What I’m doing now!

jondamon said:

Hopefully with this grow I am showing those newbies etc that more nutes does not necessarily mean more end product.

With coco as long as you are feeding every other day (as long as your coco doesn’t dry out) then the nutrient strength doesn’t need to be very high.


My nutrient base is DUTCH PRO HYDRO COCO GROW A/B soft water version. On their feeding chart at this week during flowering I should be feeding 2.4EC of their bloom formula (which actually contains more N than their grow formula lol) along with all the other additives they recommend.

I am using their base nutrient and for now their EXPLODE product which is basically their PK booster.

I am using PK booster every feed and have been for around the last 2 weeks. Whether that’s at full strength 1ml per litre or at half strength 0.5ml per litre.

i do have some MKP here but i haven't tested it’s concentration levels yet and will do this in a controlled test without using any plants to practice On.

Then when I know concentration levels for concentrate I will update.

I want a concentration that allows my EC to increase 0.2EC when mixed at 1ml per litre once the MKP is mixed in a concentrate for use.

@spek9 do you know the levels at all for what I’m contemplating?

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spek9 said:

I do something similar, but not down to the mL/L though. I've got a few things to do this morning, but this afternoon I can mix up some samples and see what I can come up with as far as a concentrate of the MKP, and a dilution ratio to get you close to your desired EC bump.

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jondamon said:

Cheers buddy that would be most appreciated.

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spek9 said:

I store everything (micros, CalNit and Cal-Mag) in large stock tanks, and keep my MKP separate. I store it in a one gallon container, mixed in a 15:1 ratio. When I use it, I pour 1/15th of the MKP (250mL) into another one gallon jug, and then fill the rest of it up with the normal solution in the large tanks. It slightly drops the PPM of the stock tank solution a tiny bit, but I digress.

I can't remember the maximum solubility for the MKP, so I'll look that up, and then make up differing batches and do some EC tests by mixing each one into distilled H2O and document the findings.

Can't see why I can't get this completed by this evening.

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jondamon said:

You my man deserve a big dab after this lol.

thanks again. Saves me fucking about with my small amount that I ordered to get the levels right for concentrated amounts.

one of the reasons I ended up buying the Dutch pro explode is that I didn’t want to fuck up this crop by guessing amounts etc.

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spek9 said:

I got a kilo of the stuff, and it's the jar that I use by far the least of (<50g per month) so I got a whole lot to test with. It's extremely cheap for me too. I think < $5 CDN/kg if I remember correctly.

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spek9 said:

TLDR; At maximum solubility after initial tests, it appears as though 1mL MKP to each 1L of other liquid will add 64 PPM, and if my math is right, 0.09 EC at the 700 scale, and 0.128 EC at the 500 scale (I'm qualified for metric<->standard conversion, but not used to PPM<->EC so please check and correct me if my numbers are wrong).

Longer:

Initial findings on first test at maximum solubility is that some of the material did not absorb into the water, so there was a tiny bit of fallout.

Given MKP has a maximum soluble rate of 226g/L which is equivalent of this first test (67.8g/300mL), and granted we have 0 PPM distilled water, we're going forward well:

PPM: 0
H2O: 500mL
MKP: 67.84g dissolved in 300mL H2O
+1mL MKP PPM: 132
700EC: 132PPM / 700 == 0.188 EC
500EC: 132PPM / 500 == 0.264 EC

We had 500mL of H2O only in our above test, so we need to double some of our numbers, and half others, so that we obey the requirement of mL/L of solution added.

H2O: 500mL x 2 = 1L
+1mL MKP PPM / 2 = 132 / 2 = 64 PPM
700EC: 0.09 EC
500EC: 0.128 EC

If my math is right (I don't do EC/PPM translations... I use PPM mainly. My EC<->PPM math is no where near as good as my metric<->standard knowledge, so if my math is incorrect, please make noise), we're at .09 EC at the 700 PPM scale for each 1mL added to 1L of distilled aqua, and 0.128 EC at the 500 scale.

That's getting us there, and that is at absolute maximum solubility (as mentioned not even all the MKP dissolved properly). I will mix up another batch with a higher H2O to MKP ratio so it all dissolved, and see what happens after that.

However, since I started at maximum solubility (meaning the water can not absorb any more), that's the very highest you'll ever get as far as plus EC for each mL of MKP per L of other mixture.

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xtsho said:

I'm extremely interested in all the research you're doing but damn you're making my head spin.

I just mix 1/2 tsp micronutrient blend similar to Jacks and 1/2 tsp calcium nitrate per gallon of water for veg. pH it and call it a day. But that's dependent on what I'm growing. Some of the sativa's I grow I cut that in half and even then they look a tad bit overfed at times.

For flower I use the same but add 1/4 tsp of MKP. A couple weeks into flower I start reducing the calcium nitrate and add a couple feeds with potassium sulfate at around week 5. After that I may add some additional magnesium sulfate as I reduce the calcium nitrate even further and start reducing the MKP as well. By the time I harvest I'm just feeding the micronutrient blend which is 3-10-20 at 1/4 strength and a trace of calcium nitrate and no MKP.

I just estimate everything as I reduce the nutrient strength. I've been using the same stuff for over ten years so I have a good handle on what to feed based off the look of the plants. It wouldn't do any good to try and create a recipe as I grow so many different strains every grow. Pure sativa's, pure indica's, hybrids, they all have their own quirks when it comes to feeding. If you feed a true sativa the way you can feed an indica you'll be overfeeding in many instances.

With coco things can be changed fast. I let the plants tell me what they need and I adjust based on their requests.

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jondamon said:

It made my head spin too.

I just know that spek9 has a mountain of MKP so testing a little for me hopefully wouldnt be too detrimental to his amount lol. Whereas for me I got 100g of MKP And no real testing ability other than mixing and hopefully trying at some point to create a MKP + water concentrate that I can utilise at 1ml/1L for a 0.2EC increase.

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spek9 said:

LOL.

I just finished a bunch of work out in my gardens, and after a quick break, I'm going to get back to it. Sorry about all of the confusion

Since I started testing things out, I have gained my own interest in using such a small amount to add to my standard nutrient mix. As I said, currently, I use 250mL in one gallon of standard mix. That's a fair amount of dilution. Even if I can get it down to a few mL (as opposed to one) per litre, that will allow for a much smaller stock container, and far less dilution of the main mix.

The process is finding the perfect balance between maximum concentration and maximum solubility, so that the process is reliably repeatable.

Once I'm all done, I promise to post the results in a coherent, easy to read and understand fashion.

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spek9 said:

MKP, a little clearer. Let me know if this is a bit more understandable, or you want further clarification.

TLDR;

To get a 0.15 EC increase from 1mL of MKP concentrate, the MKP would need to be dissolved into an H2O solution at a rate of 143g per 1L of water.

1mL/L = 0.15 EC (104 PPM)
1.5mL/L = 0.22 EC (156 PPM)
2mL/L = 0.30 EC (208 PPM)

Longer version:

Your desire was to figure out the concentration level and amounts of MKP and H2O to achieve a 0.2 EC (140 PPM) increase using 1mL of concentrated MKP solution in 1L of water (1mL MKP / 1L H2O).

I tested everything at 20C (that's the ambient air temperature in my house at time of testing, and the distilled water used was at this temp).

Results are that 143g MKP dissolved in 1L of water will boost PPM of another liquid by 104 PPM at the rate of 1mL to each Litre. That's 0.15 EC.

Now, I could have increased the MKP/water ratio when mixing to achieve a higher value, but I was unhappy with how much sediment was left over. If I mixed the MKP with the water at 90F+, it was more soluble, but didn't look right after it cooled down. So I essentially kept adding more MKP to the room-temp water (20C) until I felt I reached maximum solubility (143g/L) that I was content with.

So:

1mL/L = 0.15 EC (104 PPM)
1.5mL/L = 0.22 EC (156 PPM)
2mL/L = 0.30 EC (208 PPM)

I've decided to use this method myself. I mixed up a half litre of the exact same ratio, and put it into a 500mL (pint) Mason jar. I haven't calculated exactly how much I'll use per gallon yet, but a few mL is a lot less diluting to a solution as a whole than 250mL is. Plus, instead of storing my MKP concentrate in a gallon jug, it now fits nicely in a half-litre container.

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