Yesdog
Well-Known Member
Trying to settle on a new nutrient schedule for this grow, getting bored/confused/frustrated already. The full gamut.
I just noticed today my printout GH schedule doesn't even sorta match the schedule on the back of the trio bottles. Plus the growweedeasy reduced schedule also doesnt seem to match the ratios on either schedule... plus started looking at Mel Frank's, different yet again.
Looking over this writeup for the Lucas Formula (and other scheduling stuff) (http://www.angelfire.com/cantina/fourtwenty/articles/profiles.htm) it's really starting to sound like the ratios really don't matter too much. You just want to avoid over-dosing your plants on any one thing (sounds like mostly nitrogen and cal/mag are the ones you need to worry about).
Everything I've read has said that the 'RO water' requirement for the lucas formula really only exists for simplicity and fail-safe sake. Looking over the various breakdown of the other profiles, they seem to differ up to 20 ppm Mg- so as far as I can tall, my 7-8 ppm Mg (from water report) isn't going to screw with it much (my 30-50ppm cal might tho).
I also see debate over whether or not calmag is needed with Lucas, and as far as the cantina article states- "reasonably good quality source water" is needed. So if there really is wiggle-room there for cal-mag, i cant possibly imagine tap water getting in the way.
Also, looking at the raw concentration of Micro, it's not really much more than some of the GH schedules I've seen, and its definitely less than Mel Frank's recommendation.
So at the end of the day.... I think I might try the Lucas Formula with my tap water. Now what I'm wondering, is it worth it to modify the schedule to replace some Micro with Grow (for nitrogen) if I'm worried my water might be too hard? The cantina article really makes it sound like you actually have pretty good margins to work with, you just have to worry about over-feeding.
So to me it makes more sense to go the pessimistic (and possibly underfeeding route) of putting some grow back into the schedule (thinking 4M-1G-10B ratio). This should really only affect the ratio of N/K to micro-nutes (with biggest worry placed on excess micro nutes). I noticed the total K in Lucas is a little lower than the other schedules, so I don't think the increased K will be much of an issue.
I just noticed today my printout GH schedule doesn't even sorta match the schedule on the back of the trio bottles. Plus the growweedeasy reduced schedule also doesnt seem to match the ratios on either schedule... plus started looking at Mel Frank's, different yet again.
Looking over this writeup for the Lucas Formula (and other scheduling stuff) (http://www.angelfire.com/cantina/fourtwenty/articles/profiles.htm) it's really starting to sound like the ratios really don't matter too much. You just want to avoid over-dosing your plants on any one thing (sounds like mostly nitrogen and cal/mag are the ones you need to worry about).
Everything I've read has said that the 'RO water' requirement for the lucas formula really only exists for simplicity and fail-safe sake. Looking over the various breakdown of the other profiles, they seem to differ up to 20 ppm Mg- so as far as I can tall, my 7-8 ppm Mg (from water report) isn't going to screw with it much (my 30-50ppm cal might tho).
I also see debate over whether or not calmag is needed with Lucas, and as far as the cantina article states- "reasonably good quality source water" is needed. So if there really is wiggle-room there for cal-mag, i cant possibly imagine tap water getting in the way.
Also, looking at the raw concentration of Micro, it's not really much more than some of the GH schedules I've seen, and its definitely less than Mel Frank's recommendation.
So at the end of the day.... I think I might try the Lucas Formula with my tap water. Now what I'm wondering, is it worth it to modify the schedule to replace some Micro with Grow (for nitrogen) if I'm worried my water might be too hard? The cantina article really makes it sound like you actually have pretty good margins to work with, you just have to worry about over-feeding.
So to me it makes more sense to go the pessimistic (and possibly underfeeding route) of putting some grow back into the schedule (thinking 4M-1G-10B ratio). This should really only affect the ratio of N/K to micro-nutes (with biggest worry placed on excess micro nutes). I noticed the total K in Lucas is a little lower than the other schedules, so I don't think the increased K will be much of an issue.
