Looking to pay someone for help dialing in a friends grow

I’ve been growing several years now with, usually, little to no issues. A friend recently started a similar style grow to mine, only bigger in scale, but he is having some issues which are apparently outside of my knowledge as I’ve struggled to help him.

The medium is CannaCoco bricks and nutrients are simply Canna Coco A&B, Rhizotonic (veg only for 7-10 days after transplants) Canna Pk 13/14(used only for 10-14 days at 1.2 ml/gal starting around day 30-35) and Canna Calmag. Final pot size is 3.5 gallon. In his veg room, he feed once daily to drain once roots are properly established. His veg room is generally okay, though it does seem like his plants Veg slower than mine. His final ppm in veg is around 620-660. Tap water starts around 70 ppm and he adds calmag to bring it to 100-110 before adding the A&B. In Veg, his full size plants get around 460-500ish PAR.

Where his system differs from mine is in his bloom rooms. He has a 12 gallon bucket next to each plant and feeds 5-9 daily evenly spaced during lights on. He starts them in bloom around 610-630 ppm and slowly increases to a max of no more than 900 during the PK period and back down to 620-650ish to finish out. His bloom rooms stay about 74-76 degrees with 45-55% humidity during lights on. In bloom, he starts his plants around 500 par and raises it only to about 600-620ish PAR. When I had him increase his PAR up to 750-800+, he started getting what looked like calcium issues with his fan leaves closest to light so he has since backed off back down to a max of 620.

His main issue seems to start around week 3 of bloom. It seems like no matter what he tries, he cannot keep his runoff in the proper range; it ALWAYS climbs to the point of nutrient burn. As of last night, he goes through about 3.5 gallons of water per plant per day, lots of runoff with all 9 feeds, and the runoff ppm still climbs. I simply cannot make sense of it as it never dries oit

I tried having him reduce the ppm but he started getting what looked like deficiencies in the new growth. Ive been trying and failing to help him get his grow in order for too long now and I’m hoping I can get someone to help out.

Im looking to hire someone with experience in multiple fert coco grows and preferably who is solid at issue diagnosing and solving. I can provide pics/videos and any information requested. Anyone who feels confident they can offer real help, please message me or post up.

I’m having him go to his water provider for a printout of what exactly the 70ish ppms are in his tap water this week.

-Does him feeding several times daily change what the nutrient batches strength should be? If so, by how much? And would he need to supplement anything that won’t be provided in high enough quantities at that reduced rate with his 70 ppm starting water? Should he be trying to push higher PAR to increase nutrient consumption? Just a few questions I’m rolling around in the noodle, not sure which are relevant. Anyhow, I’m going over there later tonight and I’ll take some pictures.

Is the PPM on the 500 scale?
What are the runoff numbers?

How is the drainage in the pots? I know you're getting lots of runoff easily, but it's not good to have pools of solution getting stagnant in the center of the pot, for example.

With tap water, I probably wouldn't even bother using calmag, as Mg and Ca is in A&B and that combined with what's in the tap should suffice in coco.

If possible, it would be best to get the temps up to around 82F with LED (not that it's causing any of this, but in general). If he's using HID's and not LED's, then it's fine.

What type of auto system is being used here (halos, drips, floracaps)?

Auto systems can cause valleys where nutrient solution takes the path of least resistance and the top gets fertigated well, but the rest of the plant doesn't. A good, slow and even hand watering every few weeks can resaturate the entire medium and prevent this problem.

One other thing, with 3.5 gallon pots, you may want to use perlite. I grow in straight coco in 1 gallon nursery pots. This causes the roots to bound up and get nutrients directly.

In coco, bigger pots are usually for people that want to only fertigate once per day. You can grow monsters in 1 or 2 gallon pots. It just means you will have to fertigate more frequently in smaller pots, but that's not an issue for a guy fertigating 6-9 times a day. I'm sure others will disagree about pot size.

With regard to your last question, you have to think of high-frequency fertigation as like running in DWC. In DWC, the roots are always in nutrient solution. In coco, if you apply more nutrient solution every few hours, you are replenishing the media with fresh solution and oxygen. In that regard it's like DWC, so fertigating more doesn't mean you should use a lower EC - it means you need to use the appropriate EC the whole way through just as you would do in DWC.

Without knowing the runoff EC numbers, what I would do today is do a slow, even, and deep fertigation by hand. Get the runoff EC of the hand fertigation to be around the EC of what you're putting in it, and then monitor all auto fertigations for the next few days and see if it's staying consistent.

ec121 said:

Is the PPM on the 500 scale?
What are the runoff numbers?

How is the drainage in the pots? I know you're getting lots of runoff easily, but it's not good to have pools of solution getting stagnant in the center of the pot, for example.

With tap water, I probably wouldn't even bother using calmag, as Mg and Ca is in A&B and that combined with what's in the tap should suffice in coco.

If possible, it would be best to get the temps up to around 82F with LED (not that it's causing any of this, but in general). If he's using HID's and not LED's, then it's fine.

What type of auto system is being used here (halos, drips, floracaps)?

Auto systems can cause valleys where nutrient solution takes the path of least resistance and the top gets fertigated well, but the rest of the plant doesn't. A good, slow and even hand watering every few weeks can resaturate the entire medium and prevent this problem.

One other thing, with 3.5 gallon pots, you may want to use perlite. I grow in straight coco in 1 gallon nursery pots. This causes the roots to bound up and get nutrients directly.

In coco, bigger pots are usually for people that want to only fertigate once per day. You can grow monsters in 1 or 2 gallon pots. It just means you will have to fertigate more frequently in smaller pots, but that's not an issue for a guy fertigating 6-9 times a day. I'm sure others will disagree about pot size.

With regard to your last question, you have to think of high-frequency fertigation as like running in DWC. In DWC, the roots are always in nutrient solution. In coco, if you apply more nutrient solution every few hours, you are replenishing the media with fresh solution and oxygen. In that regard it's like DWC, so fertigating more doesn't mean you should use a lower EC - it means you need to use the appropriate EC the whole way through just as you would do in DWC.

Without knowing the runoff EC numbers, what I would do today is do a slow, even, and deep fertigation by hand. Get the runoff EC of the hand fertigation to be around the EC of what you're putting in it, and then monitor all auto fertigations for the next few days and see if it's staying consistent.

Click to expand...

ppm on the .5 scale. I’ve included a few pics I took tonight, but his pans drain out underneath the building. He uses 3 drippers per plant and it seems like solidly even coverage. The lights are all LEDs, some are COB style, most are quantum board style but he is only able to push his lights to a max of maybe 600 PAR before he has issues start in with the top/newest growth.

What has me most confused is that even with 9 daily feeds with runoff, how is there ever enough dryback to actual build up the salt content he seems to reach every 7-8 days once flowering has initiated. I didn’t think lowering the ppm was the right call but I simply cannot see any other way to keep the excessively high ppm drain to a reasonable level. I’ve read several posts saying Canna coco A&B can be successfully used in lower levels, but he seems to have some tip yellowing and light chlorosis on the top growth and fans.

The picture with the damaged leaves is the strain that exhibits the most visible issues, Candy Fumez. Early in bloom it just looks like minor chlorosis but by week 6-7, the visible damage is more obvious. Again, it seems like an issue with a mobile element as it always seems to be on the growth closest to lights, but never closer than 14-16 inches and always under 650 PAR.

Just very confused as to how within about 7-8 days, his runoff almost ALWAYS ends up 500+ over what is going in as he maxes out at only 800-850 ppm in flower. I had him switch a couple systems to fewer, larger daily feedings but I don’t know why that would work better if it does. His plants are fed once daily in veg and while slightly slower growing than mine, look solid. First few weeks in bloom generally look okay as well, but once they start flowering, somehow they go through 3-3.5 gallons of nute mix daily and still the runoff rises.



One last note/?… some of his plants are often so heavily rooted even on the surface, that the automated feedings can’t drain well and water builds up an inch or 2 as it drains, shouldn’t cause any issues though right?

We need some more numbers to be able to answer like if he check leachates/runoff of the medium to troubleshoot?. The mix seem off with adding Calmag on top of a complete plant food specifically made for Coco coir. PK do very little positive growing in containers and will only make Calcium less accessible to the plant and the excess will build up in the medium with low pH as a result.

He's getting nutrient buildup because the nutrient ratio is off and excess and buildup is inevitable. His nutrient strength in veg sounds high depending on how frequent he feeds. In his situation he should be able to feed several times a day.

Less is more growing Cannabis and Canna Coco A + B is enough to grow perfectly healthy plants and great bud. Add some humic acid and kelp and you got a winning formula.

At deficiencies the first things is to check and dial in pH since you're feeding a readily available plant food and if nutrients are not available pH is off. You don't fix a Calcium deficieny by adding more Calmag on top of a plant food that already contains it in the formula, you only worsen the problem.

Some points.

1. Pk 13/14 is used at the height of nutrition, as in when AnB are highest, you don't lower it and swap it out for more pk. That changes the balance of the solution.

I would scrap its use completely, I find mis-timing it or over feeding with it causes way more problems than its worth.

2. Coco breaks down and releases K, that could be partially responsible for the rise in EC.

3. He's using bricks and we've no idea how well he's washed and buffered them or at what rate it breaks down in comparison to a high quality bagged coco like canna.

4. Temps are low which could be partially responsible for what looks like deficiencies, on top of what's already been mentioned.