What is the purpose of feed, feed, water in soilless medium? (pro-mix, sunshine #4)

Is there an advantage to watering between feedings rather than always feeding? I have read conflicting opinions. Wouldn't watering between feedings create shock from EC swings? Is there really a need to flush if the EC remains constant?

Yeah water with clean water after every 6th feed to flush & prevent salt buildups in the medium. You’ll notice white salty buildup weather you flush weekly or not but it’ll be less so if you flush. Its not an absolute must, but its a good practice & its an issueyou can rule out should problems occur

If you use a saucer and pot elevator feeding but watering especially to 20% run off you shouldnt ever have nutrient build up if feeding correctly or salt build up. If you dont want to rotate water feed you'll need to keep an eye on medium ppm levels. Making sure you're plants actually eating the food you're giving. Watering every other or every third time with plain water as mentioned above washes out salt and nutrient build up. That's the reason for rotating. You can feed less amounts every time but she wont like it if you pump her full of vitamins every day. The chart is a ppm chart i used to use when using liquid nutrients, good luck bud

I think I just fundamentally don't understand watering peat. I've been trying to treat it like coco, watering daily with nutes, and growth has come to a screeching halt.

austin98 said:

I think I just fundamentally don't understand watering peat. I've been trying to treat it like coco, watering daily with nutes, and growth has come to a screeching halt.

Click to expand...

Shoulda began with that... peat I knows nothing about peat and coco very little anyways. Guess the headline says it all lmao my bad I'm not high I promise

GroBud said:

Shoulda began with that... peat I knows nothing about peat and coco very little anyways. Guess the headline says it all lmao my bad I'm not high I promise

Click to expand...

no worries, I'm in the same boat

It all comes under the same fundamentals. Solids will build up, wash them through. Good on ya for reaching out for advice. In my opinion if you want to go soilless your better off taking full control & going sterile.

Darkoh69 said:

It all comes under the same fundamentals. Solids will build up, wash them through. Good on ya for reaching out for advice. In my opinion if you want to go soilless your better off taking full control & going sterile.

Click to expand...

I'm just using peat with perlite and lime. I thought that promix and sunshine 4 were more or less the same thing. apologies if thats not the case. I'm watering with jacks salts. Is this considered sterile?

I use Promix HP and have never fed plain water. Like you, I feel that there's no reason to as long as you keep the EC low in the first place and have plenty of runoff every time.

yinyang814 said:

I use Promix HP and have never fed plain water. Like you, I feel that there's no reason to as long as you keep the EC low in the first place and have plenty of runoff every time.

Click to expand...

how much and how often do you water?

austin98 said:

I think I just fundamentally don't understand watering peat. I've been trying to treat it like coco, watering daily with nutes, and growth has come to a screeching halt.

Click to expand...

What EC are you feeding and how often? You never should water soilless media, just feed. Lots of people go too high with EC or feed to too little runoff and get issues.

austin98 said:

how much and how often do you water?

Click to expand...

I'm in 3 gal fabric pots right now, end of flower, they are taking around 1 gal of solution every 24-36 hours, or whenever the pots feel around 40% lighter

I wouldn treat any other media like coco but pure coco coir itself.

yinyang814 said:

I'm in 3 gal fabric pots right now, end of flower, they are taking around 1 gal of solution every 24-36 hours, or whenever the pots feel around 40% lighter

Click to expand...

This is interesting because I'm growing under the same conditions and I've always done a feed water water feed and find myself coming into problems mid flower. I'm curious if it's underfeeding I'm dealing with.