High Brix In Hydro? Thoughts, Facts, Ideas Etc..

[Skybound]

I'm all about "brix", but it's just a term. Like Indica or Sativa. Since we can't use those terms anymore I guess we have to use "sugary" now for high Brix, to keep from confusing all the scientists trying to understand from the outside (rolls eyes).

Using the actual Brix index on Cannabis is pointless. The reading will cut in half when clouds roll in..

Solids... Nutes, sugars, starches, who knows what solids..

Cannabis resin is a resin, not a juice. The only valid Cannabis Brix meter is the tongue.. Last thing we need is people chasing solids in wet plant matter with no regard to what they are..

Too bad the hundreds that regularly buy Doc Bud's high brix formulas didn't first get a chance to read your musings. They could have saved thousands and just settled for what you consider good pot.

 

[Ikkt]

Yes, I will not be the only one contributing content to the site. . The most advanced testing is going on in the Netherlands and not with cannabis plants.
Shame than people get the blinders on and get the FALSE impression that hydro is some miracle growing technique.
It is good for the hydro business and for people to make an excess of money off you.

Weak and sick plants will always need help, so then you are sold pesticides which make the problem worse.
More money for the dro shop.

The pesticides make the plant weaker, then when you use water soluble ions, the plant then has to use another 30% of its energy to convert the water soluble ions into a form it can use.

Nitrate makes plants grow fast but they are weak and sick with lots of water in the cells and the cell walls are thin. The free nitrates in the sap is a calling card for pests and diseases.

Look at the products for hydro. What are they based on. Nitrate. Many pesticides are either nitrate or chloride based. Calcium nitrate is used in the nutrients or other ions combined with nitrate.
Hard to increase the calcium without increasing the nitrate.

I worked with a hydro grower that was in denial of these facts. Hires me to fix the problem, but then wants to ignore the fact he can not get in a run without pests or diseases.

Consistently gets mold, loses whole rooms to seeded crops and yet thinks all this science is "books not real life".
While continue to fail until you wake up.
That is why you keep seeing soil mentioned. If you want to grow the highest grade crops it is not going to happen with your current methods.


No, that is not entirely correct. You can use organic materials on a conventional crop but not vice versa.

DEFINITION: "conventional" grower --- one who uses *materials*
prohibited by organic certification programs (since by that criterion
alone (s)he can be denied certification).

1) There is nothing that prohibits a conventional grower from using
some or all of the techniques commonly attributed to (but rarely
employed by) "organic" farmers. Such as good rotations, green manures,
compost, refugia for beneficial insects, etc, etc.

2) There is nothing that prohibits a conventional grower from using
some or all of the slowly available mineral nutrients commonly
attributed to (but rarely employed in) "organic" production. Such as
rock phosphate, sul-po-mag, gypsum, etc. etc.

3) Combine 1 and 2 with judicious use of carefully selected chemical
fertilisers (such as ammonium sulphate, mono-ammonium phosphate,
potassium chloride and micronutrients) along with judicious use of
carefully selected chemical pesticides (such as Imidan, Roundup, and
assorted fungicides).

I would say that with such a system the conventional grower will
harvest a better *quality* product than the vast majority of organic
growers who, in their stubborn infatuation with materials issues, may
get it right about not using "chemicals" but generally miss the boat on
soil building, mineral nutrients, organic matter management, nitrogen
fixation, understanding the weed community .... and on and on.

If most organic growers would do what the industry publicity likes to
say they do (but too often don't), we wouldn't be having this
discussion. Conventional produce farmers are starting to figure this
one out, and if the organic people don't get their $#|^ together pretty
soon, they're going to wake up one spring and wonder where their
customers went.

It's an old post, but some things are just sooo wrong I'd like to correct although I'm far from a professional horticulturist myself:

First, Water soluble ions are nearly everything a plant can take up. Yes there may be exceptions but they're negligible.
And Ammonium, Amino acids, fulvic acid for example are water soluble ions too...

Second, excess N makes a weak plant, right. But its not about the nitrate, its about excess N. Ammonium gets toxic much faster and you can't feed ammonium without feeding nitrate unless you stop nitrification with something like DMPP. But that's just pointless to us. And free nitrate is no calling card for anything, except for seeing signs of excess N soon as Nitrate content in well fed crops is quite low and it gets used quite fast.

Third, hydro fertilizer is usually Nitrate heavy for a good reason. If you don't get it read about the differences between N sources. That's very basic stuff you should know if you make such claims and point at others being idiots.

Fourth, here it gets outright Bulls...!
Pesticides are not nitrate or chloride based. Wtf!?
How do you come to claim such absolute nonsense?

Fifth, it's not hard at all to get calcium without nitrate, just use calcium without nitrate...
There is plenty of that, calcium sulfate, calcium carbonate, calcium hydroxide and even calcium chloride if you use good fertilizer without Cl and ro as Chloride in itself is essential!

Sixth, every fertilizer is chemical. That's just nonsense eso-talk. Everything except pure elements is chemical and if we're being picky even they are. Life in general is the most chemical thing there is in the universe...
What you mean is synthetic and you seem to have a very screwed concept of chemistry, physics and what being synthetic means.

So, sorry, but that is just exceptional bad information if you can even call it that.
Reading such stuff just irritates people and has no value at all!

 

[Ikkt]

Too bad the hundreds that regularly buy Doc Bud's high brix formulas didn't first get a chance to read your musings. They could have saved thousands and just settled for what you consider good pot.

You mean it sarcastic but he is absolutely right. Just as EC the brix number won't tell you much by itself. Most people mistake EC for something it isn't. It doesn't tell much at all. Just like brix. That's just logic and I think you should already know that.
Doesn't mean it can't be useful though.


And your composition isn't really special, mine is very close without much tweaking at all. Many are quite close...
Iirc its very very close to Hoagland or another well known one for leafy crops.

You should be putting more effort in the environment, cause a change of ten percent in nutrient ratio will never make a very significant difference if your starting point is in an OK range. No plant needs nutrients "dialed in" to within a couple ppms.
And if your vpd changes just a bit, or your temperature or any other parameter it'll effect everything and your tweaking is useless. You're not growing in a climate chamber, are you?
Ask yourself: how much did your yield or quality go up with all that tweaking while not changing any other variable?
And did you eliminate your bias as far as possible? (eg drying in a dissicator to account for residual moisture, lab testing thc, cbd and terpenes and such)
You know that our biases shape our perception and that our brain fucks us all the time, right?

Cause it doesn't matter at all if the plant looks perfect or crapy, it's about yield and quality nothing else. We're not growing Foto models!


And yeah. Solid reasoning! A lot of people buy it so it must sooo good!
All the magic waters in bottles must be the absolute shit and increase yield just as the advertising says. Or people wouldn't buy, would they?

Tried Crack already?
Many people sell everything they have, eat out of garbage cans and would stab you for a twenty just to get a tiny crumb. Must be the best thing ever, right?

Perhaps, but very unlikely, most people are just people and that means plain stupid in such things and will buy what's hyped, draw wrong conclusions, mistake correlation for causality and Crack might not be the best thing ever. Highly unlikely, but worth considering ;)

Sorry if it's a little harsh, but you seem smart, put it to good use and don't get obsessed with one aspect that plants are evolved to deal with themselves in a certain and quite wide range!


Btw, Clearex is just sugar to get the same osmotic pressure the nutrient solution had. Most probably it was over applied = slight water stress = higher brix. Plants can't take up meaningful amounts of carbohydrates through the roots, or else it would be an absolutely tremendous boost in growth and yield!

 

[Skybound]

You mean it sarcastic but he is absolutely right. Just as EC the brix number won't tell you much by itself. Most people mistake EC for something it isn't. It doesn't tell much at all. Just like brix. That's just logic and I think you should already know that.
Doesn't mean it can't be useful though.


And your composition isn't really special, mine is very close without much tweaking at all. Many are quite close...
Iirc its very very close to Hoagland or another well known one for leafy crops.

You should be putting more effort in the environment, cause a change of ten percent in nutrient ratio will never make a very significant difference if your starting point is in an OK range. No plant needs nutrients "dialed in" to within a couple ppms.
And if your vpd changes just a bit, or your temperature or any other parameter it'll effect everything and your tweaking is useless. You're not growing in a climate chamber, are you?
Ask yourself: how much did your yield or quality go up with all that tweaking while not changing any other variable?
And did you eliminate your bias as far as possible? (eg drying in a dissicator to account for residual moisture, lab testing thc, cbd and terpenes and such)
You know that our biases shape our perception and that our brain fucks us all the time, right?

Cause it doesn't matter at all if the plant looks perfect or crapy, it's about yield and quality nothing else. We're not growing Foto models!


And yeah. Solid reasoning! A lot of people buy it so it must sooo good!
All the magic waters in bottles must be the absolute shit and increase yield just as the advertising says. Or people wouldn't buy, would they?

Tried Crack already?
Many people sell everything they have, eat out of garbage cans and would stab you for a twenty just to get a tiny crumb. Must be the best thing ever, right?

Perhaps, but very unlikely, most people are just people and that means plain stupid in such things and will buy what's hyped, draw wrong conclusions, mistake correlation for causality and Crack might not be the best thing ever. Highly unlikely, but worth considering ;)

Sorry if it's a little harsh, but you seem smart, put it to good use and don't get obsessed with one aspect that plants are evolved to deal with themselves in a certain and quite wide range!


Btw, Clearex is just sugar to get the same osmotic pressure the nutrient solution had. Most probably it was over applied = slight water stress = higher brix. Plants can't take up meaningful amounts of carbohydrates through the roots, or else it would be an absolutely tremendous boost in growth and yield!

I need you to rewrite your post, or break it apart into digestible portions because it is riddled with run-on musings and meaningless rhetorical questions that are also very numerous. I'm just a guy that RECENTLY learned how to use salts after years of banging my head against the wall with GH 3 part and the Flora series line. High brix is not my intended goal, but in my efforts to find very good elemental ranges and ratios, when I stumbled onto the high brix growers, I noticed they too use various products to give their plants only what is needed to grow them great buds and beautiful plants. Their yields aren't great, but everything else appears to be so, and the result is repeatable from all the journals I'm following on 420. I know my targets aren't the greatest, but until I can get concise straight forward answers, I have no choice but to use what I know and make minor shifts so not to fuck up my grow as I gotta live while I learn.

Smart? I'm smart enough to recognize the things I don't know. I can tell you know some stuff, but please do not be offended if I don't etch your every spoken word into stone. All new information I gather must be verified by everything I've read or experienced prior. I study as much as I can humanly possibly force myself to in hopes of getting a better understanding, but I'm sure you know that this topic of mixing one's own nutes from salts is not a widely discussed topic on the interwebs, so I am left to join new forums such as this and dig up decade old threads in hopes of shaking lose more info. Your comments about calcium in the prior post could have saved me about 80 gallons of RO that I had to waste just 2 days ago due to some lessons I learned about calcium carbonate and calcium acetate. Each might be good sources of Ca in the water, but each is also an extremely strong buffer of PH and held my waters above 6.5, so my crop had to take a beating for a few days, and I'm sure I'll feel that come harvest times.

I'd like to dialogue with you about this topic if you're willing to, but seriously, I do earnestly request that we do so in smaller clips. I guess to start, what is wrong with my targets and what are your targets? My materials consist of K-Silicate, K-Sulfate, MKP, Epsom, Cal Nite, Mag Nite, and home made chelated micro mix with Fe DTPA, Zn, Mn, Cu EDTA, Boric Acid and Sodium Molybdate. I read many Daniel Fernandez articles and as a result also have Sodium Benzoate in with my micros to prevent algae. I don't know the math so I use Hydro Buddy to do it all. Type in my targets and hit them with no error until I tried to embrace a high brix feed regimen. That's where I ran into problems.

 

[Kot]

In addition to brix testing, You can also use sap ph to determine what element is lacking.
View attachment 597521
Few examples:
Below 6.4 lack of a cation, above 6.4 lack of an anion.
Since Potassium is mobile. We can also test the sap for potassium.
If potassium is less tha 10% of the value of the upper leaves. The plant is robbing K form itself and time to apply K.

Can be done for a conventional (hydro dwc rockwool etc) or organic/regenerative/biological/ecodynamic no till/what ever the fuck style grower.For some growers it can be the tail that wags the dog.

That way you can "ask the plant" what is needed and then make educated fertilizing decisions.
For example. Test brix, Do a foliar spray. Then test one hour later and see if brix was raised.
Will be posting more info on various websites as well as on the www.plantbrix.com website when launches.
Going to review and test different products to see how they work at raising brix.
I have experience using the meters. Also teach farmers how to use them. Amazing stuff.
Sap testing can help to see a potential problem 4-6 weeks before you get a visual indication of a plant nutritional issue.

Hope that helps.

I don't know how brix levels can help me but this chart looks interesing. Can anyone tell me something more about it? Is it the ph in and out? I grow in coco and feed with my own nutrients. Sometimes the ph out is higher the ph in and sometimes it it the same. This is in different grow stages and different grows.

Also I'm not sure if calcium carbonate is readily available for uptake by the roots. That's why I have bough Ca EDTA which allows me to fully stop nitrogen when I want to stop it.

 

[Skybound]

I don't know how brix levels can help me but this chart looks interesing. Can anyone tell me something more about it? Is it the ph in and out? I grow in coco and feed with my own nutrients. Sometimes the ph out is higher the ph in and sometimes it it the same. This is in different grow stages and different grows.

Also I'm not sure if calcium carbonate is readily available for uptake by the roots. That's why I have bough Ca EDTA which allows me to fully stop nitrogen when I want to stop it.

The aboive video depicts how brix is tested in cannabis, but crushing a leaf and squeezing out the sap. That same sap is also tested for ph, and depending on the reading, that chart explains what you have. FYI, I bought the meter to test leaf sap PH for $125 on Amazon. The meter is part of a set of much more expensive meters that each test the ppm of individual elements in the leaf. I don't plant to get them and hope that between the PH meter and a refractometer, I can get enough information to make informed decisions about my nutes and other organic products I use.

High brix cannabis is said to have more sucrose in the buds as well as increase the nutrient density which translates to healthier plants. It is the healthy plant that I seek most, and not so much the highest brix I can get. Hydro is very limited in terms of how much brix can be increased, but I just want to have extremely healthy plants all the way through the whole grow. Of course I seek to have top shelf quality, but me personally, my top priority is yield which I already do very well with the right genetics.

 

[Kot]

I've watched videos about brix testing but now I understand why this PH meter looks and works like that. Thanks for the info about the meter. It would be very interesting to test the PH of my current grow but I have only regular PH meter.

 

[Skybound]

I've watched videos about brix testing but now I understand why this PH meter looks and works like that. Thanks for the info about the meter. It would be very interesting to test the PH of my current grow but I have only regular PH meter.

Honestly, at $125 each, it's not worth it to get one just to test leaf sap once a month unless you're a control freak like me and feel the need to always mess with things.