Lucas Formula. should i be adding a "bud booster" ? is lucas worth it?

budtoker0987

Active Member
So your cutting DOWN on the macros when your building up more on the boosters and sweet?

So say im doing the 8/8/8 and for shits and giggles we'll say that = 1000ppm alone. No booster, no sweet. But lets say right now is my week 4 or so and im close or already wanting to be at full strength booster and sweet. Am i factoring that into the 1000, meaning i would want to cut down on the main nutes to EQUAL that 1000ppm with everything included; so instead of the 8/8/8 it would be like 6/6/6 + full strength sweet + full strength liqkoolbloom = 1000ppm? Does that make sense? I have deleted this 3 times and re-wrote it to try and not sound crazy.. :)
REALLY REALLY REALLY APPRECIATE THE ADVICE BC!!
 

eyeball

Active Member
This is a great thread with good Q and A's... I too stoped using all the complicated regimens and switched to lucas formula with great results. I was able to focus more on my environmental control and not always second guessing my nutes... Now 2 years later I'm ready to expand my nutrients and all this makes a lot of sense... thanks BC.... like said above.. my down falls have always been environment and over watering. BC if you dont mind, sharing what room temp, co2 leval, prunning technics.. ( do u cut off lower branches and at what stage)... I hope this isn't considered a hijack, just thought it would be good info for everyone....
Thanks..
 

BCOGYODA

Well-Known Member
So your cutting DOWN on the macros when your building up more on the boosters and sweet?

So say im doing the 8/8/8 and for shits and giggles we'll say that = 1000ppm alone. No booster, no sweet. But lets say right now is my week 4 or so and im close or already wanting to be at full strength booster and sweet. Am i factoring that into the 1000, meaning i would want to cut down on the main nutes to EQUAL that 1000ppm with everything included; so instead of the 8/8/8 it would be like 6/6/6 + full strength sweet + full strength liqkoolbloom = 1000ppm? Does that make sense? I have deleted this 3 times and re-wrote it to try and not sound crazy.. :)
REALLY REALLY REALLY APPRECIATE THE ADVICE BC!!
No questions are crazy or wrong to ask. It's the guys that ask all the questions that become great growers. The guys that trip over their pride and don't ask are often stuck in growing "ruts" for long periods of time. So no worries. Ok so while you increase your boosters you're ppm will increase so don't lower your base nutes unless you see that you're total ppm is getting too high too quick. So what I do when growing a new strain for the first time and I'm in flower: is to fill my res, add my base nutes a little weak just while starting that res mixture, then add my booster at say half the directions strength. I check my ppm. So say I want to be at 1200 but I'm at 1000 with all that stuff mixed in the res I will gradually add a bit more of my base nutes till I reach the ppm I'm trying to get to. So just add equal parts of g/m/b until you get there. Does that make sense? The sweet shouldn't have a large increase in ppm to your res. Maybe 100-200ppm if I remember right.

Eyeball:
This is a great thread with good Q and A's... I too stoped using all the complicated regimens and switched to lucas formula with great results. I was able to focus more on my environmental control and not always second guessing my nutes... Now 2 years later I'm ready to expand my nutrients and all this makes a lot of sense... thanks BC.... like said above.. my down falls have always been environment and over watering. BC if you dont mind, sharing what room temp, co2 leval, prunning technics.. ( do u cut off lower branches and at what stage)... I hope this isn't considered a hijack, just thought it would be good info for everyone....
Thanks..
For the most part I grow tight SOG's so my pruning is very heavy duty compared to someone doing farther spaced trees etc. For pruning here in BC we call it "flagging"=taking a lot of fan leaves off the plants to allow for more air flow and light to reach the flower sites, and "lollipopping"=to remove the lowest branches to allow for more air flower under the plants and to give more growing energy to the higher up flowering sites that are closer to the lights. We cut the lower branches off when we flip to flower (you can use these branches to make cuttings with if you need clones) We flag at around week 3-4 of flower.

Room temp is VERY dependent on the strain you are growing. Dif strains will yield more or less and tighten up or get more airy dependent on how they react to the room temps..And the MOST important thing to know about room temps is that your thermostat on the the wall is only reading the ambient temperature (the air temp by the thermostat) NOT the temp directly under the lights and at your plants canopy level. Two very different measurements.
So take for example Purple Kush ( I grew it for years ) I could set my thermostats for 78-79 daytime/74-75 night time temps. The canopy would be around say 6 to 8 degrees warmer than that 84-85 daytime but still 74/75 nightime cause lights are off. Purple Kush loved those temp settings and responded by yielding great and still tightening up, sugaring up, and coloring up nicely at the end.
BUT take OG in comparison-a Sativa/Indica hybrid that lent itself a little more showing a Sativa dominant side in the pheno's we developed doesn't like warmer temps like the P. Kush does. So my temps are lower for growing the OG. On my thermostat I do 75 daytime/71 night time. Add 6-8 degrees to that for canopy level temps. Drop your temps both day and night for the last two weeks of flower. It will make the flowers ripen quicker, harden up more, and sugar up more.

For CO2 I start at 400ppm when the clones are just planted. I gradually bring it up matching my feed ppm until I am in the second week of flower then I set it to 1800ppm. The very last week before I chop I lower it to 400 ppm. I grow in completely sealed grow rooms so you can't turn the co2 completely off or the plants will eat it all up then won't have any co2 at all to metabolize with.

I use co2 tanks in some rooms, and co2 burners in other rooms. A VERY important thing to note when growing with co2 burners is to always check your burner tips on a very regular bases. If one single tip is fucked from a build up of oxidation's, carbon etc and stops working then it can be spewing out un burnt propane or natural gas (whatever type you are using) into your grow room. This WILL poison your plants. They will deform, get very twisted and distorted, and completely slow growth and yield very poorly. Every time I enter one of my rooms with a burner I walk straight over to them and check that all my burner tips are lit while the burner is on.

Edited: "was" to "wall"
 

eyeball

Active Member
Thanks BC.. so after all the side by side experiments you decided to go with soil over other mediums..what did you like about soil. Im surprised that you are able to get your plants to show flower after 8-10 in soil days..thats cool. Are you doing a drain to waste and do you check the ppm's of what drains out... ( soil has some nutes in it already right).. last question; I'm using RO water should I use cal/ mag with the 3 part formula..
Thanks..
 

BCOGYODA

Well-Known Member
Thanks BC.. so after all the side by side experiments you decided to go with soil over other mediums..what did you like about soil. Im surprised that you are able to get your plants to show flower after 8-10 in soil days..thats cool. Are you doing a drain to waste and do you check the ppm's of what drains out... ( soil has some nutes in it already right).. last question; I'm using RO water should I use cal/ mag with the 3 part formula..
Thanks..
Hey eyeball I have always grown in soil myself; not hydro. I have worked with growers in their hydro set ups but I have always grown in soil. All the comparison grows we've done were in soil beds with fresh dirt, side by side, same rooms etc..
Ya the products that jump start the flowers to show are very good. Pricey but they work well. The soil I use is Sunshine #4 it has a ppm of 150-250 it's a peat base with added perlite.
I grow in beds. No drain holes at all. We re use our dirt once so two shows off the same dirt. We pull the root balls out and turn the dirt over before planting the next crop. I flush a lot before chopping.
If I ever am concerned about salt build up in my soil I do a soil test. Take samples from top, middle, bottom of the soil, mix it with a cup of ph 7 water, let it sit for an hour, then test the ppm and ph of it. Same idea as testing run off.
I do large commercial shows grown very densely to use all the grow space in the rooms. My beds are on wheels. We move them to do work in between them when needed. This maximizes yield per sq/ft so hydro just isn't suited to the way I set up the rooms.
with a 1/1/1 you shouldn't need the cal mag. But if you see any deficiencies you should use it. I don't use it but I used to use it in every grow. I haven't seen any negative affects on my plants when not using it with the 1/1/1 ratio feeds. Not sure if hydro you will notice the same but I think so.
Pictures is shitty quality cause of the hps lights but you can see how tight I grow:
 

budtoker0987

Active Member
BC, thank you man for all this good info!! If it's cool, i may have some more questions in the future. still cool to shoot you an PM?
:joint:
 

budtoker0987

Active Member
Mr. BC, didnt take too long til i started pondering some stuff lol.
So, in my system, in 4 weeks my res gets changed twice.
My schedule is every two weeks or if i have added back the total amount of my res before the two weeks i would do a res change but that hasn't happened. I have so far only been changing every two weeks (give or take a day due to schedule conflict).

SO :) I wanna switch my big ladies from lucas 8/16 M/B to the 1/1/1 like ur sayin. I think Friday was day 28. Res change is in like a day or two. Total PPM's right NOW are about 1260-1300ppm. So the mix im thinking is gonna be like 6/6/6 (NO CAL MAG RIGHT? I AM USING RO) im gonna start doing full strength sweet and i think that is 20ml per gallon(they been getting 10ml per up til now). I'll use the Silica Blast (they have NOT received any of this yet as i just found out about it *facepalm*) and there are two strengths on the bottle one for medium sized plants and one for mature plants. and i think its 2.5ml per gallon and 5ml per gallon respectively. Think maybe since they haven't ever had it should i only add the weaker strength? Or go with the stronger? (AND ADD THIS FIRST BEFORE OTHER NUTES, RIGHT?, at least that is what i've read.) Then we have the Liquid KoolBloom; now this stuff they also have never recieved. Would i wanna go half strength on that?

Taking all in mind that, I do res changes every two weeks. Just started week 4. The fruity chronic juice strain SAYS its an early finisher. The last run i did with them i did in DWC and did NOTHING but stress them out. nasty roots. different nute mixes, a couple flushes. I ended up cutting them down at week 10 and it looked like they could have went a few more days but the veg tent was OVERFLOWING so i had to cut them then. (im now doing EBB & Flow, no more DWC) SOOOOO these flowering ladies are ACTUALLY my first in this system too. So honestly im not SURE if they are gonna go the shorter time like the description of them would say. Or if they actually do take 10 weeks. I figure any of the stupid shit i was doing to them in DWC could have stunted them, roots not absorbing like they should, ect.. So im kind of expecting an earlier finish. but to be safe i guess i could say week 9 would be a fair prediction.

WOudl you suggest i mix up a res like normal (depending on what you think on the above) and that will last two weeks. So then in week 6 im looking at another res change. And i guess technically if they WERE gonna be done in week 8 i would start flushing here right? SOrry for all the mix of questions. I jsuut get on a roll lol.
 

budtoker0987

Active Member
lol. i just came back to look at this thread and am laughing at how much i frickin put in this last comment. sorry about that dude lol. i musta been super dusted and ranting. basically all that long shit SHORT
how would u suggest i deal with that last month of flower with res changes happening every two weeks, and your saying you make that one week adjustment before flush.

Think i should just weekly changes for those last weeks? sorry again for the book man lol
 

BCOGYODA

Well-Known Member
Hey no prob ya sorry I spend most my time at the concentrates section on the forum so I don't check back here too often. Yes I would change your res once a week for the last couple if you are going to tweek it up with the 1/2/3 ratio before you flush.
With any of the silica products just follow the directions. They usually tell you to dose it lighter with younger plants then increase it as they grow. Kool Bloom is powerful stuff and when I grow a new strain I never give any boosters to them in full strength right off the bat cause some strains burn way easier than others. You should give it at half dose and see how the plants react. With hydro the plants will react very fast to too powerful of nutes. In soil they can take up to a week to react. If you don't see any leaf tip burn then gradually increase the dose little by little. If you grow the same strain over and over you will find what they like and where your max ppm's are for nutes.
 

budtoker0987

Active Member
what what i did was half strength koolbloom. But again, its the liquid too so expect its not as concentrated as you would be thinking with the powder. Still I only did half strength. So here is what i put in this time
40 gallon res, RO
40 teaspoon per gallon Silica Blast, only brought it up to 30ppm
6/6/6 G/M/B so 40 per gallon each
Sweet full strength 20ml per gallon
Liquid Koolbloom half strength so about a teaspoon per gallon

Which all came out to 1260ppm, 6.2ph. No ph up or down added.

Now these pics here are from Saturday which was week 6 day 2. The res was down to 32 gallons and my readings were like 1370ppm and 5.2 ph. I added ten gallons of half strength of everything i put in originally, and a little ph up and got it to 1230ppm and 6.1ph. But MAN, they look like they like what they're eating tho dude :) Im excited to give them the full strength booster :) Would you also run this same ratio with any 3 part nute line or do you just know this works well for GH flora? Cuz i was maybe thinking of botanicare line at some time. I have "HEARD" the buds taste better.. ? who knows til i try...
IMAG1241.jpgIMAG1243.jpgIMAG1244.jpgIMAG1245.jpgIMAG1246.jpgIMAG1249.jpgIMAG1260.jpg
 

budtoker0987

Active Member
IMAG1158.jpgIMAG1157.jpgIMAG1153.jpgOh ya, you said you got pals doing hydro. Do they use something like hygrozyme? Someone recommended pondzyme. Its obviously much cheaper but if it does what it needs im in. Just curious because right now im not using anything like that. And i know for a 100% fact that roots are all up in the hoses and stuff so there has to be some dead matter in there.

ya.. whole nother issue, if it IS actually an issue. Being that there was this much roots in the hose and this was like a week ago.
 

BCOGYODA

Well-Known Member
Hey man you should be proud of those girls. They look happy and very healthy. I'm glad everything is working out very well for you!
That root porn is awesome! And look at how you have resin heads forming on even secondary fan leaves. That is a very good development. A great sign of health, plant vigor, and shows the strain you are growing has great potential to produce a lot of resin. The booster is doing it's job well too.

Yes you can do the 1/1/1 ratio then tweek it towards the end with any 3 part fertilizer company but keep in mind that different companies can and do use different concentration formulas so always start off low what their labels recommend for dosages to see where you are at for ppm value.
Be careful not to get too carried away with thinking ahead to change nute companies and experiment a lot. I recommend really dialing in what you are doing first and give your whole full attention to this grow and these plants. If you give them love they will give you love back big time.
Put some full time music in there for them too if you can. Check out plant studies with music.. They respond to it. Lot's of side by side experiments have been done. Check it out when you have time.

Yes, adding Hygrozyme/Grozyme will be a good addition to use for sure. Your roots look very nice and white so keep track of what you are doing and make notes of this grow and what you do all the way through it. Even if you do little adjustment along the way. I have notes on grows going back a lot of years and still keep them and read back on them now and again. Especially things like ambient air temp, canopy temp under lights both when lights on and lights off (get a min/max day/night time temp/humidity stat) res temp, co2 levels, etc,
With the shape of your roots looks like you have good res temp, oxygen levels, etc. that your plants are liking and responding very well to.

And don't be in too much of a hurry to increase the ppm's too much at a time. In hydro once you go over the plants max ppm uptake they will burn and respond poorly to it very quickly. So only go up 50 ppm at a time if you are going to raise it at all.

Keep up the great work man!
 

budtoker0987

Active Member
Ok, cant attach pics in PC i guess :(
Anyways, these are from tonight. Week 7 Day 3.
DSC01241.jpgDSC01238.jpgDSC01235.jpgDSC01232.jpgDSC01210.jpgDSC01230.jpgDSC01211.jpgDSC01212.jpgDSC01213.jpgDSC01214.jpgDSC01228.jpg
LOL I noticed these lil survivors and said FU&% it lol IM KEEPIN EM! lol
DSC01239.jpgDSC01240.jpg
Readings when i left. Right is Veg, left is Flower. They steadily drop in PH. Slowly, but steadily. So I go a lil high.
IMAG1288.jpg

Basically I THINK they look like they should be good to go by week 8 (What you think??). Which is the 28th of this month. Per their seed description that's when they should be (https://www.cannabis-seeds-bank.co.uk/delicious-seeds-fruity-chronic-juice/prod_417.html) My vegging ladies are dying to go into flower. They are on Week 6 Day 3.
IMAG1280.jpgDSC01200.jpgDSC01201.jpgDSC01199.jpgDSC01202.jpgDSC01203.jpgDSC01204.jpgIMAG1275.jpgIMAG1276.jpg

LoL, im doing a little experimenting here too obviously lol. I got one that I'm LST'ing. 2 the I'm Mainlining, one with 8 tops and one with 16. 3 that I just topped Uncle Ben Style (4-6 tops). And 3 that I'm using scrog with, found these sweet little per bucket metal net things so figured hell ya lol. So far Im liking the topped, mainline, and LST the best. But not even in flower yet so we'll see.

So On Tuesday the 19th will be 10 days away from 8 weeks. Which is when i wanna start doing my flush. BUT, HERES MY QUESTION: How do you really know WHEN you should START your flush??? I know when you want to CUT is when you have cloudy trich's and like 30 or so % amber ones if you can hit that window. But how can you read your plant and know when you should start your flush for 10 - 14 days before the end?

Oh ya, how do ur buddys doing hydro like to do their clones? I have an aero cloner i made. Works pretty sweet. Only thing is, i just put them in the neoprene covers and let them hang in the tote. Sprayer on 24/7, within two weeks they root and the ones that dont, get nasty. I did em in RW once but that shit just stays SO WET. I didnt like it. But doing it this way basically leaves the roots fully exposed. Then going from hanging in the air getting sprayed constantly, to getting transplanted into hydroton that feeds 3 times a day. I dunno, they just seemed stunted or slow to get going it seemed like to me. Oh ya and most of them wilted pretty bad. I wonder if the rock crushes the roots. Or like tugs at the roots connection to the stem, ya know? Just not sure what way I wanna keep doing it yet. I meant it WORKED bot ways i guess lol...

Thanks BC DUDE!!! Ur the man. I really appreciate the time u spend helpin me out, seriously!
:joint::joint::joint::joint::joint:
 

BCOGYODA

Well-Known Member
Well if you are going to stick with this strain your chop time is a bit of a learning curve for the first couple crops because different strains mature at different rates BUT if you want you can go by your trichs with a magnifying glass or jewelers loupe and start your flush when you see the first couple cloudy trichs show up. This will give you time during the flush for the rest of the trichs to cloud up. And if you have to chop when you haven't seen any amber yet that will still be ok cause at lease they should all be cloudy by chop time.
It also depends on what kind of a high you want from your meds. If you want more head high or more body couch etc..
Also you can take close up pics of your calix's too and watch as they swell and the hairs tuck back into the calix's that is a sign they are really mature and ready to chop soon. So watch as they swell. At that point your trichs will start to cloud up.
If you think your strain is only an 8 weeker then you should start to flush soon but to me those buds still look like they are going to swell quite a bit more for a couple weeks.

It's tough to make the call without being there. With hydro you can flush them really quick and well compared to soil. So with hydro you can be pretty confident to extend your feeding longer than in soil.

Make sure you use a clearing solution not just water. I use Final Phase and love it but there are a few others out there.

My buddies that grow hydro use RW for their clones. It's a bit tricky to find the right moisture level for the RW while they root. You want the RW to dry out a bit before soaking again and you can raise the RW cubes off of the base of a tray a bit with little home made ABS pipe rings then add a skim of water to the tray so that the clones "sense" the water below them and will grow roots quicker to reach that water a half inch below the cubes. We used two trays. One solid bottom one with a skim of water in it and with the ABS rings in it, then another tray with open square holes in it to put the RW cubes on.
Not sure if you get what I mean but I used to produce clones in RW so that's how we did it with good success.

Not familiar with the pondzyme but I am with Hygrozyme and it's great.

Great to do those experiments with the training and topping. Make sure you harvest each one independantly and compare each ones yield to the others. This is the kind of thing that seperates the good growers who get better as they go. They experiment and learn quickly from their own trials and errors. Reading stuff on the net and books is good but it isn't worth near as much as learning from experiance. If I didn't try things on my own and think out of the box on my own I wouldn't have excelled the way I did at all. I would be stuck doing the same old things like other people not advancing in their passions.

There's only two kinds of people in this world. People that watch things happen; and people that make things happen.

By the way; your grow space looks very clean and that is super important to man.

Congrats again and keep it up man!

This is similar to the "open" types of trays we put our RW cubes on above the other solid bottom tray with the water and rings on. But you can use any kind of tray that makes the cubes not sit in water but rather makes the roots reach for water.
 

budtoker0987

Active Member
I did look at a couple leaves last night with the loupe. As far as I can see i THINK they all look clear at the tops of the trich's. So maybe you're right and it still has more time. Which is ok. Just eventually need to get my timing rigt so that my vegging plants arent vegging so long. Probly need a mother. Another day tho lol. Right now im just gonna take clones off of those bushy ass ones with the scrog net thing over them. Oh, while im talking about it, when do you like to take your clones? Right now im basically just taking them from my vegging plants like 2 weeks before they go into flower so they have time to heal up.

See the last ones i cropped, i was trying DWC and the roots got all gross and brownish. And they went for 10 weeks and probly could have gone a little longer but the vegging plants were exploding and HAD to flower so i cut them. I thought this might just be due to the fact that the roots were all nasty that they probly werent absorbing what they would normally be if they were good looking. Not sure if was thinking too much on that and thats not actually the case or what..

And the later yuo chop, with more amber, the more couch lock right?

And yes, I do used GH's cleaning solution. That might be the Final Phase, i cant rmember.

And he man, thanks for the compliments lol. I do tke the EXTRA time to make sure shit stays clean!! I dotn wanna live in filth and nor do i want my plants to live that way :) So hey this music thing, IM INTERESTED!! Do you have an article you like or should i just google it? :) Do they like a certain KIND of music more than others? its making me laugh to just type it!! lol

And im trying to invision your cloning process here.


  • [*=1]and you can raise the RW cubes off of the base of a tray a bit with little home made ABS pipe rings then add a skim of water to the tray so that the clones "sense" the water below them and will grow roots quicker to reach that water a half inch below the cubes. We used two trays. One solid bottom one with a skim of water in it and with the ABS rings in it, then another tray with open square holes in it to put the RW cubes on.

So im seeing, in my head, two trays. One solid on the bottom, and one like the one in your pic here. The ABS pipe ring things, what are these? is it just something that will suspend the upper tray a half inch from the bottom of the "solid" tray?

Also, say i put a clone in the RW, am i adding any clonex or anything? And say its setup, and the "skim"(is a Skim just mean a little bit of water? lol sorry if thats a dumb one lol) of water is in the lower tray, the pipes are in there, the top tray is in there, and am i just setting the RW cubes on that top tray? or you saying i need another dealio to cover the cubes? Do yo manually water the cubes when they dry? and then eventually the roots will reach the water, and you just let them chill like that? Sorry for the machine gun questions. ur the man!





 

BCOGYODA

Well-Known Member
Yes you got it right with the clone trays. Two trays. Bottom one is solid. Top is the one in picture. Cubes sit in top tray. Bottom tray has little bit of water in it; like 1/4 inch of water.
ABS rings are just spacers for the top tray to sit on so the top tray is slightly above the water in bottom tray. You can use anything for spacers. ABS is plumbing pipe. Like PVC.
Yes you should always use a cloning powder or gel on the stem of the clone. Check out vids on cloning. There's tons out there. To moisten the cubes you can just lift the whole top tray with all the clones and lower it slightly into a tub of water so they suck up a bit of water. It's not good to have the RW soaking wet all the time. You want them to dry out a bit before moistening so they search for water. You need to use humidity domes etc..Google it lots of info..

Yes just google the music for plants thing. Lots of info out there on it. I always just play classic rock. But I've read that heavier music is good cause of the music vibrations to the plants. Some people may think it's funny. But there is proven botany reports on it. Mythbusters also did a test on it lol.

That plant on the youtube video you linked is no where near ripe. And if you is going to start flushing it at that stage then he is fucked and will have a poor yield. He's also very incorrect about saying that you should flush BEFORE the buds swell. That's complete bullshit. The buds should be SWOLLEN when you flush. If you flushed before they swelled you would be way off your max yield big time.

Go by your trichs and you will see that as the trichs START to become cloudy the buds will also be SWELLING. So that is when you should flush.

Yes; the more amber trichs the more couch relax body stone you will get. You don't want more than around 30% amber though cause they change color quick at that point so if they all get amber on you they will quickly start to lose potency and flower weight after that.
 
Top