Lucas formula - what strength? overfeeding?

[Biglizard]

Sorry still new to this, I dont know the answer to your questions.

@SamandMax

I wonder if Lucas formula 8-16 is overfeeding the plants. I often get an ec of 2.4

Is this runoff EC?
What medium are you using? Some soils come with a starter load of nutes, if this is the case than this could explain 2.4EC.

@SamandMax

How often would you need to rinse a motherplant with plain tap or ro water to prevent salt build up?

I will say this about Lucas method, my last grow I feed every time I watered and had a nice green plant all the way to the end. The grow I’m on I tried water feed water and my plants yellowed on me. Still lots of big dense buds but I have to believe that I left some “potential” off the table.

This from Lucas sticks out to me,
“fwiw, nutes do not affect yield, they affect health. Any nutes that produce health, produce yield. There is no magic ingredient that will change your plants from schwag to dank, its the genetics, and the ability to be healthy and achieve their potential, that makes plants phat.”

[Andrexl]

Was It an Autoflower or Photo?
@Biglizard

[Biglizard]

Photo, haven’t tried autos.

[Andrexl]

I am still learning autos.I have a very hard tap water and It s hard to me to Dial in the nutes with 200 ppm tap water

[SamandMax]

what is water feed?

[low_and_slow]

Hey @SamandMax check out my grow journals, I use the Micro and Bloom from GH and keep all my recipes documented:

Hazeman White Grape and Urban Poison (with MassMedical PuTang)

Hey there, First post! I’ve been on other forums for a while but figured I’d come over here and test the waters. My state recently made this all cool, but for the sake of personal mystery and mystique I’ll keep it all mostly on the DL. I have a 23"x21" closet I converted to a cabinet, a 2x2x5’3" tent, and a 2’x2’x30" propagation tent. I recently ordered an AC Infinity 2x4 so I’ll be condensing a bit and keeping a journal here throughout flowering. Right now I have an Urban Poison by Hazeman u…

Hazeman Bubba Kush x Stardawg under GROW300

Couple shots from last night… [PXL_20211024_201901020] [PXL_20211024_201856773] [PXL_20211024_201851903]

Hazeman White Grapes - Second flowering round with clones

Day 23 of vegging. Just fed and tucked, looking forward to a little manicuring below the scrog soon. I want to give some of the lowers a little more time to catch up, then anything not in direct light exposure will come off. I’ll let the tops exposed stretch vertically, then flip once I see a couple nodes of growth. [PXL_20211224_130503214.MP] [PXL_20211224_130456036] [PXL_20211224_130445253]

[Biglizard]

Alternating between water only and water with nutes.

[SamandMax]

you did a grow solely on water? Does that make sense?

[Biglizard]

Hope this helps.

No, I use sunshine#4 as my medium.

As I said my first plant grown with Lucas method I mixed water with 8ml micro/16mlgrow per gallon and feed with this every time I watered. I also flushed at 4 weeks in veg, once again when I switched to flower and once again 5 weeks into flower to control salt build up. This plant stayed green and healthy all the way through.

On my second and current grow with Lucas I decided to feed every other watering, so water/feed/water. I thought this would be a better way to control salt build up. This was a mistake as my plants yellowed upon entering flower and stayed that way.

This is runtz feed lucas every watering with flushes. Full power light right to the end

This is power plant, Lucas water/feed/water/feed. Plant lacked enough nutes for light intensity(yellowing top growth). Light down to 60% at end.

[SamandMax]

you mix the solution every feeding? I need something for a big reservoir.

[low_and_slow]

I use large pots of coco and drain to waste, removing runoff every feeding. I have 2 plants in flower at any given time, and then a handful of seedlings or clones in veg. I mix up a 3g bucket every two or three days depending on how far along the flowers are. Mid-flowering, they each drink almost a gallon daily.

I like to mix my nutrients and use them within 72 hours as longer than that, I find that I start seeing scum and bacteria build up on the surface of my bucket. This stuff just doesn’t sit around well for days without a circulation system or airstones.

What is your grow setup? How many plants do you have? How large is each container? What medium are you using?

Either way, if you’re running a drain-to-waste setup where you feed and then throw away the runoff, you can use my recipes just scale them up by volume. If you’re doing a recirculating system, you’ll want to target a higher concentration of nutrients as the plants will deplete the solution over time as the system recirculates.

[DannyTerpintine]

yes. don’t do 8-16.

5-10 is the way to go. Almost any stage and any plant will do good with that (Aside from seedlings, in which case dilute by 50% with water).

You also want a cal-mag supplement to feed as well. (Micro, Bloom, Calmag.)

You’ll have less fluffy buds this way as well.

[SamandMax]

But I think Lucas Formula is short on nitrogen already. So diluting it down would make that worse.

[DannyTerpintine]

there’s 2.5x the nitrogen in the Micro than there is in the grow. That’s why you can do without the grow. 5-10 I got that from some big players, so trust it works.

But you always need to supplement some cal-mag. That is critical!

You only dilute for seedlings. But 5-10 for all other stages.

[Andrexl]

For autos,Maybe do half? @DannyTerpintine

[SamandMax]

in cannastats it says Lucas formula 7.5-15 provides a profile of 122N-99P-171K-68MG in ppm. https://www.angelfire.com/cantina/fourtwenty/articles/profiles.htm Do you know how much N you can give?

On that page they write in veg you can give like 250-350ppm of nitrogen. In flower they say only max 100. But my guess is you still can give a lot of N in the first two weeks of flowering (stretch).

What is your experience in regards to amount of N in you fertilizer?

I am looking for a cheap all purpose mix.

[SamandMax]

do you use 5-10. Dont you have nitrogen deficiency in veg?

[DannyTerpintine]

Never.

Granted I stopped using GH a little while back, but I used the Lucas formula for a few years. 5-10 + calmag.

[low_and_slow]

If you’re really concerned about it you can do 6/9 in veg and 5/10 or 4/11 in flower depending on what the plants like. Beyond that, it really isn’t much more complicated…

[DannyTerpintine]

@low_and_slow

4/11 in flower

You don’t want to mess with the recommended ratios of nutrients from any company. Always keep the ratio’s the same.

2-4 , 4-8, 5-10 okay

1-3, 3-9, 4-11 not recommended.

To OP, literally just stick with 5-10. The plants will tell you what’s needed. (Then if you have to adjust, you read the plants and do so.) There’s not way to know for sure, for every plant. You could have a nute heavy strain, you could have a sensitive strain. Generally speaking 5-10 will take care of most everything.