Bigger Yields By Adding More Food? Myth? Fact? :)

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Im full of questions today! And I appreciate your advice OG!!.. :grinning::+1:

Soil related question:

I was wondering if ya all get a better yield when you bump up the ferts in the flowering cycle. Or is less really more??

Well, personally, I think I get a much better yield when I ā€œcrank it upā€ during the flowering cycle.

But, the leaves suffer. The overall health of my girls look MUCH better when I feed em lessā€¦ But, again,ā€¦ THE YIELD SUFFERS!..

Ya see, I will either have beautiful plants with far less bud, or Huge Buds with leaf issuesā€¦ lol

As you know, I really dig the Dynamic Duo products from Jackā€™s. I give my girls only 1/4 teaspoon during veg, and my plants always turn out great. I think the 1/4 teaspoon dose(everytime I water) is PERFECT for the veg stage. :slight_smile:

When I move my girls into the flowering room, I always run the bloom ferts right off the bat at a 1/2 teaspoon per gallon.

Im wondering if I should drop it down to a 1/4 teaspoon of bloom instead. Or should I run the veg ferts til I see the flowers come into effect? THEN bump it up to a 1/2 teaspoon of bloom ferts?.. I wanna fine tune my opā€¦ Confused.

Im more of a hydro guy, always have been, always will beā€¦ I got that pretty much dialed in, and dont have any issues whatsoever when it comes to the hydro scene. But, Yahā€¦ Iā€™d like to improve my soil skills.

Anyways, Most of my grows are done in dwc buckets, and the only reason I mess with soil is because hydro dont do well with warm reservoir temps during them hot summer monthsā€¦ Soil is a different story.

All replies are greatly appreciated! Thank you very much folks!! :slight_smile:

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Rambling here, but iā€™ve noticed a pattern on my personal experiences.

Hydro always did better for me. Itā€™s super subjective but I assume this is because everything is ā€œdialedā€ in. I did a run with megacrop through blumat drippers, at 5-7g per gallon all the way through, and I had my best run in many years with that. I dare say, itā€™s because more food was available.

It makes sense that the more food available the more the plant is going to take advantage of it. Yes, the leaves may end up looking like ass at the end, but we arenā€™t going for leaves are we? We want those big, fat, sticky buds. We trim the leaves and discard them, so ā€¦ yeah.

Feed like youā€™re trying to make your plants obese, they will greedily gobble up food they can and reward you for indulging them. (Imo)

Nice topic. :slight_smile:

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I increase feed when my plants need it. Iā€™m pretty reactive when growing, regardless of medium or nutrition regiment.

Wasnt always this way I used to feed based on schedules or instructions on the package.

I dont think increasing food input beyond what a plant needs is going to realistically increase yield. Just as long as theyā€™re getting enough of what they need.

Way I see it, all plants have different needs and no matter how hard we try to meet those needs we will never be perfect, and even if we do get it perfect, what works for one plant perfectly might not for the other.

So my strategy has just been to push it until I see issues then back it off and hold it there. That way at least I know theyā€™re getting enough of most things, even if they may still need others. Iā€™ve yet to straight up kill a plant and some of my biggest plants were ones that were pushed ā€œtoo farā€.

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Only solid info I have would be bump up ratio until tip of leaf burns. Then reduce ratio a little. There is no real good answer without running a grams to plant foot or GPW.

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that is about it the end GPW

I followed some threads by cash croppers that would feed a plant to the edge of burn

dial it back a little and plain water the last week, plant would look like shit at the end of a grower

but would have colas that looked like milk jugs

they knew what worked for them by numbers

all the best

Dequilo

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I personally dont see how trying to kill the plant by over feeding could make it produce more. Seems completely backwards to me.

Until someone runs some side by side grows with clones from the same plant, and all other factors held exactly the same, Im gong to consider this stoner science :wink:

By the way - GPW is 100% useless as a metric for deciding how good/bad your grow is. It tells you nothing.

If you want great GPW numbers, just veg longer. A longer veg cycle will give you larger plants, and that will inflate your GPW number. People who grow with short veg cycles will always have lower GPW numbers and those who veg until they have trees will always have better GPW numbers.

Those differences have nothing to do with the lights or the watts.

For personal growers like most of us, grams per day is a much better way to compare results. I dont give a gives a crap about what lights are used or what the wattage is or how long you veg. All that matters is how much did you yield at the end and how long did it take. More yield in less time is good. Less yield in more time is bad.

K.I.S.S. :slight_smile:

P.S. I am conducting a personal campaign to kill off the use of GPW as stoner science :smiley:

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I have been a happy Jackā€™s Classic consumer since itā€™s introduction in 1997.
I used the Dynamic Duo on many crops. Very cost effective. I use it with every watering, and feed until harvest. Depending on container size and indoors or outdoors etc., I use from Ā¼ teaspoon per gal to 1 tsp per gallon. And I like to see how much they can use in flowering by gently pushing the dosage up.

Several years ago I stopped using Bloom foods entirely. I now use Jackā€™s Citrus FeED only, at the same dosage as with Dynamic Duo. It works well for me.
I grow in ProMix BX or HP with extra vermiculite and perlite and powdered dolomite lime added.
I use smallish containers only.

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I disagree, SOG is one of the best and easiest ways to increase GPW. Iā€™d say in most cases increasing plant numbers would be the easiest way to increase yield.

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whatever works as metric for you great

I have always used fertilizer at half strength myself as you can always give them more

it can be a pain to try and flush them out

I reveg a lot so it is in my best interest to try and keep my plants in good condition

as far GPW I have not put a bud on scale in years, trim sugar leaves for butter to cook with yes

I can grow more then I can smoke harvest to harvest ( I smoke a shit load) so for me my grow work

that is the only test that matters to me

all the best and enjoy the day

Dequilo

big love for the Jackā€™s

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To anyone who knows and understands the formula for photosynthesis, the idea of increasing fertilizer without increasing the other two factors is nothing more than a waste of fertilizer. The biggest takeaway from the formula is that photosynthesis only needs one limiting factor to stall or hold back the plant growth. Those three factors are nutrient, light, and co2.

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dude that is it a nice light soil and ez to use fertilizer

less is more

I have grew a lot in 3 gallon pots maybe a 5 gallon pot time to time

manger them well and you can do very good in a small space

a couple pounds out 800 watts in a 4 foot by 8 foot space with 8 plants in 3 gallon pots

not that hard to do

peace and be safe

Dequilo

PS you are right on the SOG if plant count is not a problem for you @beacher

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I would go for not overfeeding at all, the nutrients that are not eaten by the plant acumulates in the soil.

Last run I never gave more than 700 ppm and when I tested the runoff it had between 1100 and 1600 (different strains, same food).

I know it is good for them having different kind of nutrients available, but for instance if thereā€™s still a lot of Nitrogen in the soil in the flowering stage, thatā€™s not good at all. Fortunately, in DWC you have a better control and you can change the whole nutrient soup when you wish. Counting the days to go back to DWC :grin:, cheers ā€¦ :sunglasses:

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I donā€™t push ppm/ec too much ā€¦ pushing the relevant npk ratio for that time , thatā€™s where itā€™s at : )

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Ive been using it right around the same time, and my soil plants look as good as a hydro grow in veg. But, when they are in bloom, and after the 4th week, the leaves get a bit distorted, and kinda dry. The directions say you can use the veg formula, or the bloom at 1/4 teaspoon every time you water. Im thinking of trying it this one time, and see what happensā€¦ Usually I give them there food and water every Sunday at a 1/2 teaspoon dose. Gonna try something completely different this run, and follow the manufacturers directions for once in my life!. haha!

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Could not agree more!

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Very true. If you grow more plants - under the same exact watts - you will also have an inflated GPW.

Which just proves my point. :slight_smile: GPW is meaningless.

GPW is a useless metric. How much you yield has very little to do with watts.

Changing the watts in your grow might increase yield to a small degree, but adding plants, or vegging longer will blow it all out of proportion. To the degree that GPW is meaningless.

For example, lets say you have 300 watts of light and grew some Blue Dream from clones with zero veg time and yielded 500 grams dry after 10 weeks or 70 days total. Then you grew some C99 from seed and vegged it for 9 weeks, (huge trees now) then flower for 10 weeks and yielded over 1000 grams. Both grown in the same tent with the same lights and the same nutes, both in hydro.

The GPW on the first grow is 1.66 GPW = not bad but not great.

The GPW on the second grow is 6.6 grams per watt. Wow!! Woo hoo!! Dam Im good!

But wait, thereā€™s more!

The first grow, with the crappy 1.6 GPW yielded 7.14 grams per DAY.

The second grow with the woohoo 6.6 GPW yielded 7.5 grams per day.

Wait what?

That huge woohoo GPW number means nothing. At the same time, a low GPW means nothing. Both grows above yielded essentially the same over time.

Another example - maybe your growing autos that have low yields on each grow, but are FAST. You can easily have more grams per day with a lower GPW - just add more plants like you said or veg longer. Or turn down the power some. Your yields wont drop that much, but you will be able to claim higher GPW.

Those are examples from my grows over the last year. I should also point out that you do NOT NEED large numbers of plants to get a huge GPW. That C99 grow of mine that yielded over 1000 grams was a single plant.

Grow one plant until its a tree and your GPW will look good - OR - grow several plants in SOG - OR grow a few and do SCROG.

Edit: Actually, the grow with the huge GPW was a single plant, under scrog, with a long veg cycle, so any combination of factors can blow GPW out of reality - because GPW is a useless metric :slight_smile:

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My buddy is indoor babying a marmalate, the same clone that Iā€™m growing outdoors with so much lack of attention, Iā€™m gonna send a mug in of each to get tested to see which is better quality, his are definitely bigger buds, but in the long run I wanna see if mine has more THC. Maybe weā€™d get more oil out of less bud.

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After 4 weeks I like to lower humidity and temps and increase air exchange. Itā€™s madness to try and dial in the last 30% of weight.

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Iā€™m with you on this one I guess my question lies in what it being fed organic or a chelated nutrients I think chelates nutes in most instances are not used efficiently as are Organic nutes itā€™s proven that most of these are washed away and are not held in the media, think all has to do with charges IIRCC , Plants control their own growth and health with their interactions with microbes I just donā€™t know how burning leaves would produce bigger plants wouldnā€™t it just end up stunting them?

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I totally agree with this statement even the same strain with a different pheno would probably need different requirements

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