The Lounge : Growers Round Table Discussion Thread

You'll have to do some version of a flush. If the pH is high, flush with gypsum. If it's something else I'm sure someone smarter than me will be able to identify it and give guidance. I could be wrong but from the pics of good looking plants (pic 1) I already see a potassium issue that jidoka has cited in the past. It's the ever so slightly burnt tip on the fan leaves. Your numbers make sense statically but if there was an issue from the get go, ...I don't know what to tell you...

Another theory just for sake of argument, your aminos could be affected in some way. If your plants were missing some foundational milestone in the ability to call upon necessary aminos during flower, a foliar a week or two ago might have prevented this.

Another possibility is that you reversed the calcium and potassium number too soon.

I've got guesses but numbers from the lab would be better.

bsgospel said:

Another theory just for sake of argument, your aminos could be affected in some way. If your plants were missing some foundational milestone in the ability to call upon necessary aminos during flower, a foliar a week or two ago might have prevented this.

Another possibility is that you reversed the calcium and potassium number too soon.

I've got guesses but numbers from the lab would be better.

Click to expand...

Foliar has helped me a ton this grow. From glycine Ca to sometimes MKP when needed I always saw the benefits. I stopped spraying around week two from flip. This might be a tough one to solve as there could be so many different angles to fix but I appreciate the thought process and learning from it.

GSWCali said:

I don't really have a concrete schedule honestly. I make a 45 gallons batch and use it till its done but recently with these issues I have been dumping and restarting trying to tweak ratios to see if that helps.

With 10 gallon pots, I usually feed frequently, every 3hours or so during light cycle. I try to keep the coco moist for the most part. When you say drying out properly, would that be before it gets bone dry?

Click to expand...

So I was not gonna talk about post frame building but. When stretch is done I reduce Ca to half of K. So in your chase I would drop Ca to 125, 2.5 gm/gal CaNO3

You should quickly see the blockages clear up which will allow the plant to start taking up significantly more water

Your excess (at this pt) Ca has started to interact with P which is driving the lock outs. Then the excess nitrate is feeding the pm...my guess is you see some foxtailing.

A side effect is quality will go up significantly

I still ain’t saying anything about sulfate vs phosphate or exact micros

Good to hear from finally GSWCali, ive been wondering how things were going since you mentioned trying similar to the formula I was brainstorming on after starting flower.

What was the solution you were feeding them in veg before trying my ratios the first few days of flower? 123-60-123-150-30?

After a few days of flower with close to my formula you increased P to 70 and things improved (until stretch ended), what were the symptoms/signs you were seeing that made you increase it? (For my own curiosity)

Amount of solution needed at fertigation and the frequency of feedings seem to be the links to nutrient amount requirements. 2-3 gallon pots pure coco (less solution needed per feed) with 6+ fertigations a day seems to have become kinda standard, jidoka has shared pics of 5 gallons pure coco fed 6 times a day. Makes sense you needed to increase P in the 10 gallon pots feeding like every 3 hours.

jidoka said:

So I was not gonna talk about post frame building but. When stretch is done I reduce Ca to half of K.

You should quickly see the blockages clear up which will allow the plant to start taking up significantly more water

Your excess (at this pt) Ca has started to interact with P which is driving the lock outs. Then the excess nitrate is feeding the pm...my guess is you see some foxtailing.

Click to expand...

Thanks jidoka, appreciate the information. GSWCali mentioned his EC is the same goin in as it is coming out. So the plant doesnt need the calcium but its being forced to take it up anyway and causing problems with P synthesis?

Found this quote from Slownickel in Shcrews 2017 thread looking back through my screenshots and wanted to share:

slownickel said:

Nitrate pushes veg. Why? Because nitrates allow the plant to pick up 4 Ca for ever 2 K. Ammonia or organic nitrogen for that matter, is the signal for the plant to flower, as the plant can only pick up 2 Ca for every 2 K. A definite signal for the plant to "mature" and flower.

Been practicing that concept for years on melons to set two good harvests! Works great!

Click to expand...

Ibechillin said:

Good to hear from finally GSWCali, ive been wondering how things were going since you mentioned trying similar to the formula I was brainstorming on after starting flower.

What was the solution you were feeding them in veg before trying my ratios the first few days of flower? 123-60-123-150-30?

After a few days of flower with close to my formula you increased P to 70 and things improved (until stretch ended), what were the symptoms/signs you were seeing that made you increase it? (For my own curiosity)

Size of the containers/amount of solution needed at fertigation and the frequency of feedings seems to be the links to nutrient amount requirements. 2-3 gallons pots pure coco (less solution needed per feed) with 6+ fertigations a day seems to have become kinda standard, jidoka has shared pics of 5 gallons pure coco fed 6 times a day. Makes sense you needed to increase P in the 10 gallon pots feeding like every 3 hours.



Thanks jidoka, appreciate the information. GSWCali mentioned his EC is the same goin in as it is coming out. So the plant doesnt need the calcium but its being forced to take it up anyway and causing problems with P synthesis?

Found this quote from Slownickel in Shcrews 2017 thread looking back through my screenshots and wanted to share:

Click to expand...

jidoka said:

So I was not gonna talk about post frame building but. When stretch is done I reduce Ca to half of K. So in your chase I would drop Ca to 125, 2.5 gm/gal CaNO3

You should quickly see the blockages clear up which will allow the plant to start taking up significantly more water

Your excess (at this pt) Ca has started to interact with P which is driving the lock outs. Then the excess nitrate is feeding the pm...my guess is you see some foxtailing.

A side effect is quality will go up significantly

I still ain’t saying anything about sulfate vs phosphate or exact micros

Click to expand...

I really appreciate this collaborative effort! I think we are on to something.

Ibechillin, I used the veg ratios of 123-60-123-150-30 for most of veg, the last 2 weeks of veg I upped it to 150-60-150-180-30, trying to keep the same Ca:K and Ca:N ratios. Thinking about it now, maybe I needed to keep P higher because I was already using a moderately high value during veg so dropping it to ~45 at the beginning of flower was a bad idea. What made me think P was deficient was very slow new growth/pistils formation with some necrosis on older leaves (not much). I'll be honest I'm fairly unexperienced when it comes to diagnosing my leaves and being able to pinpoint exactly what it is (I guess this comes with experience) but I kind of judge what it could be by a foliar spray. This might be bad but I thought it was P deficient so I did a spray with MKP and noticed immediate results, a boost of health and I saw new growth that wasn't so shy to come out. Because it was MKP and not something with only P, it could also have been the K that gave them that boost, not really sure but after I did that I created the next solution with P at 70.

Thank you Jidoka that is making a lot of sense. With your input and bsgospel's theory about a salinity issue might be what is going on and is causing the lockouts you are describing.

I am using a type of coco that is labeled as "Birds nest" and has the consistency of fibrous hay/straw so it doesn't really retain water well and water seems to just go right through. This might be a reason that there is a lot of dry spots forming in the coco substrate and causing a massive amount of salt residue forming and having 10 gallons of this was probably a bad idea.

Maybe because of the type of coco and my environment (temps usually around 80-81 and RH around 60-70) I should be using a lower EC to attempt to prevent buildup like this in the future?

If the substrate is having EC spikes, water will be pulled out of the plant correct? Like Jidoka said, clearing the blockage will result in more uptake of water which looks to be the big issue here.

I feel like I was chasing deficiencies by adjusting elemental ratios which was worsening the issue as the EC was usually always the same around 2.0, when I needed to fix the substrate possibly.

I couldn't resist not to do a flush, sorry bsgospel, after feeding about ~3 gallons of water at a ph of ~6.0, the plants instantly perked up. It was fascinating seeing a change that instantaneous which makes me believe yall theory about salinity and substrate causing issues. Those 3ish gallons gave me a EC reading of ~1.7. I remember reading about how I should never feed coco only water a it messes with CEC. Is there a target EC I should set for as a reset value before I attempt to feed ions again?

I'm thinking of making the solution 100-100-250-125-50 and see how things go from there. How do those numbers sound? I most likely will use
-CaNO3
-MgSO4
-MKP
-K2SO4
or I could leave out the potassium sulfate and use potassium nitrate and split the N from calcium nitrate and use glycine Calcium for the rest of Ca.

Oh and Jidoka I haven't seen any foxtailing so far. I hope I don't either but weather is starting to get a little bit hotter.

Thank you guys for your insights! This run has taught me a lot so far and I look forward to using that and the great knowledge from this forum for my next run!

For starters lets see how the plants react after reducing the calcium nitrate like jidoka suggested before changing anything else. Since you increased the amount of K in solution slightly before the foliar test it sounds like raising the P in early flower was the right choice.

This next question should help us determine further:

Through veg and during stretch (after you increased P to 70) were the fan leaves standing up with turgor (reaching up for light with vigor)?

If fan leaves have been reaching up for light during stretch until just recently they are probably getting adequate water from the substrate with current Irrigation amount/frequency and input EC. If the fan leaves have seemed flaccid (lacking vigor/drooping) during stretch until now your probably having a water uptake issue. Water uptake issue usually caused by EC buildup which you would have noticed from the runoff.

High runoff EC is caused by:

Nutrient ratio imbalance that causes PH imbalance which then leads to lockout and EC buildup.
With balanced feed its most likely caused by dry spots in the substrate/overall too dry substrate related to poor water retention ability, inadequate irrigation amount/frequency or excessive evaporation (fabric pots lose alot to evaporation).

Since you mentioned runoff EC being so close to your input EC you shouldnt need change anything other than the suggestion to lower Ca from jidoka.

So, any chance to soil test that coco? You want to see Na, Cl and Mg numbers . If Mg is high just use 0 Epsom until you see an actual need...you may not need it period

If Na or Cl is high buy a different coco. This is death. Cl will block P, Na will block K like a motherfucker in flower

Stick to the veg formula through stretch, then the flower. You mess with the integrity of forming cell walls and the rest will be meh. Stretchy and w/o real colas

Wanna see it done right @spark1montana

If you can look at fibredust coco which maybe you can get through custom hydro or Riococo (although they are aimed at big grows they may be in your area). You can treat them closer to rockwool without completely giving up the safety net

Btw...those 5 gal pots watered 6x/day get 1 gal/day water. If you do it right no need to waste water

This clone is in a 2 inch pot (CO thing) under 4 t5s fed 164-30-164-200-30 2-3x per day. There is no tip burn

Ibechillin said:

For starters lets see how the plants react after reducing the calcium nitrate like jidoka suggested before changing anything else. Since you increased the amount of K in solution slightly before the foliar test it sounds like raising the P in early flower was the right choice.

This next question should help us determine further:

Through veg and during stretch (after you increased P to 70) were the fan leaves standing up with turgor (reaching up for light with vigor)?
If fan leaves have been reaching up for light during stretch until just recently (starting flower week 4) they are probably getting adequate water from the substrate with current Irrigation amount/frequency and input EC. If the fan leaves have seemed flaccid (lacking vigor/drooping) during stretch until now your probably having a water uptake issue. Water uptake issue usually caused by EC buildup which you would have noticed from the runoff.

High runoff EC is caused by:

Nutrient ratio imbalance that causes PH imbalance which then leads to lockout and EC buildup.
With balanced feed its most likely caused by dry spots in the substrate/overall too dry substrate related to poor water retention ability, inadequate irrigation amount/frequency or excessive evaporation (fabric pots lose alot to evaporation).

Since you mentioned runoff EC being so close to your input EC you shouldnt need change anything other than the suggestion to lower Ca from jidoka.

Click to expand...

jidoka said:

So, any chance to soil test that coco? You want to see Na, Cl and Mg numbers . If Mg is high just use 0 Epsom until you see an actual need...you may not need it period

If Na or Cl is high buy a different coco. This is death. Cl will block P, Na will block K like a motherfucker in flower

Stick to the veg formula through stretch, then the flower. You mess with the integrity of forming cell walls and the rest will be meh. Stretchy and w/o real colas

Wanna see it done right @spark1montana

Click to expand...

At this point the only way to really know is through a test and I'm going to get that asap.

Ibechillin, during the last week of veg and first ~2 1/2 weeks of flower everything was very turgid and vigorous. They gradually lost some vigor but doing that quick flush showed promise as they instantly perked.

I think I got my plan of action for now. First going flush with some water and make sure the full substrate gets good flow. Maybe 3-5 gallons.

My next solution will be 100-70-250-125-40, should I increase P a bit at this point (week 4 flower)? My sulfate varies, depending on my sources but Ill calculate that when the time comes. Once that's pH'd and mixed Ill flush with this solution and see how things go.

I also added two extra 1/4 tubing rings to try to cover the whole surface of the coco. Jidoka, do you have a method for feeding that covers the whole coco? Looks like I can get Fiberdust coco no problem, have you had experience with their 5Kg bricks? I like that style of coco.

I read DJM's coco thread and got inspired how he fed his plants, just as you described, no runoff and that was my goal but its tough with 10 gallons. Do you ever have problems with that method of irrigation Jidoka?

Again thanks for all the tips!

Million ways to skin that cat. If you ever wanna go big skip the rest and use netafim. Far as I know it will give you the most precise control over delivery. Probably 2-3 emitters per 10 gal pot

Can’t think of the name but the one the living soil guys love works

Floraflex makes those green caps that fit on top of your soil and are fed by a couple of open 1/8 inch lines. I personally hate anything that looks like an octobubbler though

Or, design your own



1.5 inch main, high volume low pressure pump, 1/2 inch tubing to 1/8 inch to micro sprayers...not totally precise but bulletproof with the right filter

Hope everyones summer season is going well, Bump!

Hello All,
I've been a lurker on ICMAG for about 10 years on and off. More recently I have dived back into the wormhole and been doing tons of research in the advanced soil science subforum. We are launching a high CBD female only hemp project in CA this season. I'm about 3/4 the way through reading over the original SlowNickel lounge thread. Scouring it with a fine toothed comb and learning a ton! Also been deep diving into the AEA thread as well. Seeing as this is the continuation of the original SlowNickel thread, I figured I would go ahead and post our soil results here and see what you all thought of them. Pick them to pieces and dont hold back!

For reference, we took soil samples down to 2ft deep. Depending on the NRCS mapped soil horizon depths, some of our samples are only an A horizon because the A horizon was at least 2 ft deep and for those which had A&B horizons, we have those as individual samples in this picture. To distinguish which samples are horizon A or B, it is noted by the last letter in the soil sample name.

After being 3/4 the way through the original SlowN lounge thread, I have a pretty good feeling on how to adjust things, but I am really curious to see what kind of input y'all have.



Best,
-Hemppanda

GSWCali said:

Happy Sunday yall! I have 6 plants that just ended week 4 of flowering. Everything was going fine in the stretch but once they finished, things sort of took a 180.

For stretch I started with a NPKCaMg of 180-45-180-220-45 but adjusted it after a couple of days because it looked like I needed more P. I then raised P to about 70 and kept it at that for the first week of stretch.

The next solution I made was 160-70-250-220-50 and my plants loved it. Everything was chugging along so I kept these ratios for pretty much all of stretch.

Once stretch finished, I made the same solution because I thought since they were doing well why adjust.
Here is some pictures throughout stretch.
View attachment 492722
View attachment 492723
View attachment 492724

As week 4 began, there seems to be a shift overnight. It started looking like a K deficiency was appearing and it got me thinking maybe at this stage of flowering, I can lower my N and Ca to help K uptake.
View attachment 492721
That is what some of the bud sites were looking like with the NPK of 160-70-250-220-50

So I created another solution with the elemental PPMs of
N - 90
P - 70
K - 250
Ca - 160
Mg - 50
S - 78
Fe - 3.4
Mn - 1.5
B - 0.5
Cu -0.02
Zn - 1.3
Mo - 0.05

For this I used the following:
Calcium Nitrate
Potassium Nitrate
Potassium Sulfate
MKP
Magnesium Sulfate
Glycine Calcium
EDTA Copper, Zinc, Manganese,
Boric Acid
Sodium Molybdate

My pH and EC has always been on point. EC is always the same going in and out maybe plus or minus 0.1. With the above solution my final EC was 2.0. One plant seems to be affected the worse with pistils turning orange quickly, all the others are gradual getting affected but not as quick.
View attachment 492717
View attachment 492718
View attachment 492719
View attachment 492720
View attachment 492727
View attachment 492728

I have yet to flush this run and that is what I'm going to do firstly. These plants are in 10 gallon of pure coco. From the pictures, it looks like there are multiple lockouts going on. The symptoms are pointing all over the place and it's telling me my ratios are whack. I was thinking it could mainly be P that is deficient but maybe something with the micros is out of whack as well. I'm hoping I can get some insight on a NPK to go from here and hopefully be able to finish these plants to achieve some decent smoke.

This is my first run going with nutrition fully from salts and I'm impressed with the results so far, I had consistent good growth from seed to right after I flipped to flower. The amount I've learned is incredible and I can't wait to continue to grow this knowledge. I appreciate anyone taking time to read this! Thanks all!

Click to expand...

Appears to be a boron toxicity to me, i wouldnt suspect a K deficiency with the rates of K youre irrigating at. Boron might not even be in excess in the soil but could be rather your Mg and K are antagonizing your Ca uptake thus leading to the boron toxicity as their rates are quite high. Flushing with gypsum can tell more but ive seen boron levels in the soil solution actually raise post flush if not enough water is used or is flushed too fast, have to keep in mind a vast majority of the total boron doesnt show up on the soil test. Ive personally found better correlation of tissue B levels with paste or lysimeter soil solution testing as opposed to the M3 boron tests. However im using Logan Labs and their M3 B test is notoriously unreliable IMO.


Edit: if you flush i would include Mo in the solution as it leaches easily and there are not much for reserves in a light soil. I would include some manganese as well if youre in flower as you dont want to run short on that as it also leaches quite easily. Copper level in your irrigation seems light as well.

I've resolved at least a part of the sodium mystery from my soil samples last year.

It appears that the source of my Bokashi Bran (Bokashi Bros) saw fit to pre-load both micronized sea salt (Sea90?) & Azomite, as well as rock dust to their mix. Another moment emphasizing the need to, or benefit of, making one's own components from scratch.

Otherwise the soilless mix testing goes forward, having knocked back some of the micro (copper, zinc, boron, and manganese) additions a bit, and I'll be using my EM-1 to make my own Bokashi or similar in the future.

I've discontinued using the specific source of rice hulls I had used, as they left what appeared to be a salt 'finger-print' on the basement floor when they had moisture at the base of the bag, discarded the Fishy Peat entirely, tossed out the remnants of the bulk 50-lb. (suspect) bag of steamed bone meal (that had left me deficient on P when I should've been heavy on P), decreased both EWCs and kelp meal (by about 1/3 each, addressing both K efficiency and excess salt concerns), discarded oyster shell flour and crab meal (due to salt concerns), and should have more results shortly.

Though the Bokashi 'discovery' occurred after the more recent submission, albeit off-set by an earlier (intuitive) reduction in the amount of Bokashi I was using (by about half) in the last several batches of mix now being tested.

Young'uns currently in 3"x3" pots will be heading into the 3-week-plus aged/fermented/activated mix shortly.

Have been experimenting with a Kellogg Organic Potting Soil mix lately, and the appearance in the clones subjected to it (the ones currently in 3"x3" pots), after diluting and remixing about 25% of the total aggregate with SS Mix #4 Organic Natural Advanced and limited amounts of my own organic components, is that Kellogg's mix seems to be steeped fairly heavily in N. The burn says so. But they've now grown out of it, watering with straight well-water with a bit of Natural Down citric acid crystals added to slightly acidify the well water. Only the Ghost Train Haze #1 is still complaining a bit, and in her case, it looks more like a deficiency than anything.

The Kellogg experiment is now yet another test resulting in helpful insight, and pointing toward sticking with a more diluted variety of tried and tested bag-mix to augment my organic soilless mix for the earlier days after transplanting.

Kellogg, like many, puts a fairly expansive (though somewhat vague) description of their organic contents/amendments on their labeling of the 55 quart bags of OMRI certified soilless mix, but fails to address actual NPK #s/values.

One of many thoughts that occurred in all of this; turn back the clock, go back to MY previous and productive organic mix from a couple years ago or so, and simply increase the gypsum a bit to augment both usable Ca and sulfur, to gain the desired outcomes in resin/oil content.

Meanwhile the Total Hardness in my well water, up near 380, indicates that as much as I loathe going back to mixing my well water 50:50 with Reverse Osmosis/Deionized water, that's a pain in the ass that's likely going to be necessary. So that's coming back into play shortly, too. This time with a more adept shut-off valve at the 'reservoir' (33-gal. heavy-duty Rubbermaid trash can), to avoid the midnight panic and near-disasters that had sometimes accompanied that system a decade and a half ago, or so.

For you guys doing salts in coco, have any of you tried pushing Ca even higher than what you can get from CaNO3? I was adding Ca EDTA and pumping Ca waaay up awhile back and the leaf serrations went down to the last quarter inch on my plants leaves which hasn't been the case with just CaNO3.

Also, for the guys who follow VPD guidelines, is there a specific chart or calculation you like more than others. It seems there's not a super solid consensus as far as the charts are concerned. Some of them vary quite a bit

Did you notice veg time increasing with the extra Ca? Did you have to increase K to keep node spacing from being too tight?

Did you cut a clone off those plants and see how easy it rooted?

Do you wonder what happened to your + - balance with the edta? Or the meq anion/cation balance? Did sap pH go up?

I like the fluence bioengineering vpd chart. But for me it is really about maxing out light, temp, co2, air flow and then using humidity as a regulator. Slow the transpiration to the point Ca can get to those tips fast enough

jidoka said:

Did you notice veg time increasing with the extra Ca? Did you have to increase K to keep node spacing from being too tight?

Did you cut a clone off those plants and see how easy it rooted?

Do you wonder what happened to your + - balance with the edta? Or the meq anion/cation balance? Did sap pH go up?

I like the fluence bioengineering vpd chart. But for me it is really about maxing out light, temp, co2, air flow and then using humidity as a regulator. Slow the transpiration to the point Ca can get to those tips fast enough

Click to expand...

I always appreciate your input jidoka even when, "I have no idea" ends up being my answer.

Some of those questions might be a little difficult for me to answer because I don't have the equipment to check some of those things and also I grow year-round in Maui and plant growth and characteristics change with the seasons. Between summer and winter humidity, temperature and sun intensity are constantly changing so some things aren't as easy for me to pinpoint on whether it's climate or nutrients plus I was playing around with nutrient levels a bit, but I think I have a pretty good mix going on at the moment. Anything I notice good or bad is pretty much just based on plant growth speeds, overall plant health and leaf observations.

So with saying that, I have no idea how positive and negative charges were affected in my coco. No idea about the meq anion/cation balance. And no idea about sap pH.

I was adding Ca EDTA during my winter runs, just FYI.

Veg time could've been increased due to the higher levels of Ca, but some other elements could've affected plant growth too. I just dropped my boron levels (again) and my plants are really taking off now in veg. I had boron too high for awhile. Time will tell, but I think I have B at a good level now.

I didn't notice node spacing being too tight and at the time I wasn't increasing K. I was keeping the mix the same all the way through veg and flower too. I lost some yield compared to raising K during flowering like I'm doing now (because of one of your past recommendations), but the flowers did turn out really great and smooth which is the main thing.

And I didn't notice cuttings taking longer to root, but they might have. I don't remember. If they took a lot of extra time to root I think I would recall that so if they did take longer to root it might have been a few days. I'm not really pressed for time to get clones to root. It was also during winter time when temps are about 10 degrees cooler on average so that can increase rooting time too. I've got too many variables to have concrete answers, but like I said, I appreciate your input and questions.

I just started working at a legal production facility and they have a lot more control over their environment so I can probably pinpoint some of these answers better with time.

Thanks again jidoka!