Top feed molasses?

Sorry if it's been discussed before but I was wondering if anyone top feeds a molasses solution in flood and drain from time to time. Thanks in advance.

Well, I've done it - in a sense. I don't feed my plants straight-up molasses solution, but I do topfeed them beneficial teas that have some molasses in them. What would you like to know about it?

Just making sure I'm not going to mess my res up doing light feedings. Was wanting to see what kind of difference I may be able to see by using it but have heard horror stories from those who have mixed it into res. Tryin to learn.... Thanks for the response

I would never, ever, put molasses in a recirculating system, that's a no no.

i use it in my soil plants, but as cannabisnerd stated- i wouldnt ever use it in my hydro system

Paddletail said:

Just making sure I'm not going to mess my res up doing light feedings. Was wanting to see what kind of difference I may be able to see by using it but have heard horror stories from those who have mixed it into res. Tryin to learn.... Thanks for the response

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When you give molasses to a soil grow a big part of what you see is from the boost it gives to the guys living around the roots. I'm not hydro but I don't think you would see this affect?

A.K.A. Overgrowem said:

When you give molasses to a soil grow a big part of what you see is from the boost it gives to the guys living around the roots. I'm not hydro but I don't think you would see this affect?

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Fungi do alright in hydro, they help the roots and help with root protection from diseases.. but the bacteria don't work the same in hydro as soil. Fungi do help hydro plants but in a different way. You just do NOT want to feed the bacteria in a hydro setup or you will get pythium type issues. A brown algae bloom aka cyanbacteria.. In hydro you want to keep adding the bacteria because they don't replicate fast like they do in soil. In soil, you shouldn't really add molasses straight to the soil. You should use it in brewing a etc tea for the real benefits. Molasses is a food for the bacteria (good and bad) but not a beneficial product for the plant itself. Just think of molasses as a food for bacteria, good and bad bacteria. You don't ever want to feed bad bacteria in hydro. But you CAN brew a tea and use molasses in the tea and then add it to your hydro system. This is called a beneficial or live reservoir as opposed to a dead or sterile res. Adding the TEA you brew with bennies and molasses to your res is HIGHLY beneficial.

Hope you can make sense of my jibber jabber

You DO need to choose if you want to do a living reservoir with bennies or a sterile reservoir with something like bleach or chlorine. I don't recommend doing neither. H2o2 kind of sucks for maintaining a sterile rez. And it's expensive. Don't buy into the hype of h2o2. Bleach is a hell of a lot cheaper and works 10x better to maintain a sterile reservoir.

If you want to do sterile, you can use 0.25ml-0.50ml per gallon of nutrient solution added back every 3 or 4 days. Nom scented plain clorox bleach only. Or the cheap bleach, but make sure it's not scented or special like the gel crap.

For a beneficial res, or live res, find the heisenburg tea recipe. I don't think he created the tea recipe, I believe it was richyrich from another forum. Both have the same recipe I believe.

Thank you for the responses. Only on my second run and I have a baby coming just after the new year so I wanted to get the most I could out of it as I wont get any runs in after this until I move to Co. next spring. This is my first flood and drain as well. First run was in DWC and I got lucky popping 1 seed that I pulled 111 grams off of using CFLs in a 2x2. I didn't expect to get lucky again so I built a small flood system for same 2x2, popped 6 and had 1 stunt off and go nowhere, 1 male, and 4 good looking girls. Not going to be messing with molasses it looks like.