SOOOO many different ways growers approach this topic. The one thing i will say is this. Every grower is correct. (Providing you are following standard procedures). Never let any other grower say your doing it wrong. If you are anything like me. You will know if its wrong by listening (Visually inspecting your crop) to your plants. SHE WILL TELL YOU WHAT SHE NEEDS.
So as a Mutli lighting grower. I have to keep track of how much food goes under what light. Example My flower areas are LED. Now many people say “You use 25%less nuets” due to the intensity of the light. (Please remember things like Temps, Strain, Co2 many factors at work here) It will cause more burning.
So I tend to use my own mix. I dont “really” use any big name companies product line. Not to say i dont have some stuff kicking around here. I have found it more cost effective to use powdered NPK ingredients.
WARNING THIS IS WHAT I DO, I DONT RECOMMEND IT UNLESS YOU FULLY UNDERSTAND what these ingredients do.
So for veg we use Fish emulsion, Mycorr, Urea (I know i just made some of you cringe, lol), Humic/fulvic. Pretty much it. I really try to keep as organic and clean as possible. Even my PH up and down, Sodium carbonate and Citric acid.
Flower, well full on flower. Beyond transition that is. It will run Muriate Potash and some Triple super phos. Maybe some liquid compost, and a homemade tea (guano,ewc,calmag+, molasses)
Transition i will usually add some nitro week one with Monopotssium phosphate. Higher Nitro week one. tapering down by week three. which is week one btw.
Geez all that said just to get to the point. How do you feed? Do you use commercial brands? do you make your own? Do you PPM/TDS? or just follow suggested amounts?
PPM by molecular weight. Only one math formula to learn used so many ways.
When we grew we used a both both custom made house blends and commercial products. peter’s 15.16.17 was our go to standby. We also used used a lot of calcium, mostly in the form of calcium nitrate. Urea only in summer when the temperature is high enough.
Between fields and greenhouse about 3 tons of fertilizer a year. About 5 gallons of phosphoric acid a year.
Liked Anderson injectors, but used dosomatic injectors instead capital expense. Two injectors one for acid with ceramic parts. One for fertilizer mix. If I was doing it today. Anderson six head injector, plus an acid head.
Don’t like working with citric acid for growing. Love, citric it for the the household domestic water.
These days I bitch about the iron and magnesium content of my well.
Our hydroponic mix was an odd duck. We grew in red scoria and heydite, With change over in feed as soon as the Sweetpeas, started showing buds. We hit flowering hard with a bump from 400 to 600 ppm calcium nitrate until the end of season. But, we would bloom for almost 5 month straight. Nexus Houses had beautiful 12 foot sidewalls. 20,000 square feet of bliss. Everyone thought we were nuts. Greenhouse cost 21 cents per square foot per week to operate.
Everything i feed is basically powder form or like just a single element. If you catch my meaning. I build each feeding custom to each phase, strain, eviroment etc. I domt treat my self as good as i treat my plants.
i like the ability to control amounts and concentration of my ingredeients. Dont get me wrong I do burn up a plant or two here and there. But thats usually when im trying out something new, strain wise
I usually never have over feeding issues. I still use GH/GO products. IMHO best on market. Ive been down pretty much every product line. Have very mixed feelings about most nuet companies tbh. And the cost, forget it. My yearly food costs are way down making my own mix.
I had to take a nap and think about this. Or more property, my wife made me take a nap. And ponder this.
Urea carbonic 57-13-6? Molecular weight of about 60?
Fire! That’s my definition of playing with fire.
Are you using Urea because of the fact that it needs to converted into a nitrate and thus slowing down the it’s availably? Like a homemade time released fertilizer.
Why not take it to the next step and pre digest it into calcium nitrate?
I know Everyone has there favorite. I am just trying to rap my head around using urea.
Is your growing in a soil or an organic peat based medium?
lol… It is dangerous for sure. I tend to do a slow long veg 90-120 day avg. The calcium nitrate works well and i do use it. but yeah i have a peat hybrid soil i use.
Low and slow. the work I have been doing will show that we can fertilize all plants when we feed at 500 ppm RKAG nutrients .
Research I am showing will show that the PPM meter isn’t the best way of measuring plant health.
Also what is being measured by the PPM?
Parts per million? Okay of what ? Nutrients ? What does that do ? What is the gauge for it? Do growers yield more because of PPM ? What is the goal of PPM for most guys? Is it just a safty blanket to grow?
My plant background tells me to identify the plant , the enviroment, IPM and then decide what to feed it. I am still learning a lot and these are not facts just research I am doing
sounds cool. My take on PPM is used more as a “how hard can i safely push at this stage”. I have tested over the years ppm values that hold consistant for my envirorment, strains,lights etc. Iam always open to trying something new. in fact thats what my home lab is for.
