[Grat3fulh3ad]

I've done a bit more Editing...

[livewire420]

Grat3fulh3ad this is some good info i tend to copy other peoples post that i think is very knowledgeable and can help me in the future to when i do decide to i might make a different system or if i just need some info. then i go back into my pdf's and read up just curious if you mind that i post this in a pdf for people like me and if the want they can down load it and keep it safe on a hard drive or flash drive? of course ill have it linked to here that way you get the credit....
of course it would be on this site nobody elses

[Grat3fulh3ad]

yup... that's what the info is compiled for... so people will us it...

I'm trying to figure out why my SWT3 plants show yellowing of new/upper growth that begins as flowering is induced. This is the second run of them and my first grows. I read your thread to try to get a handle on it. Based on the charts it looks like my pH is too high.

I use Fox Farm Ocean Forest soil and have been adding calmag to ro water, also molasses and Pro-tekt at times, then I pH the water to mid to upper 6's.
I have pelleted dolomite (all I could find) and perlite added to the soil.
My runoff is typically in the low 7's.

Sound like a plan?


Thanks

[Grat3fulh3ad]

That foxfarm soil has always seemed a bit hot to me... what type of tip yellowing? yellowing and browning?

You are adding plenty of Ca and Mg in the dolomite, so the CalMag is overkill....

Does anything you're using have iron?

The yellowing begins from inside and works its way outward. This is an example from the first run well after it had started. I had worm castings mixed into that soil. The EC runoff right now is 2.0. This time around I am not using additional nutes yet. The last time I used the lucas formula with GH flora and kept EC at .8 to 1.0


What could I add for iron?

[Grat3fulh3ad]

I'll be editing this addendum into the article soon....

Understanding Chemical Salts and Their Relationship to Plant Nutrition

The simplest definition of salt is this. A salt is chemical compound (other than water) formed by a chemical reaction between an acid and a base.

For the purpose of explaining how salts are formed and named and classified, and because of everyone’s familiarity with it, I will be using Table Salt (NaCl) as an example. Please note that table salt only relates to these examples, and has no place in any nutrient and is generally harmful to freshwater microbial and plant life.

The most familiar salt is sodium chloride, the principal component of common table salt. Sodium chloride, NaCl, and water, H2O, are formed by neutralization of sodium hydroxide, NaOH, a base, with hydrogen chloride, HCl, an acid. The reaction is written like this: HCl+NaOH→NaCl+H2O.

Most salts are ionic compounds; they are made up of ions rather than molecules.

The chemical formula for an ionic salt is an empirical formula; it does not represent a molecule but shows the proportion of atoms of the elements that make up the salt. The formula for sodium chloride, NaCl, indicates that equal numbers of sodium and chlorine atoms combine to form the salt. In the reaction of sodium with chlorine, each sodium atom loses an electron, becoming positively charged, and each chlorine atom gains an electron, becoming negatively charged; there are equal numbers of positively charged sodium ions and negatively charged chloride ions in sodium chloride. The ions in a solid salt are usually arranged in a definite crystalline structure, each positive ion being associated with a fixed number of negative ions, and vice versa.

A salt that has neither hydrogen (H) nor hydroxyl (OH) in its formula, e.g., sodium chloride (NaCl), is called a normal salt.

A salt that has hydrogen in its formula, like sodium bicarbonate (NaHCO3), is called an acid salt. A salt that has hydroxyl in its formula, like basic lead nitrate (Pb[OH]NO3), is called a basic salt. Since a salt may react with a solvent to yield different ions than were present in the salt (hydrolysis), a solution of a normal salt may be acidic or basic; e.g., trisodium phosphate, Na3PO4, dissolves in and reacts with water to form a basic solution.

In addition to being classified as normal, acid, or basic, salts are categorized as simple salts, double salts, or complex salts. Simple salts, e.g., sodium chloride, contain only one kind of positive ion (other than the hydrogen ion in acid salts). Double salts contain two different positive ions, like the mineral dolomite, also known as calcium magnesium carbonate, CaMg(CO3)2.
A hydrate is a salt that includes water in its solid crystalline form; Glauber's salt and Epsom salts are hydrates.

Salts are often grouped according to the negative ion they contain, for example, bicarbonate or carbonate, chlorate, chloride, cyanide, fulminate, nitrate, phosphate, silicate, sulfate, or sulfide.

A salt may react with an acid to form a different salt and acid.

Two salts may react with one another (in solution) to form two new salts.

A salt undergoes dissociation when it dissolves in a polar solvent, like water, the extent of dissociation depending both on the salt and the solvent.

The pH of the water influences the potential dissociation.

This is the point where the rubber meets the road, so to speak, and our discussion can move on into plant nutrition. Dissociation is the separation of a substance into atoms or ions. Electrolytic dissociation occurs when an electrolyte is dissolved in a polar solvent. For example, when hydrogen chloride, HCl, is dissolved in water to form hydrochloric acid, most of its molecules dissociate into hydrogen ions (H+) and chloride ions (Cl-). Some pure substances spontaneously dissociate. For example, in pure water some of the molecules dissociate to form hydrogen ions and hydroxyl ions. Dissociation is generally reversible; when the atoms or ions of the dissociated substance are returned to the original conditions, they recombine in the original form of the substance.

So, since we now know that Common useful natural plant nutrient components, like dolomite lime(calcium magnesium carbonate) and potash (potassium carbonate), are inorganic salts, and since we now know that salts separate into their ionic components in water; nutrients made from inorganic salts don’t have to be such a mystery.

Properly armed with all of the facts, we can eliminate the need for the grower to worry about the salt in their GH flora, or their Pure Blend pro.

There are only two ways to harm your plants, or the microbiology in your soil, using salts. Introducing salts containing toxic elements, and over concentrating salts.

Obviously, no successful nutrient formula uses salts containing elements which are toxic to plants, So I’m just going to address the concentration issue.

How can more of what a plant needs be harmful?

As the concentration of a salt in a solution of water rises, the dissociation which frees up the ion to be used by the plant as nutrient, begins to reverse. This not only strengthens the ionic bonds within the salts, making less of each ion available for uptake, but it also disrupts the plants osmotic potential (ability to intake water). Just as salty food can make a person thirsty, salty soil can dehydrate a plant.

This is the main reason that the ‘less is more’ type of GenHydro approach is so effective, and the reason that the solution to a nutrient deficiency is not always to add more of said nutrient.

[inflorescence]

Great job grateful. Really informative.
Thanks.

[fjällhöga]

excellent work grateful ... , finally im through this one as well ..

It will be very important for me as i will go the hydro route in the next 2-3 months ... , just on leka and not coco .. , but Gen hydro nutes


keep on keepin

Fj

[DD4Y]

Great series of articles. It's nice to see it all laid out in layman's language. It reminded me of many things I had forgotten and a few I never knew in the first place. Thank you for all your efforts.