Nutrient ignorant

[bigboo1267]

I still consider myself a new grower. I purchased these nutrients and have grown a few plants using them with mixed results. A couple have produced fine, some had loose flowers, and some started getting yellow leaves within 2 weeks of entering flowering stage. Just learned today that I've been using the chart for hydro applications instead of soil, which I'm using. I also believe I've been reading the schedule incorrectly. I looked at the grow powder row and read it as tsp to gallons instead of tsps and grams. I never bothered with ec or ppm because of this. So now I have questions. Is the grow powder x tsp or g per gallon of water? If so, does this mean that by ppm I should expect to give 1/2 gallon of food per week in seedling stage and 1 gallon a week for weeks 1&2 of vegetation, and so on? Or, do I add nutrients until I hit the correct ec? And is the ec measured in food going in, in the soil, or the runoff?

[Bluey]

You need to ask the manufacturer of the nutes.

[Rootsruler]

My suggestion is that you pick up some measuring tools so that you aren't guessing.

Apera or Bluelab. Your choice. Aperas pen has both pH and PPM/EC modes. Blue Lab splits it up into 2 different pens.

I mix my feed solutions based on 500 scale of PPM. In early veg I go no higher than 600 ppm. I use only base and cal/mag. In mid to late veg I'm feeding at around 900 - 1000 ppm. In late veg to early flower I up the PPM to around 1200 ppm. I don't go any higher than that because usually I start to see tip burn indicating that I've hit the plants preferred limit.

Here's how I mix my feed solutions....

I fill a 5 gallon bucket with pure water. Depending on the stage of the plant, I mix in base until I get to 80% of my final PPM number. I add in the recommended amount of cal/mag and check my PPM. If I'm under I add in more base until I hit my number or get close to it. If I'm over I just add more water until I hit my number. If you're in soil then checking your pH isn't crucial as the soil should have buffers to achieve the pH level the plant wants. If you're in a media like coco where pH is typically low then you'll need to raise your pH. 6.5 in soil. 5.8 in hydro.