hi everyone. its my first time growing and i think im missing an importand point here. So im trying to grow in biobizz organic soil (light mix / all mix) with the help of advanced nutrients . i follow the feed - water - feed -water schedule by beeing very carefull to not overwater and i always use 1ml/lt from the nutrients. my problems started from when i was introduced to the checking of the runoff water.
at my suprise every time i try to check what is coming out i find crazy numbers like 4000ppm for example and i dont know what to do or what i did to cause that . i even started a new plant in the light mix and im now in the third week of veg . i only fed her once till now and today i decided to test the runoff . well again i saw 2500 ppm . the feed was something like 500ppm and i used spring bottled water at 100ppm which i ph down at 6.2. so what am i missing ? what is it that im doing wrong? the plants look ok with no visible signs of something going wrong . can someone please explain to me cause im going f....n crazy. hope i explained it correctly , english is not my native language . thanks
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What I do is re-amend my soil in between runs with long term release ammendments, i.e. alfalfa meal, bone meal, azomite, things like that.however, those take time to breakdown and are not plant available immediately. So what I use is "Raw=Soluble " by npk industries. They sell each of the 17 minerals or so that plants need to grow so, I " spoon feed" my plants with whatever they might need or show deficiencies in. But once you get a couple cycles in and the long term stuff you added becomes plant available you really never need to give them anything other than water. I do brew my own compost tea that I usually use 2-3 times per run. And I also like and use "Mammoth P", "Recharge" if I dont have time to brew a tea, and "Neptunes Harvest" emulsified fish fertilizer. Hope this helps bud, Good Growing!
yes im starting to realize exactly that. thats where i want to go also . but as tottaly new i didnt know. so tell me something . in autoflowers that are so quick and you have no time to recover how will you know how much or when will the plant need something and at which quantity before hand? if you come across a deficiency or toxicity how will you be able to correct or add with slow release nutes? thanks for the help
If you use advanced nutrients you will lose the organic part of your grow. Those bottled nutes have salts and other things that will harm the good microbes and fungi that you want for organic. You want organic nutes. They usually tend to be dry, top dress nutrients. Make sure whatever you decide to go with that it is organic. If you want to recycle your soil and use it over and over again, you will have to add soil ammendments between grows for longer term mineral breakdown.
so i shouldnt be using the advanced nutrients with organic soil? or keep using them and just not be checking the runoff? im going to watch the video right now. thanks
"watched video"
so i should switch to organic nutes? organic prefertilized soil can or cant be used with liquid nutrients like advanced nutrients? i should not be testing the runoff ? i still havent clered these things up. could you please explain a bit? again thanks as i told you im super new to this
Most growers only monitor the runoff ppm when growing with synthetic nutrients - not organic. To give you a short answer, that 4000 ppm is organic molecules that need to be broken down by microbes before the plant can uptake. I made a video which should clarify things for you since it talks about using an organic soil with nutrients already in it: