Thanks for the pointers nMeeks! Would love to hear your foliar recipes. I have been using magic green and some other foliars (alga mic) but with limited success. Yet another reason to drop H&G. Been using ProTekt for a while now and like it.

So does this look right? grams /gallon


Jacks Hydro Pro 5-12-26 3 grams

Cal Nitrate at 2 grams

and Epsom Salts at .75 grams

CaCI2 .07 - .25 grams

MOST .1 gram

ProTekt Silica 2ml / gallon

Drip Clean .5ml/ gallon

I would also use MOAB powder in final weeks cutting back on the base nutes

How do you tweak it? Light at the beginning then heavy at the end?
Also, do you use their bloom booster and/or MOAB or something different?

Will be putting up a new journal in a few weeks once I clean and reset. Will be looking forward to your comments. Also, I know the drip clean is a bottle, but I have always notices a huge difference in using it in the pure coco mix I am running. I think Ill run a side by side and see what the difference is. Even though the mighty Capulator told me to ditch it.

GR33NL3AF said:

That vegetable garden is badass Meeks!

Click to expand...

Thanks Gr33n, I have learned a lot by getting hands on with the crops and working with them from seedlings to where they are now!

Goodsen Cranium said:

Ditto what gr33nl3af said. The 8th tomato picture down (if I counted right) is absolutely beautiful. The next round is shaping up nicely as well! Love the way you do what you do, Meeks. You're so very helpful & I appreciate it greatly! ;) Enjoy the rest of your weekend.

Click to expand...

Thanks so much Lady Goods! I forgot to switch my light timer yesterday, so the girls got one more day of veg than I was planning. . . they are massive now! Got my timer switched now, should be some explosive growth over the next few weeks with how happy they are looking right now!

konakings said:

Thanks for the pointers nMeeks! Would love to hear your foliar recipes. I have been using magic green and some other foliars (alga mic) but with limited success. Yet another reason to drop H&G. Been using ProTekt for a while now and like it.

So does this look right? grams /gallon


Jacks Hydro Pro 5-12-26 3 grams

Cal Nitrate at 2 grams

and Epsom Salts at .75 grams

CaCI2 .07 - .25 grams

MOST .1 gram

ProTekt Silica 2ml / gallon

Drip Clean .5ml/ gallon

I would also use MOAB powder in final weeks cutting back on the base nutes

How do you tweak it? Light at the beginning then heavy at the end?
Also, do you use their bloom booster and/or MOAB or something different?

Will be putting up a new journal in a few weeks once I clean and reset. Will be looking forward to your comments. Also, I know the drip clean is a bottle, but I have always notices a huge difference in using it in the pure coco mix I am running. I think Ill run a side by side and see what the difference is. Even though the mighty Capulator told me to ditch it.

Click to expand...

My foliar recipes are not set in stone, they change based on what minor deficiencies I think I am reading in my plants, so sometime it will include an FeZn product like Spray n Grow, or a K and Si product like Protekt, or an N-P-K product higher in P like Jack's Hydro, or a general micro nutrient product like MOST, or even a pesticide like Azamax if I am seeing too many fungus gnats on my sticky traps. . . . basically I pick a few of those and mix them up in a sprayer and apply without pH'ing anything. I don't like to foliar in the dark, because the stomata are closed the plant can't absorb nearly as much of what you are applying so most of it goes to waste. What I have been doing recently is applying foliars in the morning after the light have come on. To avoid burning my plants when I spray with the lights on I cover the glass of my air cooled reflectors with a white trash bag. I just tape the bag at each corner to each corner of my reflector, and it blocks enough light as to not burn my plants, but plenty of light still gets through to keep the plants happy and they don't notice a thing! Usually I can visibly see improvements in my plants within a few hours of doing this if I applied the right nutrients that were lacking, at which point I pull the plastic trash bags down and the plants grow like they are on steroids! If you ever want to mix up a batch using a combo of those products, shoot me a PM and I will let you know what rates I would use for the combo you are making.

I highly recommend you drop the Magic Green as soon as possible! That crap is just that . . .crap! They have different dosage rates on the bottle and their website, and if you read their message boards, they recommend a third, different rate! Any company that can't even give you a straight answer when you ask how much of their product to use, and they don't give you a clue what you even have in that bottle to be able to make an accurate guess for dosage on your own, isn't worth the money they charge IMHO!

When it comes to your layout for feeding, I have a few comments. First and foremost, the 3-2-1 ratio can be a bit confusing at first. It is not 3g-2g-1g per gallon as you say, it is just a ratio of those ingredients compared to each other. If that makes any sense. You could run it 1.5g-1g-0.5g per gallon or 4.5g-3g-1.5g per gallon or 3g-2g-1g per gallon . . . . but the basic ratio of "3-2-1" never changes.

Now that I have cleared that up, I want to restate that I have been filling a 20 gal reservoir with enough 3-2-1 ratio for 80 gallons. . . so if you do that math, I have been putting 240g Jack Hydro, 160g Cal-Nit, and 65g* Epsom (*like I said I have been running closer to .75 for this part of the "3-2-1", would be 80g) into just 20 gallons of water! This is pushing the bounds of concentration without getting lockout, but when mixed carefully it works great! The benefit of having this concentrated reservoir with a perfect 3-2-1 ratio is that I can fill my other regular feeding reservoirs up with RO whenever they start to get low, put a few gallon scoops from the concentrated solution into the mostly RO feeding reservoir, and BAM! I have full 800ppm feeding reservoirs in as much time as it takes my hose to fill it up! No more mixing every time I need to refill my feed reservoir, just once every couple weeks when the concentrate reservoir gets low! This new practice, combined with putting my drip irrigation on a timer, has saved me enormous amounts of time in the garden over the last couple weeks, and my plants look like they are loving it!

Did all that make sense or are you confused now? Assuming you are still reading because you read what I just typed enough times for it make sense, let me get into what I feed specifically, versus what you are saying you plan on feeding.

I don't use Protekt in my feed water. I don't use Drip Clean in my feed water. I don't use CaCl2 in my feed water. And I use MOST at closer to .005-.01g per gallon. Everything else looks right on with what I am feeding at a pH between 5.5-5.7 and my plants love it between 775-850ppm in veg under a 1000w. My feeding is very simple in veg, and my plants are happy. . . so last round I decided to keep things simple and feed the same thing all the way through flowering. No bloom boosters, nothing other than the 3-2-1 ingredients plus a tiny bit of MOST and everything went great! I know Capulator uses the CaCl2, but I would rather play around by raising the Ca with the Cal-Nit, dropping the Jacks Hydro a bit to maintain the same N, and bringing the P-K back up with MKP or something similar. There is no need for more Cl, and you risk toxicity since there will already be some Cl in your water, plus there is Cl in MOST and Jack's Hydro. . . so that is back to my point about not having unnecessary salts in your feed solution. But he also experiences constant Ca deficiency for some reason, so he has to play around with raising his Ca, and I don't, so I haven't spent much time calculating out how I might choose to raise Ca if I had to. More than likely I would just put some Cal-Nit into my foliar mix if I was seeing Ca deficiency, rather than complicate the 3-2-1 ratio, which works so well!

I hope all this rambling helps. I know it can be tough to decide what mix you feed when you are taking advice from more than one grower, but the more you ask questions and do research, the more you will feel comfortable working these mixes out for yourself!


-Meeks

Thank you for the dedicated response nMeeks. It was not rambling at all, and I understand your points clearly. It is people like you that propagate education for us. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Cheers Bud!

Awesome work on that vegetable garden Meeks , I have been tossing around the idea for awhile now as you know but tomorrow I will be enrolling in horticulture class for sure. I would ask how you did on your finals/exams but it's clearly obvious you did well. You attention to detail and explanation is second to none....... respect soser

konakings said:

Thank you for the dedicated response nMeeks. It was not rambling at all, and I understand your points clearly. It is people like you that propagate education for us. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Cheers Bud!

Click to expand...

Your very welcome Kona, stop by anytime.

soserthc1 said:

Awesome work on that vegetable garden Meeks , I have been tossing around the idea for awhile now as you know but tomorrow I will be enrolling in horticulture class for sure. I would ask how you did on your finals/exams but it's clearly obvious you did well. You attention to detail and explanation is second to none....... respect soser

Click to expand...

Thanks so much Soser, I am really proud of that greenhouse because it was my first time working with most of that equipment and my first time doing anything on that scale where I was making the major decisions. Specifically the lettuce was my pet project, and it made me 100% positive I am on the right path for a career! And yes, I just finished my final exams this morning and they all went very well (at least one 99% so far), thanks!








Good afternoon Farmers! I am officially on winter vacation, and ready to spend a ton of time lurking The Farm and catching up on all the logs I fell behind on! To start things off, I thought I would update this log with some 12/12 Day 4 shots or the Alien Grapevine and White Fire Alien ladies!

First let me say that these 6 girls are absolutely incredible! Extremely strong aromas coming from even the slightest stem rub and by far the most massive leaves I have ever had on both strains! I think the leaf size has to do with my new irrigation timer, which has been keeping the plants happier than happy these last couple weeks! A few updates to the feeding/environment: I am feeding closer to 850ppm at this point and have now dropped the Cal-Nit down to 1.8g in the 3-2-1 ratio, and brought the Epsom back up to almost a full 1g. I think that 775-815ppm is ideal for rooms that have an RH around 50-55%, but I have been working on bringing my RH% up to around 65 or 70%, and with that I have had to bring my PPM up a bit to maintain the same nutrient uptake even though there is slightly reduced transpiration. I chose to do this based on a Vapor Pressure Deficit chart that I was given for greenhouse tomato growing, which indicated that if your temperatures are between 74-78 you are better off with a humidity around 60-85% to avoid a VPD over 1.0

If that is way over everyones head, just ignore me and check out these awesome pictures of some crazy healthy plants at Day 4!










Thanks for checking out my log! Stay tuned for the next couple months to see these girls go from where they are now to massive greasy stinking colas over a foot long!

-Meeks

Hey nMeeks,

Looks outstanding man, thanks for sharing and giving such detailed explainations of everything.

I'm wondering about your Ca:Mg ratio. It looks like with the 3g-1.8g-1g ratio your Ca:Mg is at 1.2ppm:1ppm which seems to be working well for you. Everything else I have read about cannabis profiles seems to recommend a 2:1 ratio through flowering. Is it just not that important? Interested in your opinion. Also, if you're using tap water, have you had it tested for any contributions to your profile?

Just for reference, if you were using 3-1.8-1 per gallon I came up with:

N(NO3) P K Ca Mg S
113 41 171 90 75 98


3-2-1 per gallon:

N(NO3) P K Ca Mg S
122 41 171 100 75 98

Just 3-2:

N(NO3) P K Ca Mg S
122 41 171 100 50 68

Another thing that seems to be talked about a little bit is the K:Ca:Mg of either 4:2:1 or 3:2:1(3:2:1 after stretch it think) which the 3g-2g formula seems to have pretty close. If the Mg is not enough such that you see deficiency and feel you have add the extra 25ppm with 1g/gal epsom, shouldn't the other major cations be raised slightly to keep that ratio balanced? I know coco has a high CEC and the major cation ratio (K:Ca:Mg) is probaly important.

Obviously, what you're doing seems to be working just fine, which is making me a little confused. I'm trying to dial in coco and Jack's which is the reason for all my questions and I'm just trying to figure out which direction to go.

HG23 said:

Hey nMeeks,

Looks outstanding man, thanks for sharing and giving such detailed explainations of everything.

I'm wondering about your Ca:Mg ratio. It looks like with the 3g-1.8g-1g ratio your Ca:Mg is at 1.2ppm:1ppm which seems to be working well for you. Everything else I have read about cannabis profiles seems to recommend a 2:1 ratio through flowering. Is it just not that important? Interested in your opinion. Also, if you're using tap water, have you had it tested for any contributions to your profile?

Just for reference, if you were using 3-1.8-1 per gallon I came up with:

N(NO3) P K Ca Mg S
113 41 171 90 75 98


3-2-1 per gallon:

N(NO3) P K Ca Mg S
122 41 171 100 75 98

Just 3-2:

N(NO3) P K Ca Mg S
122 41 171 100 50 68

Another thing that seems to be talked about a little bit is the K:Ca:Mg of either 4:2:1 or 3:2:1(3:2:1 after stretch it think) which the 3g-2g formula seems to have pretty close. If the Mg is not enough such that you see deficiency and feel you have add the extra 25ppm with 1g/gal epsom, shouldn't the other major cations be raised slightly to keep that ratio balanced? I know coco has a high CEC and the major cation ratio (K:Ca:Mg) is probaly important.

Obviously, what you're doing seems to be working just fine, which is making me a little confused. I'm trying to dial in coco and Jack's which is the reason for all my questions and I'm just trying to figure out which direction to go.

Click to expand...

HG23, thanks for the very thoughtful question! You make some excellent points and I am curious about some of the things you bring up myself. As you said, I am getting good results, so I have been less inclined to play around with making those ratios my bible. BUT, that doesn't mean I don't respect the work that went into getting those ratios figured out, and I will give the 3-2 a try in my veg closet to see if it will work. This is going to sound bad, but I have been following the 3-2-1 guidelines and responding based on what my plants tell me, rather than calculating out the ppm like I do in my hydro veggie greenhouse and should be for my girl also. . . the weird thing is, I just bumped my Epsom salts up, to respond to early signs of Mg deficiency. . . I wonder if that is being caused by an imbalance rather than a deficiency. Thanks again for bringing this to my attention.

-Meeks

Jay-ck-pot, those little ladies look very nice! Hope the finals went well!

Hey meeks,

If you wouldn't mind, I'd like to see a shot or two of your new irrigation timer setup next time your taking pics in the garden. Thanks.

GR33NL3AF said:

Jay-ck-pot, those little ladies look very nice! Hope the finals went well!

Click to expand...

Finals went great, still waiting on the grades but I am not worried at all! These ladies are setting up to be some really beastly plants, I can't wait to see how the develop over the next 2 weeks during the big stretch! Thanks for the kind words Gr33n!

HG23 said:

Hey meeks,

If you wouldn't mind, I'd like to see a shot or two of your new irrigation timer setup next time your taking pics in the garden. Thanks.

Click to expand...

I got a few pictures for you when I was working a few minutes ago HG, I hope these are helpful, let me know if they need any explanation other than the drip emitters being pressure regulated 1GPH. The air pump/air stones are running on a photoperiod sensor, so I don't waste energy during the nights when I'm not irrigating.















































-Meeks

killer as usual. Great pics especially the greenhouse. keep posting.

midwestdensies said:

killer as usual. Great pics especially the greenhouse. keep posting.

Click to expand...

Thanks MWD, I got an update for you right now :D



Howdy Farmers! I am officially on day 10 of 12/12 lighting, but I think my girls took a little while to get into the swing of things this round, so I would say I am closer to day 6/7 of flowering. I have been pruning out all the lower buds to leave just the main branches to get all the energy, and I have been thinning the plants for the last few days to get them the density of tops I want. A few branches have broken here and there during the LST. . which hasn't been so low stress at all I guess, but that's what I get for not training them younger like I usually do! No major losses, I think I will have both screen almost completely filled in, and the spots that are not yet full are strategically the same spots that I have noticed as my lowest yielding areas or at risk of fan damage. I am really happy with how well these plants are growing, and the size they are right now. . . .but I am headed out of town for the next week and when I come back I have a feeling I won't be saying this anymore! The stretch just started to kick in last night, they had a couple extra inches this morning, but over the next week I expect no less than a foot of vertical growth! I will be leaving it as a single screen layer until I return so I don't risk any tops getting caught in the second layer as they stretch through it, I hope that it isn't too difficult to put the top screen in place once I get back. I have a bunch of photos that aren't too exciting because it pretty much still looks like I am in veg from a distance, but here they are for you:











-Meeks:cool:

Hey meeks,

Thanks for the timer pics, now I see it's just a super simpler setup with the hydro store digi timer.

I was also wondering, do you do anything in particular to your coco before you reuse it? How about in your veggie GH?

Speaking of that veggie house, you mentioned you calculate elemental ppms for their feed. Do you just follow previously figured out numbers or do you try different formulas on them? Is there some sort of handbook or something that says "for this type of lettuce shoot for this formula"? I'm still very much interested in how your feeding program is working out for your cannabis and am planning on giving the 3,2,1 a shot this round.

HG23 said:

Hey meeks,

Thanks for the timer pics, now I see it's just a super simpler setup with the hydro store digi timer.

I was also wondering, do you do anything in particular to your coco before you reuse it? How about in your veggie GH?

Speaking of that veggie house, you mentioned you calculate elemental ppms for their feed. Do you just follow previously figured out numbers or do you try different formulas on them? Is there some sort of handbook or something that says "for this type of lettuce shoot for this formula"? I'm still very much interested in how your feeding program is working out for your cannabis and am planning on giving the 3,2,1 a shot this round.

Click to expand...

Coco can be reused or used continuously for a couple years, but with a high value crop like cannabis, there is no reason to risk any surviving pathogens or pests when you can just get new coir for relatively cheap (especially if you get the bricks or slabs). In our greenhouse we use new slabs each year, but the slabs are used for 9 months so the roots pretty much fill the whole bag at that point anyways. We do calculate what ppms we are getting from what fertilizers, but we don't use premixed things like Jack's Pro Hydro, we use MKP and Cal-Nit though!

Yes there is absolutely a handbook for fertilizing every commercial crop. For lettuce there are different ranges for ideal growth than for tomatos or pepper or cucumber. Tomatoes have had all kinds of research done for max yields, so they have accurate stage based feeding recommendations too! Tricks like pulling back on the N before flowering and then slowly bringing it back up over a few weeks/months as the plant sets more fruit, so the plant doesn't grow too many leaves but still has enough N for all the fruit growth are common place. There is a set number like 60ppm Mg and 180ppm Calcium for some nutrients, and for others there is a range that is tolerable, and can be manipulated to steer the plant more towards vegetative or fruiting growth depending on what the grower wants. And yes for certain varieties there are super dialed in recipes and even pruning methods to make sure you can maintain consistant harvests of high quality fruit.

I say give the 3-2-1 a shot and see how it works for you, if you don't like it, drop the Epsom and maybe mix in some MKP to get your numbers right where you want them.

Sweet I like how you set up your drip I just got mine set up stop by when you got a sec and if you see any room for improvement let me know I havent added the drip end regulators yet I WAS TORN BETWEEN THE 2GPH AND THE 1GPH AWW CHOICES CHOICES LMOA everything looks tight in your room brother great work as always much respect and take care brother

p.s the bud shots all look way kill btw

PEACE
KILLERCHEF

Well , nmeeks I gotts agree with you ogr gear is very vigorous as I am currently running the strawberry white and you mentioned day 10 but actually around day 6/7 . I have noticed that when I put a flower into flower to early as I have had to do last two runs. First I was anxious to get something growing after taking off because of summer heat and travel issue's and know I am forced to do it once again as I might not have enough time before pending move. So I have noticed that if entering a flower to flower to early it seems to take longer to show first bloom as it seems it requires extra time. So to keep with my inquisitiveness self is there any horticulture facts that suggest this is the case or just something I am observing and I register for class today , so hopefully I won't bother you next year as much .....lol... enjoy your trip .... peace soser

soserthc1 said:

Well , nmeeks I gotts agree with you ogr gear is very vigorous as I am currently running the strawberry white and you mentioned day 10 but actually around day 6/7 . I have noticed that when I put a flower into flower to early as I have had to do last two runs. First I was anxious to get something growing after taking off because of summer heat and travel issue's and know I am forced to do it once again as I might not have enough time before pending move. So I have noticed that if entering a flower to flower to early it seems to take longer to show first bloom as it seems it requires extra time. So to keep with my inquisitiveness self is there any horticulture facts that suggest this is the case or just something I am observing and I register for class today , so hopefully I won't bother you next year as much .....lol... enjoy your trip .... peace soser

Click to expand...

Yeah there are multiple reasons a plant can take longer to transition to flowering. High rates of nitrogen can steer a plant towards vegetative growth, so can very similar day/night temps.



Here is a chart from the University of Arizona's Plant Science 217 class that I pulled out of my records:





Keep in mind that this is a chart referring to tomatos grown in a greenhouse setting, in coco slabs with drip irrigation, not cannabis. . . but many of these rules of thumb can be transcribed to your own cultural practices to help you steer your plants!

And yes, you are also correct that a plant has juvenile and mature growth stages, and when the plant is still in its juvenile stage, it will take longer to transition to flowering!

Always great comments Soser, thanks for stopping by!


-Meeks

Your screen is filling in nicely! Love that stem shot, too.

In my head, I'd actually posted that earlier. It's all good, because now I can thank you for that informative chart. I didn't get the celsius learnin'! lol... Had to go pull a conversion chart! ;)

Always appreciate your updates & input. Hope your time off from school is wonderful!
Be well, Meeks!

Hey NMeeks so your bloom formula is the same as your veg formula? No bloom boosters, moab powder etc etc?

KILLERCHEF420 said:

Sweet I like how you set up your drip I just got mine set up stop by when you got a sec and if you see any room for improvement let me know I havent added the drip end regulators yet I WAS TORN BETWEEN THE 2GPH AND THE 1GPH AWW CHOICES CHOICES LMOA everything looks tight in your room brother great work as always much respect and take care brother

p.s the bud shots all look way kill btw

PEACE
KILLERCHEF

Click to expand...

Hey KC, I'll stop by your thread right after I get this post up, sorry for the delay. Thanks for the very kind words my friend!

Goodsen Cranium said:

Your screen is filling in nicely! Love that stem shot, too.

In my head, I'd actually posted that earlier. It's all good, because now I can thank you for that informative chart. I didn't get the celsius learnin'! lol... Had to go pull a conversion chart! ;)

Always appreciate your updates & input. Hope your time off from school is wonderful!
Be well, Meeks!

Click to expand...

Haha, I post on your log all the time in my head Lady Goods! Thanks for always taking the time to comment, I really appreciate it! I have a great chart that helps with that temp. conversion and does a whole lot more than that, I'll post it at the bottom of this update!

konakings said:

Hey NMeeks so your bloom formula is the same as your veg formula? No bloom boosters, moab powder etc etc?

Click to expand...

For my entire last grow that was documented in this thread, yes, that is correct! For this grow, I have just finished doing a bit of PK boosting with a flush using MKP, so I can no longer say this grow was just JRPeters line. My bloom formula only changes a little bit, I can run 2g Cal-Nit in veg, and I only run 1.8g in flowering, but thats pretty much it.





Hey Farmers!! It feels like it has been forever since I did an update for this log. . . hopefully everyone else has been busy enjoying the holidays also! I'm back in California with my plants and have spent the last couple days cleaning up the jungle that my canopy had become after being unkept for a week of big stretch! My plant-sitter did an excellent job maintaining the pH and ppm's of my nutrient solution, including doing a reservoir refill with my K.I.S.S. system, and the plants really shot up! I came back to see between 5 and 8 inches of growth on every top, and the formation of little white puff ball buds! There has been a couple more inches of growth and a lot more pistils over the last few days, and at day 20 of 12/12 lighting, I am getting very excited about these ladies! Looking back at photos from last grow at day 21, these ladies need to really step their game up though! I am hoping to see some explosive growth over the next week, otherwise I might have pruned out too many lower buds.

I had a ton of pictures to sort through for this upload, I hope you all like the ones I chose! I didn't show much of the clawing that occurred on day 16/17 in the photos, but I am hoping the flush I gave the day I got home stopped that in its tracks.


White Fire Alien + Alien Grapevine
Day 20 of 12/12:











Thanks as always for checking out my grow log, Happy Holidays Farmers!


-Meeks