What is worth Testing my Plant for?

Hey guys I am starting to grow and was curious how important all the tests were. and please don't say REALLY IMPORTANT because they all can't be essential. Like I know pH and temperature seem to be the most important and talked about ones, but what about EC and ppm. Also is controlling humidity really important. Going back to ec an ppm, wtf do those even measure really? Am I missing other important tests? I am going to go with the don't worry about it too much philosophy because worrying too much will probably end up with me killing the plants.

ph meter is important to prevent nutrient lockout. temp is important as so you can keep the temperature of nutrient solution within a range, ppm and ec are basically the same thing just different, it measures tds in a solution and is used to set amount of nutrients in solution. All pretty essential if you're gonna get serious about it.

Think I could get by with just pH, temp, and humidity? I'm going with a very safe nutrient plan so I'm not too worried about amount of nutrients I'm putting in. and do you happen to know household products that lower or raise ph. those ph up and ph downs are expensive.

I use Advanced nutrients ph up and down, its very expensive until you realize just how strong it is and how little you'll use, I dilute it. are you doing hydro? Just start out lower than the feeding schedule the manufacturer states. I tend to run ppm a little high myself . when you talk about temperature are you talking room temp or water temps?

I'm using soil to grow 2-3 plants depending on how the seedlings go. I decided that since fox farm ocean comes with nutrients I'm not going to even add nutes until flowering or about 3-4 weeks in, whichever comes first. And when I add nutes I was just going to add 1/4 strength 10-20-15 (or something close) until a week before harvest. Maybe I'll make it 1/2 strength at some point in between starting nutes and cutting nutes. But this whole plan seems pretty safe from what I've read.

I just started my first experience with soil about two weeks ago so now I don't know much :\

Oh I see, well I have read enough information (I'm a little overboard with research) and it should be good. I'd also say the best thing I keep reading from gro pros is chill out and let them grow because that's what they do best. Random question, for a 9600 lumen setup (with right spectrums) should I just do 2 plants in an approx 3.5 sq feet area?

that may be one to take over to grow room design or whatever it is , I'm pretty sure whatever you come up with it will work for you! good luck and happy growing!

ok thanks, and back to the original question I looked more into other tests and it seems that ph, temp, humidity, and ppm are the crucial ones. Would you say not getting a ppm meter would drastically hurt me or because of my lack of a heavy nutrient schedule a ppm meter would basically do nothing useful?

not if you start low and increase gradually, nutrient burn will be what you're looking for in the leaves, it will start with burnt leaf tips and then if you don't flush and lower ppm it will more than likely spread. some here that are pretty experienced growers get great results without the ppm meter, I personally will always run a continuous tri meter since I do hydro and its really more crucial in hydro.

I would say PH pen and you can get bud, though it will take you much longer to dial it in. Over time, gain experience, WRITE DOWN EVERYTHING. and slowly aquire better tools for your babies.

You don't want to bother with a PH pen? It will cost money.

Buy all organic materials.. make you a strong soil & you can feed plain water the entire grow.. OR you can use a quality soil.. get the "materials" you could have made the strong soil with.. and make compost teas with it where you would only need to feed tea once every 2-4 waterings with no PHing and Grade A+ bud. Though getting All the materials and such in line require a little $.. unless you live on a farm and have abundant raw resources.

Temp is the most important. After that, its a toss-up between humidity and PH, depending on your setting. You can "feel" humidity to make a guess at what it is, and if you use a manufactured medium, they will provide PH on packaging. If you doing hydro, go with temp and PH testers.

I would base temp under common sense, we have a sense than can tell if it is too hot or cold for the plant to grow. Though living in california my entire life, maybe I do not appreciate my moderate weather.

Honestly, if you just want to grow in soil, you don't "need" to measure ANYTHING. If your plants look OK, then they are OK!

The biggest thing is just to make sure your growing area doesn't get too hot, and you may well be able to tell that just with your hand!

In practice, at the very least, I'd stick a thermometer in the growing area to get some sense of how hot it gets in there. You can literally buy one for under $2, so this isn't exactly a major expense or bother.

For soil growing, the next thing would be a humidity meter, but you can definitely get away without one.

If you're growing hydro, its certainly *possible* to have excellent results with NO measurement of pH or ppm. But you'll have a much better handle on what your plants are doing, how fast they are using nutrients, and do things a bit more consistently if you do measure those things. If you want to establish consistent regimens and "dial them in" measuring pH and ppm may help you get there.

On water temps for hydro, if your grow area temp is constant, and the reservoir is in the grow area, water temp will be roughly the same as the ambient temp in the grow area, so you may not need to measure it directly. Basically you just want to make sure it doesn't get too hot, because warm water dissolves less oxygen.

I did my first grow (hydro/dwc) with just ph test kit from GH and a sketchy tds meter. I always had temp and humidity gauges going. But i am waiting on my new tds and ph meter to get here in the mail because im learning they are a MUST if you dont know what yourdoing or how to read your plants. Sooo,highly recommend getting all the meters you can afford when you can,even if not all at once.

ph - critical
temp - critical
humidity - critical

you can use recipie on nute bottle but i would'nt go full strength. watch for yellowing and keep Ph'ed h2o ready. flood if necess.
once you realize what suplements really bring out in final produce, you will wish you hadn't cheaped out the first time.
microbes
seaweed
root excelerator
guanno
molasses
bloom booster
just to name a few, they are all worth their wieght in pure green gold

i think the only thing you really need is a thermometer and a rh meter is nice to have, but not really needed either...

imo, people tend to want to monitor every lil aspect of a grow, and they can really go overboard doing so ime.. talk to some old time growers like fdd2black, and he'll tell you he hasn't used a ph meter in years, which is good enough for me really, especially growing in soil where the soil acts as a buffer between your plants and anything that you may apply to them, ie, nutrients, water, etc..

sometimes i read on here people asking how to check the ph of their soil, and i just think it's all really unneeded honestly.. water, feed them when they look hungry and give them sufficient light and air and they will reward you with lovely buds at the end of the day...

seriously, for about 20 clams a piece, you can get your Ph & PPM meters. on ebay or amazon. Temp i dont bother with. I think most people worry about making things TO perfect. its a plant, itl grow. all you can do is nurture it along the way. and compared to all the other shit your gonna end up buying along the way, $40 is nothing.