoying yourself?


I seem to struggle with coco and LED as a combination. I have mixed LED and HID, but still the same. The coco doesn't seem to work at the elevated EC I use with LED. Testing shows N use is good, but they are not taking the P, which is all coming out in the waste. While the hairs are burning, but no other damage is seen, except the need for more N.
I'm flowering on veg food today, with N increased using a bit of miracle grow (it's like 24-3-4 or something) Which really isn't typical of other posters. I'm just following the plants, and using up old feeds, as every shop I visit, has shut early.

First led run
Had a p/k problem for a while but saved it at the end.

Started at 1.0 then bumped up to 2.0 mid flower..

From 1.0 to 2.0 is quite a big jump. I see it's your first LED run. Would 1.0 of usually got you through?

Nice looking buds.

Ca++ said:

From 1.0 to 2.0 is quite a big jump. I see it's your first LED run. Would 1.0 of usually got you through?

Nice looking buds.

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Yes. I was doing 1-1.2 with hps but prolly could have pushed it more.


I always tried to feed as low as I could. I’m bumping it up now to see what I can notice.

I already see the petioles are way more rigid and the plant is more firm overall.