Let's Talk About the Calcium/Potassium See-Saw

  • Thread starter BillFarthing
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TwitchVee

TwitchVee

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Personally I always assume micros and beneficial/ enzymes are necessary. Hard to hurt at those rates
 
TwitchVee

TwitchVee

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No. Not really.
Care to elaborate? Are you saying to mix maxi bloom, and cal-nit?
FYI my first post in this thread wasn't in response to these comments you made before me. If you're asking me something real you'll have to be more specific. I wasn't following your conversation
 
SeymourGreen

SeymourGreen

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Sorry my mistake. You still said not to mix maxi bloom, and cal-nit. Just wasn’t sure why.
 
TwitchVee

TwitchVee

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Sorry my mistake. You still said not to mix maxi bloom, and cal-nit. Just wasn’t sure why.
I was pretty sure you meant mixing nutes in a cup before adding to water. Interpretations go wild when a bunch of baked people talk on the internet.
 
Frankster

Frankster

Never trust a doctor who's plants have died.
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I'm in on this thread, excellent read.
 
Frankster

Frankster

Never trust a doctor who's plants have died.
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~125 N, 40 P, 175 K, 150 Ca, 50 Mg, 60 S, 2.8 Fe and micros. A lot of this is moot when you use a high quality fulvic with chelated and complexed micros and your pH is in check.
What do you mean by moot?
Because of the carboxyl groups?
Or possibly the conjugate bases that are present in the fractions? Are there sufficient calcium components in fluvic fractions to sufficiently drive calcium needs?
 
Hypothetical model structures of humic acid and fulvic acid
Minerals in fulvic acid 1024x266
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Skybound

Skybound

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Calcium easily bonds with free anions such as P or S, so to have the best chance of preventing your Ca from precipitating, mix your CalNite in dead last. It's best practice to add silica first, than acidic solutions next (anything with P in it), than the micros and the calcium products last. I grow strictly hybrids to keep the finishing times short, but the Sativa crowd tells me that Sativas don't like rich N content like Indicas and hybrids do, so wanting to lower the N would be a good thing from Sativa dominant strains.

I want to reiterate that info given on the label's Guaranteed Analysis has been proven to be intentionally skewed, so if you input those numbers into your nutrient calculators, you'll also get skewed results which will make your augmentations a total shot in the dark. This is why I strongly suggest growers buy their own salts and make everything from the ground up. There's no other way you can be certain what elemental ppm you're giving your plants.

Potassium silicate is the only ingredient in ProTekt or Armor Si. You can buy a pound of it for less than $20 and make much more than if your were to buy ProTekt or another similar product.
 
SeymourGreen

SeymourGreen

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Hey everyone. I’m having N toxicity showing on my Sativa dominant plants. I dropped the N on my mix, but now my K is 151.25, Ca is 111.25, and Mg is 59.75. Think those numbers will work with our causing any issues? Appreciate the feedback.
 
SeymourGreen

SeymourGreen

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Assuming everything else is in check, why not? What caused the N toxicity?
I’ve been running 122 ppm of N, and my Sativa doms are displaying Slight N toxicity. Dark green leaves, and tips are doing the eagle claw. The males Sativas are having no issues with the N that high (which isn’t really that high), but the girls are not happy.
 
SeymourGreen

SeymourGreen

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Hello. Can anyone tell me what is the recommended elemental ppm for K in coco? I see 170 ppm recommended, but was thinking that might be to high for coco. Anyone have any thoughts on this?
 
Skybound

Skybound

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Hello. Can anyone tell me what is the recommended elemental ppm for K in coco? I see 170 ppm recommended, but was thinking that might be to high for coco. Anyone have any thoughts on this?

Plants will uptake way more K than they need, and if there's too much in the ferts, it will block Ca uptake. Your best bet is to find the sweet spot for the K:Ca ratio so not to over do the K. I want to reiterate though that using a branded blend, and relying on the numbers given on the label, you're almost certainly being lied to, so you'll never really know what your elemental ppm really is. IMHO, make all your own nutes or forget all about elemental ppm.
 
Aqua Man

Aqua Man

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Plants will uptake way more K than they need, and if there's too much in the ferts, it will block Ca uptake. Your best bet is to find the sweet spot for the K:Ca ratio so not to over do the K. I want to reiterate though that using a branded blend, and relying on the numbers given on the label, you're almost certainly being lied to, so you'll never really know what your elemental ppm really is. IMHO, make all your own nutes or forget all about elemental ppm.
Ca equal to N with K being 2x Ca and Mg half Ca with P being half Mg has worked well for me pretty much start to finish. Targeting 100-120ppm N

Not exactly what I do now but that was a pretty fool proof for me.
 
BillFarthing

BillFarthing

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Are there sufficient calcium components in fluvic fractions to sufficiently drive calcium needs?
Fulvic acid is negatively charged and binds with positively charged elements like calcium, magnesium, sulfur, micro and trace elements, which is how chelation works. The deposit and processing determines whether it is free fulvic acid or bound. You can use unbound fulvic acid in hydroponics to chelate your exact nutrient profile or micro specifications or use bound fulvic acid to raise sap pH to resist pest and disease pressure and raise brix for higher TAC and terpenes.

Fun fact, we are finding new forms of plant available iron in fulvic acid all the time. It can be iron sulfate, fulvate, humate, attached to amino and organic acids and compounds like flavonoids. It's complex stuff because it's millions of years of organic matter broken down and concentrated.
 
SeymourGreen

SeymourGreen

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Ca equal to N with K being 2x Ca and Mg half Ca with P being half Mg has worked well for me pretty much start to finish. Targeting 100-120ppm N

Not exactly what I do now but that was a pretty fool proof for me.
Right now I’m running a few Sativa dom hybrids, and they just don’t seem to like nutes in general lol! The elemental ppm value I’m running for them right now is N 100 ppm, P 50, K 151.25, Ca 111.25, Mg 59.75, S 75.25, Si 52. Some of the signs of N toxicity don’t seem to be reappearing on the new growth. I’m also using Maxi Bloom to hit those values because I can’t get my N low enough, and my Ca high enough with the 5-12-26. I just don’t think there are enough micros in the Maxi, and taking into account what Skybound says about the premix values, then not really even sure if they are what the calculator says they are. 🤔
 
SeymourGreen

SeymourGreen

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I know what Skybound is saying about the premixes not being accurate, has to be true because when I put in the 7.8% Potassium Silicate, at 5ml a gallon, into angelfire, it comes back as 103 ppm. When I put the same 5ml into a gallon of RO, it comes out at 65-66 total ppm! So who knows?!?! 🤪
 
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