BIGBALLSJOE
Member
its like any hydroponic mediaThank you for this explanation. I too am trying out Dr. Bruce Bugbee's special media. I purchased a bag of Sphagnum Peat Moss from my local home depot and Vermiculite from my local Hydro store as well as some Dolomitic Lime (Unfortunately the Lime was not powder it was more like small rocks) and gypsum pallets. I also purchased a Jacks 20-10-20 General Purpose not realizing there is a Peat-Lite version of Jacks 20-10-20 with double the micronutrients of the General Purpose and the Peat-Lite 20-10-20 is the one Dr. Bruce Bugbee uses. My tap water has an EC of 0.5 at 240ppm I am not sure if that plays a factor into Fertigating, Please let me know if that is too high. So I have been fertigating my plant with my tap water and I guess half strength 20-10-20 since I want my EC to be around 1.0 - 1.3. This is my first grow and I have been doing a lot of reading and finding that people like to raise their EC in flower and since I am in flower I thought I would try it out and raise my EC, unfortunately my EC run-off sky rocketed to 2.0. I thought by fertigating my plant more often would bring down the EC, after reading about "high frequency fertigation" the article was about Coco-Coir but seeing as how Peat and Coco are both soilless medias I figured the same rules apply.
I do have a lot of questions to ask you. As to how to properly fertigate a cannabis plant in Peat/Vermiculite. Did you use the Peat-Lite 20-10-20? How do you catch your run off? How can I bring my EC down? Should I fertigate with R/O water only? You mentioned having to add CAL-MAG later when its depleted in the medium do you just add more Lime in a top dressing? Are you always testing your run-off pH cause I stopped again after reading an article that measuring that doesn't really help you know the real pH at root level? I have notes of my fertigation schedule as I am trying to find when the right time to Fertigate is and I am having a hard time trying to figure that out. Also I have been wondering about the Potassium and bud quality cause I know everyone talks about increasing potassium during flower to make the buds grow bigger and I was curious if you would consider increasing potassium for more thicker buds or if there isn't much of a difference.
this one offer great drainage/oxygenation for the roots thats why it will offer fast growth
for your ec its normal for it to climb in your runoff
thats why you need to give big runoff and recover it
depending on your climate/parameters you will give different value of EC
between 1.5 to 2 mS is the right spot
dont measure it its misleading
just be sure to give exta large runoff to rinse heavily your root zone
dont let salts accumulate and ec climb watering after watering because of too small runoff
dont do top dressing, just use the base nutrients
your water contains enough calcium, no need calmag
you can need it for og/cookie strains, you will see it quickly