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MKP PK Mixing

wizberry

Member
Wiz

That's alot of residual for ro.
For hps your revised #'s look like a good starting point.
Jack's adds:
.25ppm mn/zn
.50ppm fe
.05 ppm cu/mo
.10 b per 120 ppm ca in their boosted CaNO product.
If your media has sufficient balance and sufficient mg you can lower mg even more once the plant roots in well.
Ca controls cytokinins and is largely responsible for internode length. Move the Ca up or down until you get the internode spacing you want on your different strains.

Fe
How's your veg going?

Jack
What ppm of Mg is low enough to not interfere w Ca uptake, but high enough to avoid deficiencies? I haven't been using Jacks Part B for some time, since I found generic CalNit for $22/50 lbs at the local grow store. The generic part B doesn't contain any micronutrients, however the Jacks Part A does.

I ordered 2 products off amazon, Jackpot Micronutrient, a chelated microelement supplement, and Microgenics, a similar microelement supplement that I plan to use as a foliar, roughly about $20 each. What products do you use if any?
 

jackspratt61

Active member
Jack
What ppm of Mg is low enough to not interfere w Ca uptake, but high enough to avoid deficiencies? I haven't been using Jacks Part B for some time, since I found generic CalNit for $22/50 lbs at the local grow store. The generic part B doesn't contain any micronutrients, however the Jacks Part A does.

I ordered 2 products off amazon, Jackpot Micronutrient, a chelated microelement supplement, and Microgenics, a similar microelement supplement that I plan to use as a foliar, roughly about $20 each. What products do you use if any?

To start run ppm p=mg. Next move k/ca thru the ratios until you get the internode spacing you want. I slowly moved k/ca from 1.25:1 to 1.5:1and some strains literally went to looking like a different plant. It was a move of 23ppm less ca. All visible signs of deficiency other than slight zn and b went away.Ca/mg <2/1 gives me issues.
So far the k/ca ratio seems to be the largest hurdle.
On the metals,for the most part, I use sulfates and make my own.
You may be just fine with the metals in Jack's A without adding more. But,I've been adding back at the rates I posted which are the aquagold cano rates.
How are the internode spaces for you currently?
 

f-e

Well-known member
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I have been slack with my potting up. I must move them from the 15 cell tray, but if I run soil again, I can't begin to imagine what Ca numbers I actually have.
I might do a run in canna terra, with canna feeds (I just picked up) in bigger pots with an incandescent lamp added.

I used to have a good outdoor that just finished in 35 days indoors. The days were too short. What I see is somewhat like short days, and MH lamps. They are the only things I can relate to small buds that finish fast. MH and short days.

It's hard to believe my lights could of drifted so much. Leaving me the other option, to do the same run again, with sodium lighting. In 5 foot of headroom... I'm not sure I can.

I have run out of useful input here. I just don't see how only this location acts this way. With a reduction over time that can be plotted quite linearly, despite everything I have done. Only lights aging or a virus spreading holds much worth, and I have been putting in new things so a slowly progressing virus can't really be it. Lights? Really? Just mine?
 

jackspratt61

Active member
I have been slack with my potting up. I must move them from the 15 cell tray, but if I run soil again, I can't begin to imagine what Ca numbers I actually have.
I might do a run in canna terra, with canna feeds (I just picked up) in bigger pots with an incandescent lamp added.

I used to have a good outdoor that just finished in 35 days indoors. The days were too short. What I see is somewhat like short days, and MH lamps. They are the only things I can relate to small buds that finish fast. MH and short days.

It's hard to believe my lights could of drifted so much. Leaving me the other option, to do the same run again, with sodium lighting. In 5 foot of headroom... I'm not sure I can.

I have run out of useful input here. I just don't see how only this location acts this way. With a reduction over time that can be plotted quite linearly, despite everything I have done. Only lights aging or a virus spreading holds much worth, and I have been putting in new things so a slowly progressing virus can't really be it. Lights? Really? Just mine?

Split the base of a few plants when you crop next.. have a look for any discoloration.
 

f-e

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Will do. Though if it is a virus, it enters in the bloom area and has not got to the veg area it shares equipment with. For things leave my veg area to other locations.
My pots stand on PVC trays, made for air-handling. I have not yet lined them with food wrap or something. My pots are kept 5mm above the base on shims, and the roots air prune off, or I would of acted already
 

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jackspratt61

Active member
If you see discoloration in your cropped plant base go look in veg. If a complete callus doesn't form at cutting tip it can cause problems. The plant(s) may limp along but not thrive. It's also passed along to the next generation.
It easily goes undetected at first.
 

wizberry

Member
To start run ppm p=mg. Next move k/ca thru the ratios until you get the internode spacing you want. I slowly moved k/ca from 1.25:1 to 1.5:1and some strains literally went to looking like a different plant. It was a move of 23ppm less ca. All visible signs of deficiency other than slight zn and b went away.Ca/mg <2/1 gives me issues.
So far the k/ca ratio seems to be the largest hurdle.
On the metals,for the most part, I use sulfates and make my own.
You may be just fine with the metals in Jack's A without adding more. But,I've been adding back at the rates I posted which are the aquagold cano rates.
How are the internode spaces for you currently?

Jack,

I could always use less spacing and more stacking 😁 Doesnt it seem counter-intuitive to be decreasing calcium and getting better results? Or am I not understanding your ratios?
 

jackspratt61

Active member
Jack,

I could always use less spacing and more stacking 😁 Doesnt it seem counter-intuitive to be decreasing calcium and getting better results? Or am I not understanding your ratios?

It's light,strain specific. In my case 1:1 k/ca under growers choice 680 had the plants practically stunted. NPK,Mg and metals were all affected.

Ca largely controls the plants root dominance and subsequently internode length. Also remember that your media and water is an influence too. Run the trials. You'll be glad you did.
 

f-e

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I might have the answer..
20220224_224802.jpg

The pic is terrible (phone) but the important details are there. I think that's sulphrated. The wire within the LED is going black. Also look at the camera trying to white balance. To my eye, it's nothing like that. It's warm. If I cover my reds though, the 3000K 301h's here look close to 4000K by my eye. These LED's are likely blue based, as most are. The blue light excites phosphors which give the other colours. Sulphration causes a colour shift. It's very hard to quantify as LEDs are not all made the same way. I'm proposing I have lost some red and gained some blue. My camera is using RGB sensors, so it's hitting the blue ones and showing the shift that my eye is processing out.
It's just speculation.

I found the trunks from my last run (too big to blend and flush) They look fine.

Having had 14 bad runs on the trot, trying so many feeding alterations, and the original known formula, I feel looking at food isn't helping. It's the exact same timing with any feed/substrate so far. They move to flower from transition, and just stall. The final push happens though. Just there isn't much to push. This is something huge to be halving my yield. The plants are not giving signs commonly seen. Some things have been influential, but it's just tuning a feed that's too low and can't go up as they are not growing.

The only thing that could steadily go downhill, is the light. New plants come in and just act like the others, so viral spread doesn't explain it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NaI4dTgS7bc
That's a vid where LEDs are purposefully exposed and the physical damage seen. The first half should be skipped, but it's very short.
 

jackspratt61

Active member
I might have the answer..

The pic is terrible (phone) but the important details are there. I think that's sulphrated. The wire within the LED is going black. Also look at the camera trying to white balance. To my eye, it's nothing like that. It's warm. If I cover my reds though, the 3000K 301h's here look close to 4000K by my eye. These LED's are likely blue based, as most are. The blue light excites phosphors which give the other colours. Sulphration causes a colour shift. It's very hard to quantify as LEDs are not all made the same way. I'm proposing I have lost some red and gained some blue. My camera is using RGB sensors, so it's hitting the blue ones and showing the shift that my eye is processing out.
It's just speculation.

I found the trunks from my last run (too big to blend and flush) They look fine.

Having had 14 bad runs on the trot, trying so many feeding alterations, and the original known formula, I feel looking at food isn't helping. It's the exact same timing with any feed/substrate so far. They move to flower from transition, and just stall. The final push happens though. Just there isn't much to push. This is something huge to be halving my yield. The plants are not giving signs commonly seen. Some things have been influential, but it's just tuning a feed that's too low and can't go up as they are not growing.

The only thing that could steadily go downhill, is the light. New plants come in and just act like the others, so viral spread doesn't explain it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NaI4dTgS7bc
That's a vid where LEDs are purposefully exposed and the physical damage seen. The first half should be skipped, but it's very short.

Fe

Yours is a real stumper.
Can you get a different light for a few weeks?
 

f-e

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The last week they have had just my base, which lists npk and I know has a little mg. Only a 20% dose though. That burning along the edges came back. It's not an over feed sign, unless something has been left outstanding as it's competitors were depleted. It did seem to come in the first few days, then slow. I have no idea, but find myself circling P K and Ca most of the time. With a lack of K seeming likely, that might be because of too much Ca. My feed that used to work, was 180K 50Ca and while there was some premature aging and Ca rash, it seems more Ca has never helped. From runs with just 18ppm more, to runs with Ca near K, The rash has been held off, but the plants have just got worse. That rash was also very late on, and I'm not saying with 100% certainty that it was Ca as Mg can be similar and without pics, it's an old memory now.

By the time new LED PCB boards arrive, I will be at day 23 again. They are on order though. I think this run, incandescent lamps are going in. I had not really noticed, but the amount they stretch has been reducing along with yields. For some time, my 1.4M height limit hasn't been cause for concern. In the past I have used incandescent lamps to stretch them, and that might of actually offered some control as I look back, guessing when I was doing that.

I'm ready to tear up all past history and start again soon. I'm using Canna Terra soil and feeds this next time. Something I have not done in years. Full strength, nothing else planned. The veg plants got it a few days ago. I turned up the lights over them a bit to.


I have been contemplating the IR my lights produce. The first few runs that I liked, I was running them quite hard. They were producing IR you could feel. I then found I was using too much lighting and also started installing fans over these lights which rarely pass 50% power. My lights are not exactly cold, but I would enter a 'coldest lights' competition with some confidence. I have a QB that uses finned heatsinks, with a fan assisted cowling over the top. My light to IR ratio might really set me apart. Two are done in the pic



I really did want to load up with Ca before bloom, but the Terra is Ca rich they say
 

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f-e

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Sometimes we avoid the truth, because we don't like it.
I missed the feed one day, but did do the Ca and Mg. I got mild signs, in that one day. Days later, I dropped the feed to something very low (and stopped ca&mg) and saw the signs strongly. This follows the reduction of NPK on each occasion. Lets have a look..
20220226_002014.jpg

Its not N, so P or K. Only K fits. Top left shows some serrations going. Dead center though, that's random death. Ca is about the only thing I can think of does this, but Ca isn't mobile. Perhaps it was never fixed properly, but that's what I'm thinking about the K. The closest single element to this issue is K. It's not right how its showing, but it's our closest. Think of the timing. End of transition as blooming goes full swing, I stall. This is K demand time, and I'm looking like K is a problem. At one time the idea is was switching with Na held weight, but I'm not in coco now. I hate to say it, but I'm on this PVC tray, and it's one of the few things remaining. It so happens, that PVC isn't a single plastic. For food use, such as the pipes we grow in, schedule 40 is used. I'm not using that. Other grades can give off metals such as lead. Chloride is chlorine and a metal. No particular metal. That's what started me scratching my head. This and a memory of chucking away this same ducting maybe 30 years ago, saying to myself never again. I don't remember why though.
If this is the cause, I don't want to find it. Lead moves in through the calcium pathways and generally stays in the roots. The toxicity causes the plant to shut down, closing the stomata. This lack of co2 ultimately leads to elevated h2o2 within the plant. A lot of this fits.

So... the next thing I will do... is delete my account and move countries. Then lash myself every day until I bleed.
 

f-e

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Well my dream of running Terra and noting the issues isn't happening. They will be dead by the end of the week


Really not sure what to think about that to be honest. It started with stress signs and hardening off, so I increased the light and saw this in 24 hours. A huge 15w per foot.

I have done nothing about it, but these need to provide me cuttings, so I can't sacrifice them by feeding half more, and half less. I will have to walk away. Though I'm all ears
 

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jackspratt61

Active member
What ec are you using? I read an interesting study about the effectiveness of ca to antagonize k uptake at lower ec. At 1.6ec and above the antagonism almost disappears. This is important info for k/ca ratios when steering.
 

f-e

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Yeah, the last year or so I have been going in around 1.3 generally, to keep runoff around there somewhere. That study seems to align with what I saw. Having to keep Ca down to allow the K to work in those final weeks. Weeks where I might be going in at just 0.9 and seeing 1.4 coming out. That behaviour is in answer to them not eating though. Up until that 23 day stall, I would like to be around 1.6 going in. In the early days my truncheon was off, and while I was recording 1.6 it was actually about 2.0
I really have been up/down left and right. If this is food, I have no idea how I have missed it. Hence I am starting again.

I realised the bad pic above was light related. only about 500ppfd but little bonsai's around the perimeter did alright. I did whop one with 50% more food but it didn't seem to matter. It's calcium isn't it? my RH| was just 50% and temp about 23c so I'm not surprised. Terra feed doesn't even list Ca so more feed was unlikely to fix it. Though to be fair, their coco feed doesn't list it either I heard, which is why someone had it tested and found plenty. I just need to stop this bottle game I think. It's all smoke and mirrors when I finally get to see behind the curtain of panda sheet.
Knocked the light back down. Seem to be greening up at the tips. It's not enough light now though. My dream of a full terra run, lasted a few days. Back to the classroom, when the blackboard is broken. What can I learn. Meh.

This crop is actually the best thing I have going on at the moment. I keep buying cars that break. Can't get to work. My toys are all bust. Women I avoid. I'm now triple filtering and still the smell is getting through. I have chopped it down, as I don't think I could take it getting me in more trouble. It's too rubbish to be worth it.
 

f-e

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This is interesting. Looking long and hard at the dimmed lights, I can pick out 3 different colour boards. Here I think the have 3000K on the right, and 4000K+ on the left. All my boards came on one order
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I don't remember 4000K being an option, but they do appear in some shops. Off screen to the left, another warm panel, that's a little cooler than the one here. All three are in the next pic

Click image for larger version  Name:	4k3kLight.jpg Views:	1 Size:	113.0 KB ID:	18091068


Probably a bit hard to see, but the two warm one's are close, so are likely 3000K and 3500K but then the cool one isn't an equal increment away at all. Perhaps 5000K is a better estimate. I'm not sure of the choices in that shop, at that time.

I have 3 white, 1 warm white and 2 warmer whites. All with reds added.

I think they have been like this a long time. I didn't really look when new, but when I first took notice there was already this issue. It doesn't say a lot for quality control.

My screen here was calibrated with an external piece of kit. My camera isn't so good, but the whites are accurate by my eye. Though my camera has lost some red on the cabling, that white panel has no warmth to loose.
 

f-e

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So the 3000K + decent reds turned up.

The ones above now appear much closer together in colour terms, beside the 3000K that just arrived. The new one's look white. Leaving me to ponder if the new ones are wrong again, or the old ones have shifted so much warmer. I have read that white LEDs are blue ones with phosphors to give the other colours. I'm not so sure, as blues evolved last. Other reading says LEDs shift to a cooler light over time. That seems the more common story, but for sure, blue took a long to to develop after red green and yellow were common. To the layman observer, white Christmas lights are quite recent tech.

These new lights cast red spots on the floor, if the light just leaks out through a gap. Like a shuttering effect, you see a lattice of red dots on the floor. The old lights don't but they used to. I had clean forgotten they did this until seeing it again. That suggests the old 660nm mid price reds are shot. For sure, a gradual change has occurred

I recently turned off the floor heating, as in a sense, that's a far red emitter on 24/7. I also took the fans off the lights to let them warm a bit. Thus more far red above.

I did watch them diving into flower far to quickly as usual. Hard tight formations from the start. So, thinking on about this rapid approach and early aging signs, I shoved the timer on for half hour extra. They seem to be going as fast, but fluffing out more, to fill in later. Not fluffy like an issue. Still too well formed tbh. However looking like they will fill.

I'm still chasing nutrient fixes. I have found my old feed remarkably low in f-e and the terra not much higher at 0.7ppm. Most feeds fall between 1.5 and 3.5ppm. I have raised to 3ppm and they look darker and faster at the new growth. I'm adding things like Ca that antagonise f-e or it would probably of been fine. I feel this might of been needed for a while.

My first runs, the good ones, were done without calibrating my pH meter. It was wayyy off. I had been under 5 usually. Since I have run higher. Occasionally a slip of the hand would make up a low pH tank and they seemed to like it. Historically I have run low pH but throughout my issues I have not really. I ran low a couple of days, like pH4 today, and get the best development of this time in ages. Low pH looks preferential to a few things, but combing through, f-e and Zn are most likely to benefit. Both have been seen as problems over time, and both are low in the feeds I have used. I have doubled Zn but it's still not eye openingly high at 0.6ppm. The whole suite of small stuff has been raised 100% using the canna mono trace mix, and still non are that high. I might take up Zn to 1ppm as I have some chelated stuff.

I have been dropping calcium a few days. Just 33ppm now. The terra range offers non in the feeds as it's in the terra substrate. I think I need a bit because of the LEDs but perhaps the Ca I have been adding has really been antagonising the already low zinc and iron. Hence the low pH which favours them, and not Ca.

I'm feeling a little more confident than usual. It's amazing how you can change so many things, grow after grow, and still find stuff to change.

First 10 days of bloom were pretty tragic. It seemed the f-e was the real win, but all the trace was also increased and the Ca dropped from the 88ppm in grow to 44ppm. The 88 might of been high, as I was catching up after depleting the substrates reserves with a heap of light. I think so anyway. The spares in low light were fine, but the main plants got a lump of light, and dropped their leaves like a typical high light plant. Hard red stems and slow growth followed. Ca fixed it. I can't ignore that Ca aids P the energy provider. High light... so I would like to run that disaster scenario again. Just not with two weeks lost.
 

f-e

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I have taken my MKP thread, bent it over, and made it my bitch.

Oops.
 

dramamine

Well-known member
I have taken my MKP thread, bent it over, and made it my bitch.

Oops.

Nah, it's a good read. Rough not knowing exactly how much Ca is already in the substrate. Sounds like you're sussing it out though. Hope it starts smoothing out a bit for you.
 

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