You can use similar techniques to get up to 10.0 EC in soil during mid flower. I agree with you wholeheartedly, just never heard the term ec stacking… feels like a commercial growers term to somehow imply it’s over homegrowers heads. To me in my world, it’s all crop steering…whether it’s ec manipulation, ec buildup, micro flushes, whatever the words want to be.
Edited to say this is absolutely no attack on you bigf, it’s more of my tenseness for the commercial industry rearing its head.
Taken constructively as intended, all good bud! The concept that it’s all crop steering is very interesting, suspect my brain will be running through that all day!
And it looks like I’ve got reading to do! 
I DTW top feed rockwool using .5gph drippers. I also have a Growlink system with probes, so I can see EC levels in my Rockwool continuously.
I stack EC at the beginning of flower by having larger dry backs and carefully limiting (some days even eliminating) runoff. My feed at that point is about 3.0 EC and the I target about a 7.0 EC in the rockwool at its wettest point. During overnight drybacks, the EC in the rockwool can get as high as 10-15EC without damaging the plant, assuming you’ve conditioned the plant a bit by stacking.
“Stacking” is really just another term for letting your salts accumulate in your media without flushing them out. It’s kinda like driving a race car, it’s all great until you lose control. And it would be tricky as hell without good probes.
But, I must say, since I’ve ran the higher EC levels the past year or so, my quality (as judged by me, myself and I only) has significantly improved. Keeping on topic sort of, dunno if it’s higher thc, terps, or what. But stacking EC works for me at least.
How good does it feel when you hit that overnight dryback within like 1% of target?
When it hits right on point, I am showing people the graph on my phone “Look at that dryback! Look at that! YEAAHHH buddy!” Growlink sensor here also.
Sounds like you have your stacking dialed nicely! Friends tell us often “your stuff always hits like a truck, what are you doing in there?” Oh, all the things, all the things.
I’m fascinated. I will be settling into this article later, thank you.
I’m specifically interested in the idea of dryback. If it benefits plants should other forms of hydro be doing it? What does that look like in DWC?
I’m very interested!
Same, if you come across any articles or interesting thoughts please tag me!
I’d love to see your setup. I have not been successful with Rockwool, and I’d like to see what I’m missing
There’s also the huge variable of “individual experience”. To some people, “weed is weed” and they love it. To others, each strain has a specific medical purpose or desired effect, desired flavor etc etc.
Weed is a lot like automobiles, very generally speaking. . . some people are truck people, some people love Fords, some dickheads like myself love a car so low as to be barely functional 
and we haven’t even gotten to POWER yet. . … I drive a turbocharged Fiesta which is like 180hp at best (let’s pretend hp is THC) and i GUARAN FUCKIN TEE YOU, I am having more fun in my bean-car than a guy driving his blown-out Hellcat pushing well over 700hp. There’s handling (terpenes), power to weight (terpene %age) and so many other things that amount to a more enjoyable experience. my car is a fun zip thru the corners/giddy high. That Hellcat is a 40% THC brick straight to the fucking dome, couch-lock grip the steering wheel & pray type of ride. BOTH are cool IMO, but each serves its own purpose.
It’s not that THC “doesn’t matter”, it’s just not the whole experience.
I can tell you how it looks in DWC. I start with EC 3.0 and as the water is absorbed by the plant, the EC will spike beyond what the meter can measure.
We might have to take this to another thread, which I’m fine with. Or a good book suggestion!
Does/ should EC spike during all phases of growth?
I use ppm, because I’m cheap and haven’t got myself an EC meter. I know. I’ll get one soon. I’ve found sometimes they uptake a balance of water and nutrients and the water goes down, ppm stays the same, sometimes they are hungry and ppm goes way down, sometimes thirsty and ppm goes up.
I’m not sure if my grow could be considered extreme. I do things that could be considered against many articles I’ve read about growing weed. I know they said you should seek a balance between water absorption and EC absorption so things don’t skyrocket in one direction. I’m more of a “lets see how the plants feel” about it. I know I fucked it up if I grow less than a kilo of weed on a single plant.
I’ve never really thought of this. Is dwc not run commercially because of the size and amount of rez’s needed? I’ve not seen too many facilities running dwc now that you mention it.
I use EC as a guide, personally. High EC in the media? The plants are really hungry but sort of maxed out. Calcium is a large molecule and helps push other elements out of the media… I’ve seen folks “flush” their high EC with a calcium only sort of feed to push it out, then reload it with another feed. 3.2-3.5ec during flower, but with very little runoff during the refeed to drive the ec back up. (Similar to what bigf described earlier.)
I don’t know how things work but this is how it was explained to me, once.
The plant needs a lot of energy and resources to create THC. So, the more THC a plant makes then that means less resources to create all the other cannibinoids and terps and whatever other stuff that causes unique effects. However, THC is the driver or amplifier for all the other cannibinoids and stuff so what you really want is a balance of the two.
Or that could all be BS, I dunno.
I appreciate your response. I’m confused about THC being a driving factor when all cannabinoids are made from cbg, but it’s definitely an interesting thing to read about.
Downloaded, thank you!
Search my username, I started keeping grow logs when I bought the Growlink system last year. It’s been a learning curve. The plants haven’t always looked nice (I’ve pushed EC hard at times) but I’ve been happy with the outcomes. If you’ve got specific questions let me know, but I hate to drift the thread too much.
Yeah, it was the layman’s explanation that was given to me. I’m sure it was way overly simplified.
At the receptor site of a human I could see how the ratio of cannabinoids, especially THC, would contribute to unique experiences. In that way, THC amplifying the users psychoactive experience to varying degrees. I think you nailed it. Secondary metabolite production likely has a limit within the confines of generics and it’s environment. I totally agree. Many blessings and much love
Alcohol percentage seems to matter in getting drunk. Percentage of THC should matter with weed. Always high on illegal days weed, even the Mexican bricks. That weed tested 12%-16% at most. The terps? Non existent. So, all of this talk about high test from dispos is meaningless. They just sell cookies crosses. They look good and test good, but they suck. No strength, and the high is meh.
They should be required to hang this banner in each dispensary at the entrance, “You can buy all of the weed you want, but you wouldn’t want any of it”
Thank you for that chart, been looking for something exactly like this.
