questions on ppm

can someone please explain to me the signifigfance of ppm's. does this measure the amount of particles in your nutrient mix and the amount of nutrient particles in your soil. how do measure for ppm? do u measure the water that drains from your pots?

PPMs measure the amount of nutrients that are in your water. 650ppm is low, something suitable for veggies in their first week. 1350ppm is very high, more suitable for mature, budding plants in their 5th week of flowering. you should raise the level of ppms as your plant grows older.

to measure your ppms, you need an electronic device such as a tri-meter. something like this: http://www.bchydroponics.com/fhtri-metercontinuousdmonitor202ppmphtemperature.aspx

and you dont measure the water that drains from your pots, you measure the water you're about to put into your pots.

PPM stands for 'parts per million.' If you have 1000 parts per million, you have 1000 molecules containing that nutrient per million molecules of H20. So it's a density quantity.

you measure ppm throughout your grow to know how much nutes to give and how much your plants are useing
Seedlings, Early Sprouts 100 to 250
Early Vegging 300 to 400
Full Vegetation 450 to 700
Early Blooming 750 to 950
Full Mature Blooms 1000 to 1600

thx for the replies guys. so i should just be concerned with measuring the ppm of my nutrient solutions?

Yes, as was stated by mr.green123.

If you mix your nutes and its 3500 ppm, your going to burn the piss out of your plants. But if you're only feeding 350 ppm during flowering, you will see deficiencies..

I recommend following a feeding schedule for your particular nutrients but at 1/3 the dose. You want to gradually raise the nutrients in the water as the plant matures. Just like in humans we consume more food as adults than we do as infants. Different plants like + or - amounts of nutrients, and it's very important to monitor this in a hydro grow. Soil is more forgiving if you are just learning to grow.

yes i am growing in soil. thx for the replies