I would like to offer some opinions in this matter.
I have doubts about the utility of the lucas formula in coco.
I did coco hempy buckets. 4 gal at first.
Let me tell you a story.
There is a dude named fatman who was posting on some sites back in may and june of 2010. He was very educated on ferts and chemistry, but was lacking in social skills. So he got kicked off of every site that he was on within like a month.
He talked about how peeps, to best supply the needs of the plant, should
tailor their nutrient ratios to the medium and whether they drain-to-waste or recirculate their nute solution. Because if you recirculate,
you need more calcium and I think K in order for the nute solution to self-balance the ph as different nutes getting used up wants to change solution ph.
It made so much sense. Yes plants can grow in a variety of nutrient profiles. But we are trying to give it the best day of summer every day. We are trying to feed it food in the ratios that will promote the most health and happiness.
So I looked and looked until I found fatman's ideal ratio for coco drain-to-waste. It was 3-1-2 for veg, with Mg being 1.1-1.2 x the amount of P and Ca being 1.1-1.2 x the amount of N.
So with a calculator, I figured out how to make this formula with AN 3-part and
Botanicare's
cal-mag. Like within 5-10% of fatman's target figures. And I fed it to my plants.
I had NO DEFICIENCIES.
I later realized that he had copied
Botanicare's CNS-17 formula Which is a 1-part nute. And cheaper than your nutes per gallon. Also 3-1-2. But short on magnesium compared to fatman's target values.
A couple of times I caught the faintest beginning of a cal def. I fixed this by checking and recalibrating my ph meter(I was supposed to be feeding at 5.8, but ph checker was off) one time, and the other time I had to bump up the ppms on the feed strength to supply the correct amount of calcium.
But no deficiencies.
And flower was awesome too. But I will not go into detail about that right now.
Perfect nutrition cuts veg time. It also greatly increases yield. The health of your plants is in your direct interest. It gets results for you.
If you sit there with a pen and paper and calculate the Lucas formula, you end up with an NPK ratio of .89-1-.8, and I don't even know how much cal comes in the GH product. But almost certainly not enough. And who knows about the magnesium.
Having the wrong ratios of stuff supplies the plant incorrectly. And coco must be fed along with the plant. The coco slowly decays. As this happens chemical changes occur. So that is one reason why coco is tricky for some.
Look up the Mulder's chart. See how P and K can cockblock calcium.
The NPK ratio of your food is fucked. I mean that in the nicest way possible.
But it is. It is really close to 1-1-1. You need 3-1-2. Some others using Jack's fertilizers are playing with 3-1-4. But I believe that to be intended for a recirculating hydroponic solution for veg. As evidenced by
Botanicare's ratio of 3-2-4 for their hydro food. More P and K than is necessary for coco.
And too much P, like if you get to a total of 50-60 ppms, will start killing off your beneficial bacteria that are trying to get you a higher growth rate and more weight.
With coco you should shoot for 20-30% runoff. Buy and use drip clean from
house and garden. It will help give you a buffer of safety for mistakes.
When you mix up you res to irrigate with, you should
1. Get a rubbermaid or something. Not Sterilite, those are wack. Like a 14 gal rubbermaid for your gig or something. And get 2 more rubbermaids or 5 gal buckets.
2. Fill it with some pre-temped RO water Do like 10 gals of water in a 14 gal rubbermaid for example.
3. Take a small water pump (264 or 396 gph ecoplus or something like that)
and lay it on its side at the bottom of the rubbermaid. This will make the water "roll" in the rubbermaid. This serves to mix nutes and oxygenate the solution better than an airstone can.
4. Pull 3/4 the water or so. Put it in another rubbermaid or 2 5 gal buckets. or something. You need multiple containers for mixing.
5. Add 1 ml/gallon of
Pro-tekt to your res that has 1/4 of the water left. Or an equal ppm of someone else's silicate product. Then let the pump on its side roll the water for a while. Like 5-10 minutes.
6. Add 1 gram/gallon epsom salts. Add the epsom salts to a bucket with a couple of gallons of water in it. Make sure the water does not have anything else in it. And that the water is not cold. Then get the pump to roll the water in the bucket for 10 mins. Make sure all of the epsom salts have been dissolved for a few minutes. Then
7. Add the epsom solution to the
pro-tekt solution. Use the pump to thoroughly mix this for like 5 mins just to be safe.
8. Shake the CNS-17 bottle very thoroughly. Add enough CNS-17 1-part veg food to get 750 ppms for 10 gals. They will tell you on the label how much to add to each gallon to get 1500 ppms. You will want to use half that value and get 750 ppms.
You are adding the CNS-17 to its own body of RO water. Like several gallons. Not to the other nutes.
9. Put the pump in the CNS-17 solution and let it roll for like 5-10 minutes until it is very well dissolved.
10. When the CNS-17 solution is very well dissolved, put the pump back in the main res. You want that water in the main res rolling when you add the diluted CNS-17 solution. Add the CNS solution slowly to your rolling res. Doing this avoids the sulfur in your epsom from locking itself up with your calcium to form gypsum, which would give your plant cal deficiencies.
11. Let your res roll for 15 minutes at least. You want to have 9 or so of the 10 gallons of water in the res, and a gallon of ro water set aside.
12. Start checking your ph. I greatly prefer the Hanna 45.00 ph checker that goes to .01 instead of .1. Follow the instructions on calibration of this instrument.
13. When your ph checker stops drifting, empty the nute solution out of your shot glass you have the ph checker in, and replace with fresh nute solution from your rolling res. Having the .01 accuracy on the ph checker lets you watch the ph drift as it occurs, and see the behavior of your solution. This will teach you a lot.
14. Keep emptying the shot glass every 5 minutes, and getting fresh solution to check ph of. Wait for it to stop drifting.
15. After the solution has stopped any ph drift, it should be settled close to 5.8 ph. CNS-17 wants to settle close to 5.8, which is exactly what you want. Adjust ph to 5.8 with
very well diluted doses of ph up or down. Do not add the concentrated ph up or down to your res. This would fuck things up. And
do not check the ph of your nute solution after adding ph up or down for 5 minutes just to be safe. Dipping your ph checker into solution that has a bunch of ph up or down and is adjusting itself still will fuck up the calibration of your device.
16. After all this bullshit, and your 9.something gallons of nute solution are at 5.8 and are going to stay there, then add a diluted solution of RO water and drip clean at the recommended dose on the bottle, which is .1 ml/liter, or .4 ml/gal if you want to do it that way.
17. Top off your res until it is exactly at 10 gals.
If I were you, I would try out 900-1000 ppms(which is about where you will end up)at first. Then go from there.
You have to get 25% runoff or more every time you water. Water slowly, because you have airpots. You must evenly saturate your whole medium.
The most important thing here is that you get the right food for your coco plants. And that you mix it correctly. And ph it correctly. And get 25% runoff or more.
Let me repeat myself,
Your solution of 6/9 Lucas with
Calmag is wack. Not you. You are trying to take the steps to hooking your ladies up because you care that much.
The lucas ratio is very suboptimal for coco performance.
Some play catch-up on yield with PGRs because their nutes are the wrong ratio for coco, and they are not getting the yield from their cultivar that they could. This is not intended to insult anyone. This is intended to state the facts.
Flowering is another ball of wax. But we can go into that later.
And you will be happier if you get a scrog screen with a hole size that you can fit your hand through. As in 2" x 4" hole size minimum.
If you follow my instructions, you will be fine. This nute regimen worked for a bitch-ass chocolope that only wanted to piss me off before, and 6 different chemo x og kush test plants. As in from 6 different moms. And the nute solution worked like gangbusters for all of them. Sativa dom, indica dom, didn't matter.
I sound pretty sure of myself, and I hope I don't seem like I think I'm all cool or like I'm talking a bunch of shit because I have answers. I mean all of this in the best and most helpful way possible. This is what I have learned through trial and error.
Because we all want to have awesome plants with good health, happy leaf angles, high yield, and the dank nugs you get from really satisfied plants.
My information is a straight up roadmap. It is a clearly detailed path to victory and success. And it is more affordable than almost any other storebought nutes.
It sucks to not have the whole picture telling what to do and why. If I were you I would consider running at least 1 quart of CNS-17 food in exactly the way that I have described to see if that fixes everything. Because I could be full of shit and talking out my ass.
But I probably am not.
If anyone has a solid nutritional counterargument, I would listen. But just because you can grow a crop with a certain set of nutrient values does not mean that it is the best thing at all for your medium or your plants.
Because dialing even a fairly good strain turns it from okay to fucking epic in comparison. And being high all day every day on your own badass nugs will change your life so much for the better. Do not underestimate how different every moment that you are awake could be.
