Follow the bottle instruction or PPM guidelines? Newbie question

Hey everyone!

I'm currently on my first grow and I am growing in soil. Throughout the whole time, ever since I bought myself some fertilizers, I've been wondering - should I be following the instructions on the fertilizer bottle or the guidelines I'll often stumble upon on the web - such as, 200 PPM for early veg, 800-900 PPM for late blooming, etc.. (not sure of the exact numbers).

I'm asking this because my bloom fertilizer bottle says to use 50mL per 10L of water, but that makes the water / fertilizer solution come out at around 450-500 PPM, which seems quite low for plants in full bloom etc. Keep in mind that the tap water I'm using already starts out at around 270 PPM.

So, what should I be following? The bottle instructions or the PPM guidelines you can often find on web? If it is of any relevance, the fertilizer I'm talking about is "HESI Bloom complex".

Thank you for any help in advance!

This is the thing with nutrient manufacturers guidelines.

They are guidelines.

Each plant is different.

Look at your leaf health for signs of deficiencies or abundances.

Often lower leaves will yellow turn brown and drop off. This is because of either N deficiency, lack of light penetration or salt build up in the medium.

Burning or leaf clawing can be attributed to over abundance.

If this is a soil grow the HESI maybe supplying you with the ml's for feeding everytime.

Other nutrient manufacturers maybe be giving you the ml's for feeding every other or every 3rd watering for example.


If you're using the HESI at full strength and seeing deficiencies then you probably need to up your ml's.



J

never go with what's on the box, if i did that my ppm reading would be 1400 ppm

I have a question regarding this also. When measuring the ppm of multiple nutrients in one thing of water I.e. mixing up the fox farm trio all together, how do you know exactly that you didn't use too much of one and not enough of the others only from reading ppm?

Nootnam said:

I have a question regarding this also. When measuring the ppm of multiple nutrients in one thing of water I.e. mixing up the fox farm trio all together, how do you know exactly that you didn't use too much of one and not enough of the others only from reading ppm?

Click to expand...

split them up into three separate jugs

mainliner said:

split them up into three separate jugs

Click to expand...

Then get each one to the desired ppm? Or should they all total the ppm you are looking for? Do you then mix the jugs before you water? I think I'm making it way to complicated haha

Hi there,

Well I am no expert but now on my third grow, and have just taken the nutes uo from the advertised 12-1400 ppm, and doubled it, the plants rocked up and am now curious what the buds will be like, yield before was to be honest pretty shit, but racking the nuts up it looks well good, had a few yellow leaves before, showing a nut def, so I swapped it all out and re did it all, but not great, now I have a problem, they are too tall, I wondered about taking a hedge cutter to them, help Suggestions please....

Thanks for all the replies! I do my best to see what my plants need just by carefully watching them etc., but it's a skill I have yet to master. Right now, I have decided to follow the HESI feeding schedule until the end of my first grow and see how that turns out, then I'll take it from there ;p.