Good or Bad idea? Slow release fertilizer in hempy buckets

I have a question for anyone who'd like to contribute. I'm running hempy's in a perpetual SOG. Over 200 plants in 2 liter hempy buckets. 80% perlite/20% vermiculite. KISS method with Maxibloom and 7g per gallon from start to finish. The plants are put straight into 12/12 as soon as they sprout so they all should be ready in 3 months or less and relatively small plants with one main cola. I seem to be buying a new bag of Maxibloom every 2 weeks. It's cheap so it's not a big deal but as always I'm looking for an easier way.

Instead of adding water soluble nutes to every feeding why couldn't I use a 2 month, slow release, granule fertilizer meant for flowers at the bottom of each hempy bucket? Something like this: SUNNILAND 120146 Bloom Special Fertilizer
The fertilizer would stop putting out nutes about the time I would want to start flushing anyways. Then I could use regular tap water 5.7ph and would make watering much easier. Seems like I could save a few $100 a year on nute costs this way as well.

Thoughts?

Hempy implies hydro. One can't add "slow release" fertilizers to a hydro grow operation.

Can you please show a picture of your 200 hempy plants so we can get a better idea of how to provide suggestions?

spek9 said:

Hempy implies hydro. One can't add "slow release" fertilizers to a hydro grow operation.

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Seems like with hempy's you could if you add them below the drainage hole and covered it up with medium. These are manually watered every day. What am I missing?

kickapooh said:

Seems like with hempy's you could if you add them below the drainage hole and covered it up with medium. These are manually watered every day. What am I missing?

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If it works for you, I'm all for it. Don't assume just because I say something that it doesn't work.

Always remember... each to their own.

kickapooh said:

Seems like with hempy's you could if you add them below the drainage hole and covered it up with medium. These are manually watered every day. What am I missing?

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Is the flag in every picture meant to be patriotic, or is that something you ensure that's visible at all times because it helps the grow? Don't assume that everyone you meet is incapable of having situational awareness. If it helps, awesome.

spek9 said:

Is the flag in every picture meant to be patriotic, or is that something you ensure that's visible at all times because it helps the grow? Don't assume that everyone you meet is incapable of having situational awareness. If it helps, awesome.

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It was my grandfather's. He was a great man and it's better flying than in a case I think. He would approve.

Yeah as mentioned mate your best to avoid slow release anything in hydro. Gets into Mr canuk territory if you do that and I've never seen anyone manage it successfully.
If you want to save on the nutes bill id look into automating it with flood and drain or something like that.
If you recirc the nutes you can get the waste down to almost zero.

I assumed below the drainage hole was the reason hempys were popular due to the boost of nutes resulting in boosts of growth, maybe I'm understanding it all wrong

kickapooh said:

It was my grandfather's. He was a great man and it's better flying than in a case I think. He would approve.

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Aside from the grow, I am interested in what you know about your grandfather. I too have deep ties to past things, and am trying to learn more. PM me if your interest is similar to mine.

EvilScotsm@n said:

If you want to save on the nutes bill id look into automating it with flood and drain or something like that.
If you recirc the nutes you can get the waste down to almost zero.

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Can you please explain the setup you'd recommend?

Let's say a flood and drain. What setup are you backing? What would you do? How much waste? How much flood? How long would you keep the tables flooded? What EC do you recommend for each flood? What do you recommend the reservoir be kept at as far as PPM?

Look up "hempy bucket osmocote plus" I did it once as an experiment with a small plant in a solo with osmocote. Worked pretty well actually.

kickapooh said:

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I like the american flag! Nice set up! I'm not using the hempy buckets. But I have been fertilizing with the Miracle grow pro organic and I'm surprised with the results! Its half the cost of what i've been using so I'm gonna play around with it.

kickapooh said:

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Nice setup. Plants look good.

The issue I see with it is you're going to wash away 90% before the plant ever gets it.

Hempy is basically a flood and drain system with a 24/7 "oh sh!t" rez. You flood the system daily to the point of 30% runoff.

Those slow release nutes are ment to sit in the dirt and have a little water trickle over them every now and again.

If you were those nutes, hempy would look like the flood from the bible every day.

Setup looks awesome btw.

If I understand this right you use the same nutes for seedling to finish? No boosters or mad shit, just the 1 part powder stuff yeah?
Not many folk can do that and win so good call
If you went flood and drain, which would be the easiest option I can think of. Everything else involved too much pissing about with hundreds of tubes and pumps everywhere.
I'd say 1 table for veg, 1 table for bloom.
200ppm for hand feeding seedlings.
400ppm for veg and 600ish for bloom.
If you can finish them on 7g then you only need a quarter of that for seedlings and half of it for veg. Whatever that works out to be. 7g probably is about 600ppm seeing as it doesn't burn the young ones but can still finish well.
It's not a system I've used tbh, NFT is my weapon of choice but all reservoir methods work the same more or less.
I'm new here so havent checked but id be very surprised if there isn't a few guides on here to show you how to set it up.

.Smoke said:

The issue I see with it is you're going to wash away 90% before the plant ever gets it.

Hempy is basically a flood and drain system with a 24/7 "oh sh!t" rez. You flood the system daily to the point of 30% runoff.

Those slow release nutes are ment to sit in the dirt and have a little water trickle over them every now and again.

If you were those nutes, hempy would look like the flood from the bible every day.

Setup looks awesome btw.

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What if you put the granules at the bottom and filled it with heavy pebbles until the drain hole was covered. Would the granules not stay in the water at the bottom and supply it with nutes?

EvilScotsm@n said:

If I understand this right you use the same nutes for seedling to finish? No boosters or mad shit, just the 1 part powder stuff yeah?
Not many folk can do that and win so good call
If you went flood and drain, which would be the easiest option I can think of. Everything else involved too much pissing about with hundreds of tubes and pumps everywhere.
I'd say 1 table for veg, 1 table for bloom.
200ppm for hand feeding seedlings.
400ppm for veg and 600ish for bloom.
If you can finish them on 7g then you only need a quarter of that for seedlings and half of it for veg. Whatever that works out to be. 7g probably is about 600ppm seeing as it doesn't burn the young ones but can still finish well.
It's not a system I've used tbh, NFT is my weapon of choice but all reservoir methods work the same more or less.
I'm new here so havent checked but id be very surprised if there isn't a few guides on here to show you how to set it up.

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No veg time at all. Straight into flower as soon as they sprout. And yes it's called the K.I.S.S. method (keep it simple stupid).
I have thought about the ebb & flow table but I really like the simplicity of hempys as it is the simplest of hydroponic systems to run.

kickapooh said:

No veg time at all. Straight into flower as soon as they sprout. And yes it's called the K.I.S.S. method (keep it simple stupid).
I have thought about the ebb & flow table but I really like the simplicity of hempys as it is the simplest of hydroponic systems to run.

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Didn't get that from a dude called mickfoster by any chance did you?

EvilScotsm@n said:

Didn't get that from a dude called mickfoster by any chance did you?

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nope. never heard of him