New Grower Candy Cane Auto - Mega Crop - Promix HP

[Garage_Grower]

Do you have a small scale to measure out your MegaCrop? 1st week I go 1g/gal, 2nd week 2g/gal, and usually don’t go above 3-3.5g/gal for the rest of the grow.

 

[PotDaddy]

Do you have a small scale to measure out your MegaCrop? 1st week I go 1g/gal, 2nd week 2g/gal, and usually don’t go above 3-3.5g/gal for the rest of the grow.

I agree with the first part but I feed as much as the plants need. on my last grow I was up to 4g per gallon and they were loving it.

 

[Mañ'O'Green]

I use GreenLeaf MC 2.0 starting my nutes from about 1 g./gal. for seeds Then 2 g. week one, 3 g. week two then I bump up 10% per week until slight tip burn usually around week six then back off 10%, Then when flowers begin to ripen back off to 3 g. /gal. I make adjustments based on what the plant looks like; that will come with experience.

My recommendation for lowering your lights is based on what your plants look like and not "Someones Data" tall seedlings with small leaves need more light.

 

[BCBUDY]

Do you have a small scale to measure out your MegaCrop? 1st week I go 1g/gal, 2nd week 2g/gal, and usually don’t go above 3-3.5g/gal for the rest of the grow.

It's funny, I do have a small scale, but I find I'm more comfortable using PPM. So you start at 1g/gal, which is half of the dosage recommendation using green leafs feeding calculator, I'm about 2/3 the recommended dose. Think I'm going to try for the full recommended dose and see what happens.

But I'm noticing a lot of folks are holding back on maximum dosage like you, with between 3g to 4g max. So I think I'll try and find my sweet spot by just gradually raising the dose until I see burnt tips while keeping in mind 4g/gl is the average max I'm seeing with autoflowers.

 

[BCBUDY]

I agree with the first part but I feed as much as the plants need. on my last grow I was up to 4g per gallon and they were loving it.

Ya, agree with you. I'm going to feel out the plants, wait for signs of overfeeding and then just pull back a bit. Each strain will be different. I'm sure it's possible to find a "not too much but not too little" average that will show success with every and any strain, HOWEVER, I'd like to find the sweet spot with each strain I grow, this way I'll be able to keep a running list of how much works best with each strain, so I can replicate success in the future with the same strains without the tip burn or stress

 

[BCBUDY]

I use GreenLeaf MC 2.0 starting my nutes from about 1 g./gal. for seeds Then 2 g. week one, 3 g. week two then I bump up 10% per week until slight tip burn usually around week six then back off 10%, Then when flowers begin to ripen back off to 3 g. /gal. I make adjustments based on what the plant looks like; that will come with experience.

My recommendation for lowering your lights is based on what your plants look like and not "Someones Data" tall seedlings with small leaves need more light.

Nice, I'm using MC 2.0 as well.

So for me personally, I generally feel more comfortable using PPM versus the gram method most are using. Mainly because I keep my water and solution in a 5gal bucket but don't fill it up near full until far into veg and flower. The nutrient amount adjustments happen to often to justify making up 5 gallons of solution that I'm only going to be using for a couple of weeks until I up the amount again.

And since I add a little PH down, I don't want to simply add more MC and adjust the ph again, I'm just making a weird soup at that point.

So I just fill the bucket about half or less and mix my solution. If it's time to change the nutrient amount, I don't mind tossing out just a bit of solution and replacing with fresh water and o2.

So you're using 1g/gal for seedling stage, which is half of the dose recommended from the feeding calculator. Do you add anything else or just straight MC 2.0? I'm reading a lot of people follow a similar feeding ratio / schedule as you, but on the other side of the coin, noticing a lot of people following the feed calculator with adjustments based on what the plants are telling them.

 

[BCBUDY]

Day 6:

The girls were thirsty today, so today I upped the megacrop to 270ppm (close to the suggested amount according to Green Leaf's feeding calculator), pH'd the solution to 6.0 and I've also lowered the light as suggested by @Mañ'O'Green

The light was previously 30" above canopy and is now at 20" above. I will monitor them throughout the day tomorrow and look for signs of stress.

One thing I've been wondering is, if in fact I've been over or under watering. This is one area I'm still struggling with as a new grower. So I've decided to order a digital moisture meter and try to use that until I get a good feel for how much watering I need to give or not.

Upon doing some reading, there's lots of talk about feeding the soil, this is not new information or a new concept to me, so I'm wondering if I should be watering the whole pot so that the promix is nutrient rich as the roots grow into it or just keep doing what I've been doing, which is just watering around the base of the stem and outwards towards the perimeter of the canopy.

Someone also suggested watering around the outside couple inches of the pot. I've read up on this and it makes sense to me once the plants roots are much more developed and matured, but it just doesn't make logical sense to me while they're this small and underdeveloped. The roots are several weeks away from reaching the pots edges, so I'd just be wasting water and nutrients, is my line of thinking.

That being said, I'm very open to any thoughts on this.

Day 6 pics:

 

[Mañ'O'Green]

Water the whole pot! the microbes in the soil need moisture to function. Sometimes when soil especially coco get dry it becomes hydrophobic - repels water instead of holding it. If that happens use some yucca powder in your fertigation; it is a natural surfactant.

The other thing is roots grow way faster than most peeps realize but if they hit dry soil they will stop growing! This may stunt a plant some.

One of the best ways to learn when and how much to water is by weight. When you first fill your pot with fresh soil weigh it and write it down then slowly water all the pot will hold. Do this slowly over time to get it as wet as you can without much run-off. Now weigh it again and write it down. You now know the dry weight and the wet weight. Subtract the dry weight from the wet and that difference is the maximum water weight the pot will hold. Water/fertigate when when you are at 40% of that water weight. For example the pot weighs 5 pounds dry 10 pounds wet so 5 pounds of water 40% of 5 pounds is 2 pounds so when the pot weighs the dry weight plus 2 pounds it is time to water/fertigate > 3 pounds. Remember to water to just a little runoff in soil and ~20% in coco.

 

[BCBUDY]

Water the whole pot! the microbes in the soil need moisture to function. Sometimes when soil especially coco get dry it becomes hydrophobic - repels water instead of holding it. If that happens use some yucca powder in your fertigation; it is a natural surfactant.

The other thing is roots grow way faster than most peeps realize but if they hit dry soil they will stop growing! This may stunt a plant some.

One of the best ways to learn when and how much to water is by weight. When you first fill your pot with fresh soil weigh it and write it down then slowly water all the pot will hold. Do this slowly over time to get it as wet as you can without much run-off. Now weigh it again and write it down. You now know the dry weight and the wet weight. Subtract the dry weight from the wet and that difference is the maximum water weight the pot will hold. Water/fertigate when when you are at 40% of that water weight. For example the pot weighs 5 pounds dry 10 pounds wet so 5 pounds of water 40% of 5 pounds is 2 pounds so when the pot weighs the dry weight plus 2 pounds it is time to water/fertigate > 3 pounds. Remember to water to just a little runoff in soil and ~20% in coco.

BOOM! Thank you! I will water the whole pot. Promoting microbe growth is what I've read about and it makes perfect logical sense, just wasn't quite sure if the same thing happens in soilless as it does in living soil. Now I know and knowledge is power! (or in this case, healthy roots and more fruits)

After lowering the light from 30" to 20" as well as upping the ppm's, I've noticed growth has picked up the pace a bit, which is exactly what I was hoping for, however I'm noticing a sort of leaf twisting, or weird looking new growth as well as discolouration, thinking it might be pH related but not sure why since promix is a soilless and I've been pHing between 6.0 and 6.3.

Some of the discolouration can be seen in the pictures I added last night. Sort of a splotchy very light green or almost yellow. Very inconsistent colouring on the leaves basically.

I'm going to continue to monitor throughout the day and will do a day 7 update later tonight.

 

[Mañ'O'Green]

@BCBUDY I grow in Rock Wool which is the definition of soilless and I inoculate it with Mykos because the roots are going to create a microcosm of microbes on their own so it is best to start them off with the good guys.

I think you should bring the PH down to 5.8 - 6.1.

The coloration may just be what is called "variegation" it is genetic. don't go chasing symptoms real or unreal at this stage of growth you are likely to do more harm than good.