Ok, I was following something you said on a previous thread about canna. I was following their calculator for a while but I've been running 10-12 ml canna base with some KoolBloom around 1100-1200 ppm .5 scale. I think the cool bloom started to burn them a bit so I dialed that back and now my ppm's for flower week 6/7 have been about 950-1000 .5 scale. I use drip clean and have plenty of runoff, so I doubt there's a whole lot of excess salts in the coco, but I know that cool bloom is pretty salty so I want to make sure to get that out of there. So I was told to never let the coco dry out, but get pretty close. I've been feeding with heavy runoff every other day.
Do I let the coco get dry dry, like soil, during the ten day flush your recommend?
With canna A+B I was usually going with 10-12 ml a gal, that comes out t0 800-900 ppm nutrients. That was usually perfect for me - if I added anything it was either MKP or monster bloom at 1 tbsp/50 gal. Canna is a great standalone product def a quality bottled nute.
As far as the flush, I let it dry out as much as I am comfortable - every room is different and thus plants can react different to a dry coco pot, but I'll generally wait until the top is bone-dry and it's light brown an inch or two down (not dark). Letting coco dry to the point where the plants droop is not good to do consistently - especially with heavy salt feeds. Let a plant dry out a little and find the balance between dry and too dry - you'll see there's a point when the plant starts to look confused and that's about as far as I'd push it in coco. Once a plant droops in coco I expect problems from it at some point down the road.
As far as ph'ing the flush water, I've never really done that, but then again I pay attention to water quality like crazy and don't grow in areas where the water may be a problem.
that also depends on what type of food you are feeding your plants and how much salt those products are made with. But enzymes with water work perfectly together as a flushing solution for coco.. lets not confuse our friend.. most people who grow in coco will tell you as a rule of thumb to never use only plain water to flush your plants,,, enzymes (along with water) help the plant eat only what it needs gradually breaking down dead plant matter, and making it (organic plant available food), while simultaneously flushing out excess salt build up from the plant...
Thank you - to clarify I'm almost always talking about pure salts, I don't use bottled nutrients or 50/50 hybrid formulas. I like the zero bullshit approach and tend to keep it as simple as possible. If I do use organics it's usually dry amendments but I personally don't do too much organic gardening in coco anymore (way easier to just use soil if you want to do organic)
And as far as flushing, I'm not neccessarily trying to "flush out salts", I don't water to runoff while flushing so it's more just forcing the plant to start searching for food and using what's in the pot. I've found with consistent 850 ppm feedings it takes about 10 days for the plant to use any excess nutrients tied up in the media.
I've always flushed this way, when I was getting fancy with it I was starting at about 1.8 ec in week 1, increasing to 2.2 ec by the end of week 3, and then gradually decreasing the feed a few points every week until by week 8 you were basically flushing. That way you were counteracting any buildup in the soil while not having to waste as much food or water with runoff. I went back to plain water and a consistent feed all the way through because it's simple and has the exact same results. It's been about 5 years that I've flushed with plain water, I think I stopped ph'ing it around 3 years ago.
