Ping ponging my version of complete control of N, inclusive of ammoniacal concentration. This is just an example of week 7ish for the program I’m running on a test subject of Barney’s Farm LSD. I could get the same outputs likely by dropping one of the components and factoring the others better, but I already have both K and MKP so I blend them in my programs. I include Fe in earlier weeks and drop it towards the end as well.
Blue numbers and chart lines are the custom blend.
White numbers and chart lines are a standard comparison to Jacks 321 @ 150N.
Just got 2 orders of Masterblend. I’m a ways from planting out, but will be going to 6" pots soon, as second leaves are showing.
When we get cranking, I’ll do similar to last year, BIG N up front, but instead of sudden shock of going over to Part B…I’m going to be more gradual this year. Not sure it’ll make any difference, but fun to play with.
I’m giving the seedlings 2tsp/gal, so half strength while they’re stretching out a bit…
I also have about 75 tomato plants coming along, started from last years seeds that I saved. I only need about 6-8, but like to give a bunch away to folks that appreciate a good, heirloom tomato.
Always love this time of year.
p.s. Made a real dumb-ass move. I ordered some fingerling potatoes. I screwed up when I ordered them and ordered 100 instead of 50. That’s not the dumb-ass part.
Small package arrived yesterday, and I instantly became aware of the difference between “seed potatoes” and “potato seeds”
That’s more like it! So here, I can reduce my inputs from four (4) to two (2) using the MB Bloom and result in a nearly identical output @ 50N for finishing up flower.
Thank you so much for the tip @Rocket !! And thank you to Greengene for making a video on the product. If you don’t follow him on youtube, he’s made a video espousing the benefits of high Ca and low N in late flower and how this MB Bloom formula can be used.
I haven’t jumped on the bandwagon of high Ca in late flower (where to me “high” would be like 150ppm or more). Why? Well at some point during a lecture video, Dr. Bruce Bugbee stated, and I paraphrase here:
“Cannabis loves Ca, it will accumulate massive amounts of it. Should we feed massive amounts, even if it will happily consume it? Ehh, I’m not so sure.”
And where GG states that the high Ca generally is preventative (prevent rot and/or increase cellular wall integrity)… those are maybe facts but not reasons to use it. I’ve experienced neither issue so far, and 100 ppm Ca minimum through the last days “seems” like plenty to a hobby grower like me.
Please share your thoughts!!
Edit: Those charts I posted include my tap water’s contributions to Ca and S. YMMV but it should be fairly accurate to those on municipal water with relatively “hard but not super hard” water.
Excellent stuff LD50!
Reading on another site, one of the pro growers, (legal state) said they use a combo of Master Blend products, the tomato formula, then switch at the flip to their Strawberry formula.
They did provide lots of charts and stuff, as well as other fertilizer programs, and seemed to think this combo was the best for their program.
Myself, as a hobbyist gardener, I’m simply trying to grow the best quality, without the need to but a bunch of monitoring equipment that is available to the Progrows.
@LD50 , I was wondering if you could work me up a breakdown of what I am feeding my plants. I am a new to coco, hydro hack job, but this is what I have landed on that is keeping the plants green for now, in veg and very early flower. But I sure would like to know what I am feeding them, and if I am setting myself up for problems once we really get into flower.
MEGEACROP treats their bag numbers as a “minimum guaranteed content” and so we have no clue how much of each ingredient is actually making up that 600ppm target. We just know that there isn’t less than the % shown on the bag. They also put new formula mixes in old bags, so it’s a bit of a guessing game!
This doesn’t generally matter for the typical MC user, but when asking for strict analysis I’m compelled to tell you that it’s not strictly possible with MC.
Can you post your bag analysis as a picture here? Or point me to which version of their product you’re using (date of purchase can help narrow down) and we can ask @GreenleafNutrients for some help on it as needed.
Next let’s find out what ppm Nitrogen (N) it must be:
5 grams = 695 ppm
600 ppm = 0.86 x 5 grams = 4.3g
4.3g of MC = ~103N
If you know how much a gram of your specific gypsum product raises the ppm of 1 gallon of water, post a reply and I’ll update again…here I’m just assuming a 6:1 part mix but this should get us close:
Here’s a comparison with Jacks 321 where MC is 103N and Jack’s is 150N per their feed schedule.
Thank you, I appreciate that.
But, my total mix comes out to 708 using what I laid out, my fault for not clarifying. Those charts are still interesting, because that is what I’m feeding my chili plants for the moment.
Any chance you could run them at 708 final mix for me? If not no worries, I can just up the components contributed by the MC by 20%, right?
So l, just because I am my own worst enemy, what is the upper limit of sulphur before I get into trouble?
For instance, if I wanted to up my mg with epsom. Adding assuming the 321 ratios are the goal. Currently have mg at 31, s at 64. If I add epsom as my mg source I can’t hit that ratio. If I added enough epsom to hit the mg target, I would be over on sulphur. 1.5 gm epsom would get me to 60.5 mg, 102.4 s. Which is basically 1:1 n to s. Would I be better off splitting the difference at 1 gm epsom, 50.4 mg and 89.6 s?
I’m not really sure on the need for a ratio between S and N, but I do track it as a metric just to see what mixes are way off from one another, or between phases of nutrient inputs (veg vs flower, etc).
@LD50 Fantastic thread. Is your spreadsheet basically hydrobuddy but with graphs? If so the graphs really do help alot for comparing the different nute lines and how their feed schedules ramp up and down the different elements. It was way more helpful to my understanding then I would have figured so thanks for putting in that effort.
I found this thread because I just watched that greengene video about the masterblend bloom ferts that have no nitrogen in it and he seemed pretty interested in running it. You mentioned that the masterblend with CalNit at a 1:0.2 ratio is almost the same as what you run with 4 inputs. So would you recommend using just the Masterblend Bloom and CalNit in flower? Considering I would need to buy each ingredient except for the CalNit only having to get the masterblend sounds good. Is that 1:0.2 ratio good for all of flowering or do you have different recipes for different weeks in flower?
