Nutrient Ratios Information

HERE's a link to the portion of my tutorial that has a BOM with links to each part of my lineup of salts including price before shipping. If you expand the Quote field, there is everything I use including the chelated metals which are not easy to find on CustomHydro's site. I'll be mixing up a fresh batch of micro juice tomorrow. This time I will be sampling Megacrop's numbers with my own minor edits. Nearly every journal I see running megacrop is doing well so maybe there's something to do with their formulation and since we can produce our own formulations, there no sense in buying their to try it.

This is the Megacrop Vegan and CalMag micros for the most part. Like I said, I made one or two minor edits. I'll be running this for about another month or so till I switch over to homemade soil.

Skybound420 said:

yes, but you have to also load up solutions that can resolve your targets, so for instance if you only have one source of each element, the app will likely resolve with a wide margin of error on most elements. It is important to have multiple sources of each of your macros and secondaries to greatly improve your odds of hitting your targets with zero% errors. My lineup includes;

calcium sulfate (gypsum)
calcium nitrate
magnesium nitrate
magnesium sulfate (Epsom)
potassium sulfate
monopotassium phosphate
monoammonium phosphate - this may or may not be needed

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I was simply curious as to what values it would return for ppm's for the macros I listed in post #113... just wondering how far off my values are from reality. You are the local hydrobuddy expert so I trust your values more than I would trust my own if I tried to use the program (plus I'm sure you already have values input for Flora series... the MgSO4 is already in there I know). The formula in post #113 is not one I would use it is just for numerical testing of the equations both Renfro and I used to determine ppm's of each element. Maybe I simply don't understand how the program works... can it return values for only those "solutions" being loaded and the amount of each used?

Skybound420 said:

metallic sulfates are fine if you keep them in powder form until use, but if you try to whip up a concentrate, you will have a jug of rust in about 3 days. I know this because I made my own jug of rust, lol. However, the creator of hydro buddy insists micro sulfates are good to use, but I think he's keeping them as a powder until use because there's simply no other way to keep the metals, especially the iron from quickly oxidizing if not properly chelated.

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I make up concentrates of each individual chemical only for those I can't measure with a tsp, then I can dose with a pipette to hit very small values. I've only ever had a problem with ZnSO4 causing precipitate at the concentrations I diluted them to and a good shake before measuring out a dose seems to "mix it up" enough it's not a problem. I don't worry about them decaying in the jars because we are talking elements here and unless we get nuked or the sun goes supernova they should remain in one form or another (chemically I mean as they can change chemical composition quite easily).
Sulfates of micros are fine as they only push the sulfur level up a small amount... sulfates of macros are another thing.

Skybound420 said:

HERE's a link to the portion of my tutorial that has a BOM with links to each part of my lineup of salts including price before shipping. If you expand the Quote field, there is everything I use including the chelated metals which are not easy to find on CustomHydro's site. I'll be mixing up a fresh batch of micro juice tomorrow. This time I will be sampling Megacrop's numbers with my own minor edits. Nearly every journal I see running megacrop is doing well so maybe there's something to do with their formulation and since we can produce our own formulations, there no sense in buying their to try it.

This is the Megacrop Vegan and CalMag micros for the most part. Like I said, I made one or two minor edits. I'll be running this for about another month or so till I switch over to homemade soil.

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I would give Mn a little more importance than Zn... you should look at some plant tissue analysis which should give you some insight into what the plant is storing up... usually Mn is higher in ppm than Zn but for some plants Mn = Zn. Now where to find a plant tissue analysis for hemp? Just my two cents.

Just a heads up, I fixed a math error in my calculator.

Diatomacious said:

I would give Mn a little more importance than Zn... you should look at some plant tissue analysis which should give you some insight into what the plant is storing up... usually Mn is higher in ppm than Zn but for some plants Mn = Zn. Now where to find a plant tissue analysis for hemp? Just my two cents.

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My 2 previous formulations had Zn @ 0.3 then 0.5, & Mn @ 1.0 then 1.2, but like I said, this is Megacrop's formulation that I wanted to try. Also, when referring to the tissue analysis, this does not depict the rate of uptake of any elements, just how much of said element was deposited in that location of the plant. If the MC formulation gives me grief, I can easily mix up either of my previously verified formulations, but I've found that there is a lot less emphasis or influence from micros than I previously thought, so the levels are not as critical.

Skybound420 said:

My 2 previous formulations had Zn @ 0.3 then 0.5, & Mn @ 1.0 then 1.2, but like I said, this is Megacrop's formulation that I wanted to try. Also, when referring to the tissue analysis, this does not depict the rate of uptake of any elements, just how much of said element was deposited in that location of the plant. If the MC formulation gives me grief, I can easily mix up either of my previously verified formulations, but I've found that there is a lot less emphasis or influence from micros than I previously thought, so the levels are not as critical.

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Yes a small amount of micro goes a long way... those values should work just tossing ideas as to how to nail down micros. My thought is the plant needs a certain amount and beyond that it just stores up the excess nutrient which can make smoking it a bad experience.

Here's what I ended up ordering...

1 x Calcium Nitrate Greenhouse Grade 1 lb. (Yara Calcinit 1 #) = $5.00
1 x Magnesium Nitrate, one pound (magnific1) = $4.50
1 x Potassium Nitrate, 1 lb. *NO USPS shipping allowed* (Krista-K 1#) = $8.50
1 x ICL PeaK MKP, 1 lb. (ICL PeaK MKP, 1 lb.) = $9.00
1 x Mono Ammonium Phosphate, one pound (NovaMAP 1#) = $6.92
1 x Potassium Silicate one pound, 32% K2O 52.8% SiO2 (agsil16h 1#) = $16.64
1 x Ammonium Sulfate 1 LB (Ammonium Sulfate 1#) = $4.75

I can add these to my collection. Thought I'd try out the silicon to see for me self.

I'm following GH's level of Si @ 25ppm. I've heard of another grower dosing Pro-Tekt up to 50ppm, but Megacrop has their Si at less than 1ppm. So the range is wide.

Edit - I mix my concentrates @ 1 gram of salt to 10 ml of RO. This makes it very easy to extract very small weights with a syringe. 1ml = 0.1 grams.

Found some interesting posts on silicon

When eighteen New Jersey soils were collected from across the state and tested using the acetic acid soil extraction method, they exhibited ranges of soil test silicon from 4 to 35 mg/L, with the average soil test silicon level being 14 mg/L.
In our research fields, some crops susceptible to powdery mildew benefited from silicon fertilization when the soil tested greater than 40 mg/L silicon (acetic acid extract). (This could be due to availability in the soil I would imagine)
Plants benefit more from soil rather foliar applications of silicon. This is because the supply of silicon to plant roots must be continuously present or it will be less effective at disease suppression.
And lot's more interesting stuff

Here's the links
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5362598/
https://njaes.rutgers.edu/fs1278/

Diatomacious said:

Found some interesting posts on silicon

When eighteen New Jersey soils were collected from across the state and tested using the acetic acid soil extraction method, they exhibited ranges of soil test silicon from 4 to 35 mg/L, with the average soil test silicon level being 14 mg/L.
In our research fields, some crops susceptible to powdery mildew benefited from silicon fertilization when the soil tested greater than 40 mg/L silicon (acetic acid extract). (This could be due to availability in the soil I would imagine)
Plants benefit more from soil rather foliar applications of silicon. This is because the supply of silicon to plant roots must be continuously present or it will be less effective at disease suppression.
And lot's more interesting stuff

Here's the links
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5362598/
https://njaes.rutgers.edu/fs1278/

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PM doesn't like alkaline situations so the foliar silicon is raising the pH and thats why PM doesn't like it.

This from ProMix website

However if a silicon fertilizer is used, research shows that potassium silicate or calcium silicate can be injected at a constant feed rate of 50 ppm silicon or once per week at a rate of 100 ppm. Do not exceed 200 ppm as it may cause phytotoxicity in some non-accumulators as was seen in gerbera and sunflower. Test the silicon fertilizer on a small percentage of several crops and do a side by side comparison to check for potential phytotoxicity as well as crop benefits. Like other fertilizer elements, silicon needs to be supplied throughout the crop cycle.

Please note silicon fertilizers are very alkaline and greatly increase the pH of the stock solution. This reduces the solubility of micronutrients and silicon can form precipitates in the stock tank. To err on the side of caution, it is best to have separate stock tanks for a silicon fertilizer and your standard fertilizer.

Not sure if cannabis is an accumulator or not though

Renfro said:

PM doesn't like alkaline situations so the foliar silicon is raising the pH and thats why PM doesn't like it.

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They claim that foliar applications of silicon are ineffective... better to apply silicon to the soil for root uptake

Foliar sprays aren't absorbed well unless the PH is 5.5 or less. So foliar silica will prevent the PM, but only because of the alkalinity, and the silica itself will likely remain on the leaf surface.

EDTA and the other chelates are a little scary to me... they make my metal teaspoons shiny when I measure them out (guess the chelates are still able to dissolve metal when in ionic form). Wonder what this "spoon shine" does when it gets in the human body.

Diatomacious said:

EDTA and the other chelates are a little scary to me... they make my metal teaspoons shiny when I measure them out (guess the chelates are still able to dissolve metal when in ionic form). Wonder what this "spoon shine" does when it gets in the human body.

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It is unwise to use metal spoons with chelated micros as the unchelated metals in the spoon WILL compete with the chelated ions resulting in the bonds being broken and the chelated ions falling out of suspension. FYI, the chelating process involves bonding the metals with an element of an opposing charge, but the bond is very weak, so when the organic acid is introduced, that bond breaks and the desired element releases the bond and moves on over to form a new bond with the organic acid. This is why all metals in your solution must be themselves chelated, or the unchelated will compete with the chelated and resulting in ruining your solution. FWIW, I don't use any metals in my hydroponic systems for this reason.

Edit - here's a great article about that.

https://scienceinhydroponics.com/2010/05/preparing-your-own-chelates-improving-your-hydroponic-nutrients.html

Hopefully I didn't f up my mix by using a metal spoon (guess it'll have a little extra aluminum or whatever the spoon is made from). I'd love to download and read his ebook but he has removed it from circulation.

Most metal spoons are made of stainless steel.

My concern was that the spoon would steal the chelates from the nutes and the nutes would precipitate. I doubt one or a few times would do a lot of damage, but repeated use would likely have adverse effects.

Yeah it does suck he took out his eBook, but I'm lead to believe all of his blog entries covers the content, I just cant recall where I read that. FWIW, he put up like a dozen new blog entries last month. All DF's blogs are great reading.

Probably steel... EDTA has a high affinity for iron so they say.

I check his blogs on occasion when I come across a link, but I guess I'll have to get serious if I want to make some headway... he has a lot of blogs. Anyone know if there is a blog table of contents on his site?

Diatomacious said:

Probably steel... EDTA has a high affinity for iron so they say.

I check his blogs on occasion when I come across a link, but I guess I'll have to get serious if I want to make some headway... he has a lot of blogs. Anyone know if there is a blog table of contents on his site?

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Just click Blogs and the next page has a list of years beginning in 2009. Each year has a collection of entries that you just gotta read the titles and pick and choose what you want to read. After reviewing the titles enough, you can easily recall an article by expanding all of the years, then with a Ctrl/F, search the keyword to quickly locate the entry. FWIW, I've only read about half of them all. I know what I want to read and what I am content not to.