WoW, What a dumb move.
Trying to save a hundred bucks , cost 100 times that.
SWIm was doing an indoor, rockwool, Expensive Dutch seeds , HP sodium 1000 and 400 watt bulbs, a great hydroponic - top feed , 3 times a day, CO2, the works to grow fast.
There are lots of ways to kill plants, Some of us are trying our best to wipe them out.
After a couple of Good Crops, SWIW decided to alter the successfull plan.
Used Cheap, Solid but "Water Soluble" nutrients , Peter's Bloom and Miracle grow bloom. instead of Standard hydroponic solutions.
Every thing was OK for a few weeks, then the plants started stressing heavily. The new leaves and new growth areas began curling and dying.
They were:
Intolerant to heat,
Intolerant to light.
Intolerant to nutrients of any type
Flushing with a clearing solution and/or pH balanced pure water solution, made it worse.
Nothing worked , and a crop of 50 plants were nursed to a slow agonizing death, over a 2-3 month period.
Expensive waste of power, nutrients , rooting media, time , energy and money down the drain.
The plants had the appearence of nutrient overdose, heat stroke, , even a fungus was suspect.
It was all traced down to the fact that the solid fertilizers,
diluted to 1200 ppm or 1.7 EC. Somehow deposited in the roots,
The plants were incapable of maintaining water balance, because the roots were unable to grow. The leaves respire and blow off water, but it was not being replaced.
Either WET or DRY root system made no difference.
THe same Solid Nutrients were used outdoors , in natural soil, and produced healthy crops , many times.
Rockwool, vermiculite , Peat moss, coir, coco husks, nothing worked,
They just kept dying off.
Even after the nutrients were back to normal, after flushing ,, even..
?? The guess is the salts were building up in roots , and formed a somewhat insoluble precipitate , inside the roots.
Stunting, toxic , to the roots.
Before SWIM used the solid nutrients , he sent an e-mail to the Peter's company , asking them how was their products in an indoor hydroponic setup. The Never replied back.!
Stick with the Standard , Hydroponic solutions,
SWIM saved $100 - $200 in nutrient overhead.
But lost 50 beauties, worth far more that a few quarts of Hydroponic concentrate.
SWIM is OK with that , because, he has had experience in the past,
with plant killing methods
REcalling another Moronic moment, prior to the last fiasco.
SWIM started with 30 seeds,
only 10 germinated ?? WTF
7 plants made it past the sprout stage??
3 plants survived past seedling to be harvested.??
That is a 10% success rate
har har, that is shabby
SWIMS method of determining pH, was not very accurate , initially.
What SWIM thought to be pH-5.8, turned out to be closer to a pH-2.5.
That was SWIMS first high tech , hydro, HP sodium lighting. ...
well it was simply a mass murder of helpless plants.
Feed 'em those strong acids, kill em off quick.
