amneziaHaze
Well-Known Member
Each plant is diferent in its needs.and its a 3 part nute base with pure magnesium and pure calcium soo you can mix how you want.original recepie(on the box) is for tomatoes
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Do LED’s promote cal-mag issues
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Prawn Connery
Well-Known Member
OK, that makes a bit more sense if you've not used it before and don't have a formula. Indicas tend to be more magnesium hogs and prefer a slightly higher pH than sativas, so nutrient requirements can also be strain dependent, but generally a good alround nutrient has most things covered.
I'm a bit late to the party but thought it might help someone else. There's some very knowledgeable people commenting before me.
I'm running a HLG 650R in a 3x3 tent and have been fighting calcium def problems for 3 years. I thought it was because my fertilizer had too much ammoniacal nitrogen and about 10 other things, but recently discovered that it was primarily not enough transpiration. I was running hot enough but I had to significantly lower humidity to solve the problem. Now I can run on full power and keep the plants green.
Now I keep the humidity under 60% measured within the canopy. I've been listening to Bruce Bugbee preach under 60% for a while but blindly followed the VPD charts until I heard him say it again this year and it finally sunk in.
I'm running a HLG 650R in a 3x3 tent and have been fighting calcium def problems for 3 years. I thought it was because my fertilizer had too much ammoniacal nitrogen and about 10 other things, but recently discovered that it was primarily not enough transpiration. I was running hot enough but I had to significantly lower humidity to solve the problem. Now I can run on full power and keep the plants green.
Now I keep the humidity under 60% measured within the canopy. I've been listening to Bruce Bugbee preach under 60% for a while but blindly followed the VPD charts until I heard him say it again this year and it finally sunk in.
Growth stage? Air temp?
Hollatchaboy
Well-Known Member
A hlg650r in a 3x3? That's a lot of watts for that footprint. I thought my 480 watt in a 3x3 was a lil too much. Have you run it full blast?
Here's a little more detail on my HLG 650R in a 3x3 tent:
For veg until 2 wks before 12/12, I run at 28-29° C and 60% humidity. Humidity goes to about 55% prior to 12/12 but is measured with the probe slightly within the top leaves. You want to monitor what the plant is feeling. Probes not in the canopy register much lower levels. 2 wks before 12/12 the temp steadily drops to 20 22° C at 2° per wk.
I'm in week 7 now at 30" above plant and at 535 watts and the plants are very happy. I usually grow 1 or 2 plants and veg 8 wks but these plants were in the cold & under a small light for the first 5 wks and are much smaller than usual. They are growing quickly now. I have back problems so fewer plants is easier for me.
For flower I try to get to full power at about 22 inches but it depends on the strain and how healthy they are. I get a little bleaching but I'm more concerned with getting max photons deeper into canopy and am willing to sacrifice a 1/4 inch of the center flowers to achieve that. I smoke the white tips and they seem fine to me. Sometimes I have to turn down the light but can usually keep it at full or close to full power.
I don't supplement CO2 but ambient in my basement in winter is over 800 ppm most of the time so I have a little bump there. I have five 6" non-oscillating fans in my tent to ensure that no leaf is robbed of air exchange. 4 on top and 1 on bottom. I will add a sixth one on the bottom soon. Just strong enough to not have wind-burn. This helps with nutrient (calcium) uptake. I also foliar spray calcium chloride twice a week or so. I avoid calcium nitrate foliar because the N can promote growth increasing the demand for calcium.
Current fertilizer is Jack's 5-12-26 with calcium nitrate. I often mix my own using Hydrobuddy. At week 7 of veg I'm at an EC of 1.8 fed 5 times per day. I try to run with only nitrate nitrogen but if runoff pH goes high, I'll use a little ammoniacal nitrogen. This run I mixed a little Sulphur into my 70/30 coco/perlite mix to keep ph low and it seems to be working. 2 grams per 3 gallon air pot. pH started to rise and then 6 wks later started to drop keeping it within range. The other plant is a bit stunted because of the cold start so not using much nitrate so it's having the opposite problem of low pH.
I've struggled with calcium in the past but so far with lower humidity, nice vibrant green plants. Flowering is the real test but based on what I'm observing and the fact I've tried everything else, I'm pretty confident that they will finish well.
The extremes that I'm pushing (light & temp) are the reason I was having problems and could have just turned the light down. But when it goes right, the buds just sparkle and the effects are much stronger. Look up Mitch Westmoreland environment study. It's preliminary work but my tests indicate it's rock-solid. Both Mitch and his mentor, Bruce Bugbee are currently saying that temperature is the best method to crop steer cannabis. I just bought a much bigger AC unit than you'd think I'd need so I can maintain the low temps for a longer grow season.
I attached a photo but the camera makes the plants look a paler green. The are a little greener than they look but not dark green.
As Bruce Bugbee likes to say, not everyone can drive a car at 300 mph but it sure is fun when you can. (paraphrased slightly)
Here are some other things I've tried to correct calcium deficiency:
Solutions
For veg until 2 wks before 12/12, I run at 28-29° C and 60% humidity. Humidity goes to about 55% prior to 12/12 but is measured with the probe slightly within the top leaves. You want to monitor what the plant is feeling. Probes not in the canopy register much lower levels. 2 wks before 12/12 the temp steadily drops to 20 22° C at 2° per wk.
I'm in week 7 now at 30" above plant and at 535 watts and the plants are very happy. I usually grow 1 or 2 plants and veg 8 wks but these plants were in the cold & under a small light for the first 5 wks and are much smaller than usual. They are growing quickly now. I have back problems so fewer plants is easier for me.
For flower I try to get to full power at about 22 inches but it depends on the strain and how healthy they are. I get a little bleaching but I'm more concerned with getting max photons deeper into canopy and am willing to sacrifice a 1/4 inch of the center flowers to achieve that. I smoke the white tips and they seem fine to me. Sometimes I have to turn down the light but can usually keep it at full or close to full power.
I don't supplement CO2 but ambient in my basement in winter is over 800 ppm most of the time so I have a little bump there. I have five 6" non-oscillating fans in my tent to ensure that no leaf is robbed of air exchange. 4 on top and 1 on bottom. I will add a sixth one on the bottom soon. Just strong enough to not have wind-burn. This helps with nutrient (calcium) uptake. I also foliar spray calcium chloride twice a week or so. I avoid calcium nitrate foliar because the N can promote growth increasing the demand for calcium.
Current fertilizer is Jack's 5-12-26 with calcium nitrate. I often mix my own using Hydrobuddy. At week 7 of veg I'm at an EC of 1.8 fed 5 times per day. I try to run with only nitrate nitrogen but if runoff pH goes high, I'll use a little ammoniacal nitrogen. This run I mixed a little Sulphur into my 70/30 coco/perlite mix to keep ph low and it seems to be working. 2 grams per 3 gallon air pot. pH started to rise and then 6 wks later started to drop keeping it within range. The other plant is a bit stunted because of the cold start so not using much nitrate so it's having the opposite problem of low pH.
I've struggled with calcium in the past but so far with lower humidity, nice vibrant green plants. Flowering is the real test but based on what I'm observing and the fact I've tried everything else, I'm pretty confident that they will finish well.
The extremes that I'm pushing (light & temp) are the reason I was having problems and could have just turned the light down. But when it goes right, the buds just sparkle and the effects are much stronger. Look up Mitch Westmoreland environment study. It's preliminary work but my tests indicate it's rock-solid. Both Mitch and his mentor, Bruce Bugbee are currently saying that temperature is the best method to crop steer cannabis. I just bought a much bigger AC unit than you'd think I'd need so I can maintain the low temps for a longer grow season.
I attached a photo but the camera makes the plants look a paler green. The are a little greener than they look but not dark green.
As Bruce Bugbee likes to say, not everyone can drive a car at 300 mph but it sure is fun when you can. (paraphrased slightly)
Here are some other things I've tried to correct calcium deficiency:
Solutions
- Twice a week foliar spray calcium chloride @ 400 to 800 ppm & pH 5.8
- Reduce N in solution
- Reduce ammonium N
- Reduce EC of solution
- Turn down light
- Reduce humidity to increase transpiration
- Reduce the K:Ca ratio if it's high. (e.g. 3:1 to 2.5:1) to reduce competition for Ca
- Defoliate - don't remove many, only want to remove microclimates to promote transpiration in centre
- Add fans - this is important!
- Blow air up directly into center of canopy from bottom of plant
OgTigerKing
New Member
Maybe not "verry" happy but happy enough. These plants are working HARD, there will be stress. There were some issues early on because they had a tough beginning until my tent was empty. The have only been in a good environment 2 weeks. And I'm still fighting a bit of stress but compared to previous grows this is happy. If I can get to the end without major deficiencies the end product is worth the stress to both the plant and me.
Hollatchaboy
Well-Known Member
Just keep the law of diminishing returns in mind.
Point taken and considered. But I didn't put a 650w light in a 3x3 to save money. The growth graphs level out but not flat without extra CO2. For me, it's worth the approx. $12/month in flower for the extra 300w. It only runs at full power for 2 months a grow, twice a year, three at most. I couldn't fit the 4x4 tent I wanted so I decided to get the max from a smaller space. I always ran mid to high humidity and battled calcium issues when I turned up the light. I didn't realize the huge effect lowering humidity has on moving nutrients through the plant. So much to learn, that's what makes it fun.
Wastei
Well-Known Member
The original recipe doesn't have enough of what? Masterblend is a traditional blend with plenty of Ca and Mg in the mix? Deficiencies are solely down to grower error.
Wastei
Well-Known Member
1.8 EC 5 times a day in veg and plants still look deficient tells me something is really off. You shouldn't even have to feed half that to encourage vigorous healthy growth in veg.
Its often better to first be the observer and after gaining some real experiencing after growing for 5-10 years you may give instructions and pointers. You don't understand plant nutrition by copying someone else nutrient regime while ignoring all other measures.
"The growth graphs level out but not flat without extra CO2"
Which "growth graph"?
The chart below is from the Chandra paper which investigated changes in photosynthesis rates vs temperature and CO2. My hunch is that this is "the science" that the cannabis world glommed on to that leads to concerns about "the law of diminishing returns". Accepting that everything is liable to that law but it also appears that there's little point in growing cannabis much above about 600µmol.
I have no doubt that the chart is accurate but, as I said when I first read the paper, I'm not growing "net photosynthesis".
Net photosynthesis is not a valid proxy for yield.
The data re. net P in this paper was derived from taking measurements about photosynthesis from a small number of leaves in a chamber about the size of a shoe box. My grow tent is small (2' x 4') but it's larger than a shoebox and, once again, I'm not harvesting "net photosynthesis".
A team of pointy headed guys apparently felt the same way and decided to do research that looked into plant yield and it's a whole different story.
Westmoreland's videos are an excellent, succinct source, I agree completely and have changed my growing processes to support Westmoreland's advice*.
The attached paper provides details of how cannabis reacted to increased light levels. The table below is based on the data in the Frontiers document.
I've highlighted various sections of the text in the document. The text containing the word "plasticity" is key.
Wastei
Well-Known Member
Increasing light intensity doesn't equate to higher potency, yield yes depending on situation but not in any way potency. That's down to the quality and range of the light and overall plant health.
Some of the most potent flowers I ever smoked was grow under fluorescent bulbs with comparably very low light intensity.