Foiler Feeding?

[Cannabis.Is.Free]

Are any of these possible to foiler feed with?
At the moment the only thing I use is plain water in a spray bottle, and plain water + 1/2 tsp of Snow Storm Ultra (once a week)

I have the following, but scared to use them on foiler as I heard one mess up in foiler and you can kill a plant instantly.

20-20-20 Jacks Classic
Bid Bud
B-52
Voodoo Juice
Rhino Skin
Bud Candy
Overdrive

 

[ProHuman]

Plants primarily feed from the roots. I never understood why some folks try to feed them through the leaves. Spraying the leaves with water to raise humidity is something I get... but feeding?
I will be interested in some other responses to this thread.

 

[Cannabis.Is.Free]

Well I'm not sure how it does intake from foiler, but I have and always will use misting mainly for humidity problems.
I started using SSU in my mist, and I have noticed my purple wreck turning purple faster and noticed a lot more darker fan leafs and dark purple/red color out of my plants.

 

[qwizoking]

I foliar feed alot..can be a great tool

 

[ProHuman]

I foliar feed alot..can be a great tool

Can you elaborate on that a bit?
How is it a great tool, exactly?

 

[qwizoking]

fastest way to fix deficiencies. won't cause lockout in your medium. lowers ppm/ec, great for root bound plants

 

[ProHuman]

So foliar feeding is a way to handle improper growing issues?
Mainly over-fertilization, and improper container size.

I still don't see how spraying the leaves can properly feed the plant even with these issues.
Properly addressing the issues would be the wiser choice.
As in transplanting the root bound plant into a bigger container, and flushing over fertilized medium to its proper ppm should be a much wiser solution to those issues.
Just spraying the leaves will not 'fix' the problems, or properly feed the plant.

 

[qwizoking]

Well atleast you have an opinion on the matter

 

[BarnBuster]

Qwiz, is your thinking to just use foliar feeding to correct deficiencies only, assuming plant has sufficient root space and/or is not root bound?

 

[churchhaze]

I agree with this. I never spray water on my leaves unless i'm raising humidity for unrooted cuttings.

Plants primarily feed from the roots. I never understood why some folks try to feed them through the leaves. Spraying the leaves with water to raise humidity is something I get... but feeding?
I will be interested in some other responses to this thread.

 

[Cannabis.Is.Free]

I know I said this already but its my opinion and if you have one please do elaborate so others can learn.

I have only used misting as a way to raise humidity instantly.
I just purchased Snow Storm Ultra (Heard too many good things,stupid of me not to purchase a cheap $5 bottle) and it says to use foliar feeding as it's more economical.

Here is exactly what it says

"Foliar: Much more economical. Use 1/2 to 1 Tsp per gallon of water and apply once a week. Use caution once flowers bulk up."

Now, I used it twice in one week, at week 2 of my seedlings. I understand I used it way too early, and caused minor stunting because of that. Although I have saw results from just two mistings, twice in one week. It caused my "Purple Wreck" to bring out the purple in its genetics right away. It started to purple (Temps are 80F, so not low temp)
The fan leaves also turned a very dark shade of green the next day.

That led me to ask this question about foliar feedings. I want to know if it will actually benefit my plants like SSU did.
Mainly Overdrive and Big Bud were the two main nutrients I was curious if it had any benefits being misted.

Now, in my opinion I think misting can do a lot of good. Now this is just observation and I have no real grow experience as I'm only 3 weeks into my first grow.

When the temps are 85F and I mist the plants with cold water, they perk right up and look happy wanting more. - Placebo?
Some nutrients (Like Snow Storm Ultra) when misted, causes the plants to change color. - Placebo or a shit load of N in SSU?
When misting plants a lot in veg, I notice a lot faster growth when the plant is constantly misted. A day misting vs a day no mist, I noticed more growth. -Placebo or I'm crazy?

While I have not witnessed this, like another member said, and I have read this. You can figure out cures to deficiencies without harming your plant more with a feeding, by misting specific nutrients on them.

 

[waterdawg]

I just started to foiler feed my plants and I have been growing in hydro for two years so just a newb. This last run had some issues and yes I used it to cure a mag def. by spraying a light foiler feed of epsom salts, it worked great. I have always had a bit of a mag def from the start and had used epsom in the water but still had slight spotting of leaves now this has stopped completely. I buy nutes from a manufacturer in my city and they mix solutions that are specific for foiler feeding and I have started to use them, one being kinetin, and the other one I cant remember right now and its a cold walk to the shed lol. The plants have never looked better and the growth is great but I honestly I can't say if it would have been better or worse without it as all plants have had a spray. I know that it has become something I will be doing now as the plants really do seem to like it. But will definatly stop when larger buds develop due to mold concerns.

 

[qwizoking]

I foliar most of plants mag requirements...
you can grow a plant off only foliar feeding

 

[ProHuman]

I foliar most of plants mag requirements...
you can grow a plant off only foliar feeding

I would love to see how that turns out.

I realize a plant can absorb some nutrients through the leaves...
... but aren't the leaves primary objective to absorb light, and for respiration,
- while the roots are the primary source for nutritional uptake?

 

[Cannabis.Is.Free]

I would love to see how that turns out.

I realize a plant can absorb some nutrients through the leaves...
... but aren't the leaves primary objective to absorb light, and for respiration,
- while the roots are the primary source for nutritional uptake?

I'm curious, are you looking for information that may be educational to someone like you and me?
Or are you looking for a silly, but heated, debate on foliar feedings?
It's just the way it came off as I read it, sorry.

Regardless, what he says is true. Plants can be grown from Foliar feedings only, as long as the roots don't completely dry out.
It would be hard for them to dry out considering a plant tilts its leaves in an angle so that rain drops slide down the leaves and flow towards the stem of the plant, causing water that isn't on the leaves to feed their root system.
Plants sure are smart aye?

So yes it is possible, but as obvious as it would be, the yield and plant size will suffer from foliar feedings only.
The interesting part would be how the plant grows below with only folier feedings.

Lets say that plant A almost never gets fed through the roots. It's at week 4 since sprouting, and it's growing fine, but slow.
Plant B never gets foliar fed, and only watered through roots, it's also at week 4 since sprouting.

Now plant A is lets make it up, half the size of plant B, but plant A has a very small root ball, leaving it open to more and more growth overtime, which could possibly result in a larger plant than plant B.
Plant B would have a massive root ball, but wouldn't have much room to grow because the roots keep expanding, leading to it becoming root bound faster and having a growth restriction.

Now see plant A would make the PERFECT mother plant for cuttings. It would continue to grow, with a small root zone, yet will continue to produce clones.
So you see where I'm going with this, I made this up, but if it's true, I see potential for growers who are limited in pot size, space, want clones, etc.

Here is a interesting read, maybe you'll find some new information you could share later.

http://forums.gardenweb.com/forums/load/lab/msg041655342430.html?64

 

[ProHuman]

I'm curious, are you looking for information that may be educational to someone like you and me?
Or are you looking for a silly, but heated, debate on foliar feedings?
It's just the way it came off as I read it, sorry.

I am here looking for information, but of course I am willing to debate misinformation. I am not trying to be silly, I am trying to be thorough. If someone produces facts that foliar feeding is worth the time and effort to produce yields to make it worth it, then I may just start to buy these foods, and spray my plants as well.

Regardless, what he says is true. Plants can be grown from Foliar feedings only, as long as the roots don't completely dry out.
It would be hard for them to dry out considering a plant tilts its leaves in an angle so that rain drops slide down the leaves and flow towards the stem of the plant, causing water that isn't on the leaves to feed their root system.
Plants sure are smart aye?

So yes it is possible, but as obvious as it would be, the yield and plant size will suffer from foliar feedings only.
The interesting part would be how the plant grows below with only foliar feedings.

I would love to see a cannabis plant run completely through its life cycle with only foliar feeds, and nothing but oxygenated distilled water for the roots. That would be truly an interesting journal if it could be done to produce at least a couple dried grams of bud.

Lets say that plant A almost never gets fed through the roots. It's at week 4 since sprouting, and it's growing fine, but slow.
Plant B never gets foliar fed, and only watered through roots, it's also at week 4 since sprouting.

Now plant A is lets make it up, half the size of plant B, but plant A has a very small root ball, leaving it open to more and more growth overtime, which could possibly result in a larger plant than plant B.
Plant B would have a massive root ball, but wouldn't have much room to grow because the roots keep expanding, leading to it becoming root bound faster and having a growth restriction.

Now see plant A would make the PERFECT mother plant for cuttings. It would continue to grow, with a small root zone, yet will continue to produce clones.
So you see where I'm going with this, I made this up, but if it's true, I see potential for growers who are limited in pot size, space, want clones, etc.

Here is a interesting read, maybe you'll find some new information you could share later.

http://forums.gardenweb.com/forums/load/lab/msg041655342430.html?64

That experiment in that link is flawed to what I am arguing. One of those plants is fed nutrients by foliar feeding, and the other gets nothing, not even from soil. In that case, of course the one getting fed will grow better, (from what I see in that experiment, only slightly better) but I am stating that root feeding is much more efficient for nutrient uptake.
Also, those are tomato plants... young tomato plants. I highly doubt foliar feeding alone would have let those plants produce fruit in the mature stages of the plants life, as older plants would require more nutrients.

If you want me to bugger off from this thread, I can stop posting.
All I am saying, I have never seen an advantage to foliar feeding. The time, effort, and money spent to spray the plants everyday (maybe more) is not worth it. You would get better yields from feeding the plants properly through the roots.

 

[Cannabis.Is.Free]

I am here looking for information, but of course I am willing to debate misinformation. I am not trying to be silly, I am trying to be thorough. If someone produces facts that foliar feeding is worth the time and effort to produce yields to make it worth it, then I may just start to buy these foods, and spray my plants as well.


I would love to see a cannabis plant run completely through its life cycle with only foliar feeds, and nothing but oxygenated distilled water for the roots. That would be truly an interesting journal if it could be done to produce at least a couple dried grams of bud.


That experiment in that link is flawed to what I am arguing. One of those plants is fed nutrients by foliar feeding, and the other gets nothing, not even from soil. In that case, of course the one getting fed will grow better, (from what I see in that experiment, only slightly better) but I am stating that root feeding is much more efficient for nutrient uptake.
Also, those are tomato plants... young tomato plants. I highly doubt foliar feeding alone would have let those plants produce fruit in the mature stages of the plants life, as older plants would require more nutrients.

If you want me to bugger off from this thread, I can stop posting.
All I am saying, I have never seen an advantage to foliar feeding. The time, effort, and money spent to spray the plants everyday (maybe more) is not worth it. You would get better yields from feeding the plants properly through the roots.

You don't have to bugger off, these threads are here for information, facts, debates. I was just curious which one you were in for, as some people on these forums tend to take debates to entirely different level.
From what I was reading, I thought you meant foliar feeding has no affect at all on plants besides being able to raise humidity and for unrooted clones.
Yea I agree foliar feeding probably doesn't even do 50% of what feeding the roots directly does, but that isn't the main point of foliar feeding so I do agree if you foliar feed your plants nutrients just to feed the nutrients, it's not a smart thing, or beneficial thing to do.
I think it's just done to be done for most people, or others that like to test a cure for a problem before feeding it to the roots (Good to see how the plant will react before giving it the full dose)
Also for the tomato plants experiment, it was literally the first thing I saw when I googled foliar vs root feeding.

Personally I will never foliar feed because I believe it's better, or actually does any good. I'll do it for reasons, correcting a problem, making my plants cooler, raising humidity, and turning my plants different colors with potassium supplements.
I will one day do a few controlled experiments, maybe in the summer when I don't want to deal with heat I'll do a T5 controlled experiment with different growing techniques and supplements.

I always wanted to do a side by side with additives, and none.
Side by side with 3 Gal Coco vs 3 Gal Soil (Generally people say Coco can hold up to 15X more root zone than in soil, not sure how true or possible this is)
Low temp vs High temp
Grafting
and a ton of other things.
I'll add foliar feeding from seed to that list.

 

[ProHuman]

I can see the your point about diagnosing problems with the technique. Spraying the leaves with nitrogen and waiting for a response can be helpful, if you can not identify exactly what the issue is. I could have used this method when I first started growing. Now that I can Identify issues more, and there is the internet with charts and photos, I would rather identify the issue, and repair it immediately, as time is of the essence.

Perhaps foliar feeding is more of a calming effect for some growers. Those who enjoy spending time tending to their plants, fooling around with them. Spraying the leaves with added nutes will certainly help them more than harm them. I am not that type of grower, I would rather let the plants do their thing.

I don't claim to be an expert, I am far from it. Personally, I am an experienced novice who has harvested some great home grown buds in my lifetime. I am a lazy grower, who does the minimum needed to produce good bud. I see some of these experts on these forums with all their vast knowledge of truly scientific data and it blows my mind. Some folks growing huge rooms full of plants is quite humbling.

I was hoping for some more input from these types of growers about foliar feeding.
Simple me, with my 2 cents did not want to dominate this threat with posts.
I will stay subbed, and smoke another bowl or few.
Peace

 

[waterdawg]

So with my mag def I added 5 grams to the res of one and i added a .5 gram to a litre in spray bottle and sprayed the other set of plants. The foiler sprayed plants recovered within a couple of days and the others were quite a bit longer recovering. So would the leaves be a quicker way to introduce nutes? The reason I started foiler feeding was I had read that it was a quicker way to fix the issue. Also the use of kinetin is supposed to be done by foiler, not sure why. This run has been a bit of a "try new things" run and it seems to be working but again no side by side comparisons unfortunately. Also i check my girls once a day and the foiler feeding takes minutes, adding nutes to the res takes longer imo, just saying its not a lot of work.

 

[churchhaze]

What's with all these new posters making posts like this? It's as if he's a long time regular here.

Dude, if you have 75 posts, chances are you are the troll.

A silly, but heated debate? Welcome to RIU!! Lurk.

I'm curious, are you looking for information that may be educational to someone like you and me?
Or are you looking for a silly, but heated, debate on foliar feedings?
It's just the way it came off as I read it, sorry.