Thanks for the advice.
I was just worried the plants weren't getting *optimal* amounts. Oddly enough I could not find powdered dolomite at any of the local hydro shops. Only pelletized. I will consider the mortar and pestle. The dolomite was mainly added the keep pH stable throughout flower.
Nova series is great! If i was ever going to go back to a one part base it would be the Nova series.
General Organics works fine, but pH is just something that has to be monitored because it can literally come out at 4.8 when using a combination of their products. I have used Roots Organics too, and found that it's pH was a lot more stable in came out in a usable range when used in RO water. Both of these lines produce high quality flowers when used correctly, but yield is lacking when compared to it's synthetic competitors. I have two sample boxes of Nector For The Gods and will be starting a journal on that after my current journal is finished, and I have room in my experiment tent. They are an organic line that are "supposed" to produce the high quality flowers while also yielding as well as synthetics. We will see.Thanks for the advice.
I'm not necessarily dissuaded from GO. I have always wanted to try organic to see if the flavor claims are true.
Is there a reason you don't amend it into the soil at time of planting? Dolomite is slow acting, even finely powdered. I took a few half-gallon containers and amended with dolomite at a rate of 0 to 8 Tbsp / gal. It took 10 days to see the PH rise. The ph wasn't much different between 2 and 8 Tbsp. Ph 0.2 difference at its greatest. (Between 1 and 8 Tbsp ph diff was 0.3.).
I switched to Grow More Sea Grow[1]. It's a dry, organic'ish product which costs *much* less than a lot of the cannabis nutes. But, switching from GH Flora to this was a *big* change. Much more acidic soil entering flower. Took me by surprise. I find myself watering at 7.0-7.2 to keep my soilless at 5.8. Other than that learning curve, more work dialing it in, it's been great. Smokes more rich and smooth.
If it buffers the soil ph like GH says it does, that would be a good next step. Then try GO or Sea Grow (knowing about the ph challenges).Its been said many times but what the hell, their is no such thing as a calmag def, sorry but they are 2 completely different defs, and N, Cal, & Mag defs are so completely different it shouldnt take much thought to figure out, unless of course you overload N & Cal to fix a simple Mag def by using cal/mag and end up with toxicity or lockout, then it gets tough to figure out.
Exactly why I recommend the carbonate sources for people looking for bottled solutions when using a soil/soilless/coco medium. This way you know your solving you CaMg problem if there is one, your not adding more salts in case of lockout, and if you continue to see issues its easy to flush revert back to using salts and the carbonate CaMg, and it's highly unlikely you will continue having issues unless you are not checking your pH and your mediums pH is off.
It depends on what your growing in and what your feeding it. I mix one part composted cow manure one part perlite and two parts bxpromix a little dried blood,bone,green sand,soft rock phosphate,great white micro fungi and few other goodies. all i do is water with day old tap water I shake it a bit to add oxygen (old hippie trick) I don't even ph anymore it self balances.
Your looking in the wrong place try a feed store or garden supply hydro shops only have a three foot section for organics. tractor farm and fleet is a good oneThanks for the advice.
I'm not necessarily dissuaded from GO. I have always wanted to try organic to see if the flavor claims are true.
It's true! Do not go to the hydro store for organic amendments, We are one of the largest in my state and all we have is 3' of commercialized organic amendments.
You can usually get away with not checking pH in organic amended soils, especially if you have a highly active microbe life. However with bottled organics it doesn't work that way.
Hypothetical of course but you are in week 4 of flower, perfect plants, Mag and Iron levels are perfect, you are running your "PK booster" to get those fat ass buds and you get some rust spots, you say no biggie, il bust out the trusty bottle of Cal/Mag (carbonate/sulfate, whatever) and fix it, 10 days later its spread, why didnt the cal/mag fix it?
hmm this would have to be a strain I have never ran before, but I would suspect that high amounts of P could be locking out micros, since I am using drip clean and never have salt build up, and I know my pH is solid.
Too much P + too much Mag + too much Iron = Cal def, they all slow down cal uptake and when all 3 are elevated you will start crumbling a bunch of rusty ass leaves in a hurry
the other thing that doesn't make sense and is related to this topic HINT HINT is the phrase less is more its always the same thing only use half the recommended amounts or you will burn the plants and then you read that everyone is adding shitloads of other stuff it gets confusing i mean wouldn't it just be simpler to use full strength nutes as intended rather than half strength and then adding other stuff to make up for the short fall in cal/mag and what ever else your adding stuff for?
Ye, in theory. But they are base nutrients and every strain uses each macro and micronutrient in different percentages. I do agree that all the talk of sea weed, sulfur and all the other add ons is unnecessary as this is the NEWBIE FORUM. I have bio-green grow, bio-green bloom, superthrive and magne-cal. And apart from a bit of ph adjuster I don't use anything else because the plants haven't asked for anything else.
Thanks for all the info. Yield is not very important to me as most of my flowers get turned into ice water extracts with a portion of dried flowers being cured for the wife. We are ok will less yield as long as it's high quality medicine. I really should look into making my own organic supersoil but I am in an extremely urban environment and have no place to "bake" it.
Is there a reason you don't amend it into the soil at time of planting? Dolomite is slow acting, even finely powdered. I took a few half-gallon containers and amended with dolomite at a rate of 0 to 8 Tbsp / gal. It took 10 days to see the PH rise. The ph wasn't much different between 2 and 8 Tbsp. Ph 0.2 difference at its greatest. (Between 1 and 8 Tbsp ph diff was 0.3.).
The common recommendation is 1 cup dolomite / cu. ft. soil (2.1 Tbsp / gal). That's a safe amount. There's no reason to reduce it, and top dress it the remainder at 6.8 weeks. It lasts longer than that in the soil. If you felt a need to go higher, my experiment showed you can go pretty high without a corresponding rise in ph. Which means, you're not incrementally raising ph by adding more later.
If you need to raise ph later in the grow (acidification of soil) you can water at higher ph to pull the soil higher.
I switched to Grow More Sea Grow[1]. It's a dry, organic'ish product which costs *much* less than a lot of the cannabis nutes. But, switching from GH Flora to this was a *big* change. Much more acidic soil entering flower. Took me by surprise. I find myself watering at 7.0-7.2 to keep my soilless at 5.8. Other than that learning curve, more work dialing it in, it's been great. Smokes more rich and smooth.
That's why I always wish I'd tried Flora Nova first. I don't think that would have been as much of a shock to my presumed "green thumb."
[1] https://www.rollitup.org/t/grow-more-fertilizer.621368/#post-10664097
Same here.
It's common for people to believe soils don't have enough dolomite. Common to add 1 Tbsp/gal, maybe 2. I'm using 1-3/4 Tbsp/gal (added to Pro-Mix) but still get acidic soil late veg, early flower.
As far as getting acidic soil in flower, this is usually because peat based soils(pro-mix) have the potential for acidic build up from microbial leaching. pH your waterings to around 6.2-6.6 and you will probably drop your chances of this happening.
The problem is, its really popular to say things like you "need" cal/mag, PK boosts, flushing agents, sugars, B vitamins, blah blah blah, if a guy is using a decent base and monitoring ppm's correctly he is feeding at an optimum level, if your leaves are green and healthy you dont need cal/mag, the leaves will tell you really quick if they need extra cal or mag. Im not a fan of cal/mag for my own reasons but as a newbie to hydro I think you should have a bottle on the shelf but dont use it til you need it. If you get rusty spots on your leaves(not burns from splashed nutes), understand you have a cal def, not a calmag def, if your fans start fading from the edges in you have a mag def, not a calmag def, in either case you could use your trusty bottle of cal/mag at that point and fix the problem, IF I used cal/mag it would only be to fix a cal def, never a mag def, epsom salt will fix a mag def instantly and without effort for next to nothing without adding extra unneeded Cal and Iron, As a newbie I would tell you to run the Lucas formula and your trusty bottle of cal/mag (because you will have a cal def) and nothing else for 2 grows, it works great and is a great way to get into hydro with good results. After that start playing with 3 parts and 4 parts with pk boosts and silica and such. Lucas is awesome for newbies, its hard to fuck up and produces