Any tips for mixing up nutes on a large scale?

[BigB 420]

Just finished feeding 12 plants.

I've been mixing up nutes in a 1 gallon milk jug for easy measuring. When the plants were small that worked just fine.

Now they're getting bigger and I had to mix up 7 jugs.

I was thinking maybe a 5 gallon bucket, but that's going to take several batches as well once I pot up.

So any tricks? A big barrel? Reservoir of some sort? Big watering can? Trash can?

Also, does it hurt the roots when my watering disturbs the soil? Is watering gently important?

Thanks.

 

[TWS]

Hi ! Growing is not an easy job as we all know. My gosh, how often do you feed that it's that big of a deal A bigger barrel or trash can might help you ? I pefer organic amended soils and Guano piles and teas once in a while and straight water most of the time Or scratch in nutes that I don't have to mix. I need a 55 gallon barrel to bubble up some teas.

 

[BigB 420]

It's not a huge deal. But I think it will be a pain to keep using my one gallon jug when i move to large pots. I'm feeding about once a week right now, every other watering.

Right now I'm leaning towards a trash can for mixing and a small bucket for carrying the water to each plant.

 

[TWS]

You could get a small pump like a 12 volt bilge pump and a hose .

 

[mwooten102]

I use 5 gallon buckets ... I bucket per plant ... each one hand mixed.. its not so bad in veg but in flower when I start having to put in more shit ... it sucks ass x 32

 

[mwooten102]

oh here's the way I've seen done commercial grows is to just use powder nutes and just throw in x amount of powder and hose water or irrigate.

 

[BigB 420]

You could get a small pump like a 12 volt bilge pump and a hose .

A pump would be great. I didn't think of that.

Wait.. I've got just the thing! I have an electric sump pump here in my garage that I use in the winter when my patio floods (some smart person built it in a low spot).

It hooks to a garden hose even. Just need to clean it up and toss it in the bottom of a clean garbage can. I could mark the garbage can for measured amounts in gallons and stir the nutes with a big stick.

Thanks guys! I'll try it.

 

[BigNBushy]

Here is how a friend of mine who is a pharmacist at a hospital might mix up your fentanyl if you broke your leg. Fentanyl is measured in micrograms where other drugs are measured in miligrams. Morphine is easy to dose, he really hates that his hospital recently switched to fentanyl... anyway.

The method is called titration, as its hard to measure a thereputic dose, take a known volume and add to a known amount of saline. Then you can calculate how much is in the saline to get a thereputic dose.

How does this translate to you? Take the 1 gallon jug and put in as much nuets as all your plants will need. Then do your math, and check it, and add each dose as needed.


I have never done this with nuets for plants, but if I were you, thats how I would do it, and I think it might be easier to do than mixing up each individual dose.

 

[BigB 420]

I think I follow. Basically add 10 gallons worth of nutes to 1 gallon of water, mix, and then add that 1 gallon to 9 gallons of water and stir.

Or mix 1/10th or the first gallon with another 9/10ths of a gallon to make 1 gallon of fertilizer.

Makes sense. I could apply that to my trash can reservoir once I set that up.

 

[jcmjrt]

Another way is to get away from liquid nutrients. You can add amendments to your soil so that you will have enough nutrients for most of the grow. For that you'll have to start when you make your soil. Generally use a couple different sources for N, P, K and some trace minerals...e.g. for nitrogen add blood meal for quick nitrogen and add feather meal and neem cake for slow release nitrogen. Fast P - unsteamed bone meal, slow P - fish bone meal. Slow K- greensand (VERY slow), fast K - banana peel tea (yep, this one is a liquid additive but does work well and is as cheap as it comes). For various minerals, enzymes and some N - add kelp meal, alfalfa meal and gypsum.

You can top dress with fast amendments if you see a deficiency. At this point, you could still probably get away with few to little liquid nutrients. High nitrogen bat guano (fast release) and quality worm castings for top dress ...up to flower...and then high phosphorus bat guano and worm castings thru harvest...and a banana peel tea or two. All you do is put amendments on top of the soil...maybe lightly scratch it in.

 

[BigB 420]

Thought I'd post an update on this thread.

So I cleaned out a 32 gallon trash can that I had in the garage. I then filled it in 5 gallon increments and marked a 1x1.5 board that I had lying around in those 5 gallon increments so I can stick the board in to measure the amount of water and use it to stir up my nutes as well.

I then took this submersible utility pump that I had and hooked it up to a garden hose with a shower wand attachment. The pump can just be dropped into the bottom of the trash can.

Just watered 12 plants with maxsea I mixed up in the trash can. Worked great. No bending over, only needed to mix one batch and I could walk around and water without hauling any heavy buckets.

 

[ck867]

I use 55 gallon trash cans and a pump with water wand. Works perfect and no bending over.

 

[Carmarelo]

Have you looked into using a paint mixer that attatches to a drill? Seems like it would work well mixing large amounts thoroughly..

 

[BigB 420]

That probably would work well. So far I've been fine just stiring but my mix's are all pretty simple. One or two ingrediants.

The paint mixer might be good when I feed with molasses later on. That stuff just likes to sink to the bottom.

 

[Erie420]

Im.having the same problem do u just add all the notes in a 5 gallon bucket and whatever water left use next time or dispose of it