Coco runoff EC very low

I get the feeling that the whole "you must water coco until runoff" thing is largely due to too many growers trying to overfeed and push their plants to produce more, which too often results in excess nutes/salts building up if you don't flush or water to runoff often enough. I know because that's exactly what I did when I started growing in coco a couple years ago, and I obsessed with runoff and was constantly chasing deficiencies and problems the whole time, right until earlier this year in fact.
I'm now in xtsho's camp, if you don't overfeed in the first place you shouldn't have to worry about runoff. I'm another blumat user now actually and it's working very well for me as well, just finished my first full run with it and had zero problems. best quality harvest I've had so far and the least amount of stress through the grow, never had to flush due to lock out or worry about runoff EC or any of that. Just watch what was going in.

Is this what you mean when your talking about blumats? https://blumat.com/en

Piper84 said:

Is this what you mean when your talking about blumats? https://blumat.com/en

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Apparently the troph system is the one.Man but small feeder hoses,they look about 1mm.

How we feed is also a factor...

Distribution of ....

WintersBones said:

I get the feeling that the whole "you must water coco until runoff" thing is largely due to too many growers trying to overfeed and push their plants to produce more, which too often results in excess nutes/salts building up if you don't flush or water to runoff often enough. I know because that's exactly what I did when I started growing in coco a couple years ago, and I obsessed with runoff and was constantly chasing deficiencies and problems the whole time, right until earlier this year in fact.
I'm now in xtsho's camp, if you don't overfeed in the first place you shouldn't have to worry about runoff. I'm another blumat user now actually and it's working very well for me as well, just finished my first full run with it and had zero problems. best quality harvest I've had so far and the least amount of stress through the grow, never had to flush due to lock out or worry about runoff EC or any of that. Just watch what was going in.

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I agree. But it's also not just coco. I'm of the opinion that the majority of issues people have is from overfeeding or unbalanced feeding. So many growers go into flower, get obsessed with bloom this, bloom that and they end up causing issues from too little nitrogen and too much P/K causing nutrient antagonism that they try to correct by adding more when the solution is too cut back on what is locking out other nutrients.

Piper84 said:

Is this what you mean when your talking about blumats? https://blumat.com/en

Click to expand...

Yes

myke said:

Apparently the troph system is the one.Man but small feeder hoses,they look about 1mm.

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3mm

TintEastwood said:

How we feed is also a factor...

Distribution of ....

https://www.californiasubstrates.com/blog/automation-short-frequent-watering/

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That's a decent article.

"If we can find that point and give water at the same rate that the media is losing water (plant use, evaporation, drainage etc…) we should be able to maintain the air-water balance and grow a very healthy plant."

That's basically what blumats do. When used correctly they maintain that air water balance. When factors such as plant uptake and evaporation cause the media to lose moisture the blumats open up and give a slow but steady drip until the moisture level goes back up and they shut off the drip. Using a low nutrient strength keeps salts from building up and since it's a constant slow feed everything the plant needs is always available even with low EC.

Is the 5" carrot the ones that come in the kits?

You can only have no runoff in coco successfully if you have perfect feed, changing the nute profiles throughout the growth cycle to accommodate the changing nutrition needs. Otherwise if you just run the same nute profile from start to finish you will always have either buildups of unused nutes and/or deficiencies. Feeding to runoff prevents these salt buildup of unused nutes over time, as you are always replacing old nutes with fresh cycles.

I like to measure my runoff ppm, because it tells me what how the plants are feeding, and once you start doing that it becomes very clear what different strains nutritional needs are.

it should be noted that because blumats keeps the coco at the perfect moisture level their is less chance of salt build up occurring. it is bad to advise someone who is top feeding to not allow some run off. different systems require different fertigation. beating a dead horse but instructing someone to forget about an issue because you had an automated system in place to take care of an issue that the gardener has to manually fix, its impossible for a human to be as accurate as a machine therefore resetting the coco with run off is more of a preventative action. I guess to each their own. but you better get blumats and dial down your ec if your going to stop feeding to run off.

DJM gives his angle...




I have made this mistake with coco.

"with that said, multifeeds only work with A. an undersized rootbound pot and B. a thriving and thick root mass...if you throw and under developed root system in too big of a pot and try it , its a recipe for disaster"

xtsho said:

I can't check my runoff in coco because I don't have any. And when I did water until runoff I never once even thought to check it. If the plants are healthy what's the point? Too many people go looking for problems and then end up creating them trying to fix a problem that doesn't exist. If the plants are healthy just keep doing what you're doing and use the meters to adjust what you're feeding not to check what runs out the bottom.

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Probably because you are treating your coco like soil. For high performance you feed multiple times a day. Runoff ppm becomes important when you are pushing them, instead of watching them grow slowly from the sidelines like you are.

DrKiz said:

Probably because you are treating your coco like soil. For high performance you feed multiple times a day. Runoff ppm becomes important when you are pushing them, instead of watching them grow slowly from the sidelines like you are.

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I have not noticed any difference in growth in coco between multiple waterings a day and blumats. I hand watered coco for years before going to blumats. My plants don't grow slowly they grow quite fast and fill up the tent in no time. Much faster than the soil plants I grow and pretty much the same as when I was doing straight hydro. I also don't "push" my plants but feed them what they need when they need it. Which is why I never have any nutrient issues which is something I find hard to understand. Why is it so many people have so many issues? Maybe "Pushing" has something to do with it.

Decades of growing cannabis and I've never had any of the issues you see so many people having. Half the posts on this site are from people having nutrient issues most likely from "pushing" their plants. It's appalling. Splotches, clawed leaves, burnt tips, yellow crispy leaves a few weeks into flower, etc... High Performance leads to High Problems for many people. That's reality. Plants grown in coco using blumats growing slower than daily watering is not.

Nice little jab about the sidelines though.

xtsho said:

Decades of growing cannabis and I've never had any of the issues you see so many people having. Half the posts on this site are from people having nutrient issues most likely from "pushing" their plants. It's appalling. Splotches, clawed leaves, burnt tips, yellow crispy leaves a few weeks into flower, etc... High Performance leads to High Problems for many people. That's reality. Plants grown in coco using blumats growing slower than daily watering is not.

Nice little jab about the sidelines though.

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We were talking about run off, not additives. Stay on point lil one. It's about the oxygen to the roots multifeeding. You are right though, too much pushing with additives gets you a good burn.

Edit: Girlfriend says I'm not polite. And yeah I guess that came as a jab. Apoligies man.