PPM and why its important.....

hello, im new here....

Why is part per million important , how do i check it and where can i learn more about it

And how many parts of growing does it pertain to???

Thanx <3 you all

It's something Hydro growers need to monitor to insure there is enough nutrients in the solution but not too much. I don't think soil growers concern themselves too much with it as they just measure and water. But for hydro it is a must and you'll need a good meter to be able to test it.

As above except i say pish posh to it being a must for hydro. I was convinced i needed to buy one when setting up my DWC grow, used it maybe twice and even then i simply ignored the readings

PPM is parts per million. Basically the more parts per million, the higher the concentration of nutes. One ppm is equivalent to 1 milligram of something per liter of water (mg/l) or 1 milligram of something per kilogram soil (mg/kg).

Wat is the ideal PPM?

R3xxx said:

Wat is the ideal PPM?

Click to expand...

Depends on a lot of things. Strain, nutes. You'll get 100's of different answers. Lucas Formula is 1300 from veg to harvest.

Read long enough you will get a recommendation about how much of something you need to use to a gallon of water. Someone will correct me if I am wrong <no doubt!) Easy 1 cc/ml to a liter is 1 ppm. There are PPM calculators online to determine teaspoons per gallon (teaspoon 15 ml) 1 gallon not = 4 liters) You can get as precise as you desire or just go by the directions?

Philosophist said:

hello, im new here....

Why is part per million important , how do i check it and where can i learn more about it

And how many parts of growing does it pertain to???

Thanx <3 you all

Click to expand...

BendBrewer said:

Depends on a lot of things. Strain, nutes. You'll get 100's of different answers. Lucas Formula is 1300 from veg to harvest.

Click to expand...

The ideal level depends on the plant ur growing, the lucas formula is just a ratio of npk, you should adjust the PPM to what the plants like.
Basically if the ppm is too high, as the water in your reservoir decreases, the ppm will increase cuz the plants cant consume enough nutes, and the opposite if ppm is too low. You want the ppm to stay the same as the plants drink the water because that means the plants are eating exactly what you gave them.

As stated above PPM is Parts per Million. Depending where on the planet you are it can be called EC(us/cm), EC(Ms/cm) or CF. EC = Electrical Conductivity and CF = Conductivity Factor. I've just built my first Aero/Hydro system and started looking for more info on this but there is a lot of conflicting information out there.
As nutrient solution contains salts it conducts electricity, ppm, EC and CF are the measurment of the electrical current flowing through the 2 electrodes of the meter. The electrodes are spaced exactly 1cm apart hence the us/cm and Ms/cm readings for EC. There are two standard measurments for converting EC/CF to ppm (500/700 conversion).

All meters take the reading in EC and convert it to PPM using either a 500 or 700 conversion which is why wou could have 1 nutrient tank, test it with two different meters and get two completely different readings.

You need to know what conversion your meter uses to obtain the correct ppm reading.

Do some research and you will begin to understand it better.

Hope this helps,
Ouncie

wsf said:

The ideal level depends on the plant ur growing, the lucas formula is just a ratio of npk, you should adjust the PPM to what the plants like.
Basically if the ppm is too high, as the water in your reservoir decreases, the ppm will increase cuz the plants cant consume enough nutes, and the opposite if ppm is too low. You want the ppm to stay the same as the plants drink the water because that means the plants are eating exactly what you gave them.

Click to expand...

Right but that ratio of 0/8/16 per gallon gets me to 1300 as detailed by Lucas and a ph of 5.9. I also learned a bit about different meters. .5 or .7 conversion or something. What I read as 1300 others with a different meter will read as a 1000.

ppm will also tell you the amount of impurities found in your plant's drinking water. Most of the u.s.'s tap water has anywhere from 150-400 ppm of impurities. These impurities mostly include bacteria, heavy metals, chemicals, and other pollutants.