Blakey300: why do you want to foliar feed in the first place? I'm assuming you/re cloning? I used to, but after talking to a commercial clone grower who turns out about 100 cones a week I was surprised to learn that he doesn't foliar feed them at all. He cuts them, sticks them in damp cubes in his cloning machine and if they haven rooted in ten days he tosses 'em. He claims to have a 90% success rate and it's really jarred my thinking. Hank
Blakey300: I haven't had a chance to ask one of our instructors at school about this but they teach us that any thing to do with M/J needs to be adjusted as close to 5.8 as possible to prevent lock out of necessary nutrients. The range they give us is 5.5 to 6.0 being safe, but with 5.8 being the optimum. I hope that helps. Hank
Foliar feeding is a very efficient way of providing plants with nutrients because it goes directly to the plant canopy and doesn't have to take the long trip from medium to roots and up the stem. Make sure the pH of your solution should be between 7 and 6.2.
Blakey300: I went to class Saturday and asked the instructor about foliar feeding. He suggested, "No more than half strength nutrient mix and to spray it with the grow lights off to prevent frying your plants." The curious thing is the teacher that taught the last class was against it because of mold and mildew problems. Who knows? Hank
If you are replicating nature I would go for between 7 and 6.5 just like rainwater. I'm not 100% on this but I believe pH is only necessary for nutrient uptake in the roots. As long as you are not below 5.8 or above 7.5 I believe you would be okay.
Blakey300: There's probably a lot of varying opinion on pH but I'll give you a couple of sources I trust that you should have on hand to check. In Ed Rosenthal's "MARIJUANA GROWER'S HANDBOOK," page 148, in about the middle of the left had side of the page he recommends, "5.6 to 6.4 in a hydroponic medium and 5.5 to 6.5 in soil." Cervantes, in his book, "MARIJUANA HORTICULTURE THE INDOOR/OUTDOOR MEDICAL GROWER'S BIBLE," advises us on page 299, "Marijuana grows well hydroponically within a pH range of 5.5 - 6.5, with 5.8 to 6.0 being ideal." (That's in the first paragraph under the heading pH). Once in a while you'll get into a situation that just doesn't fit in the literature. Recently I had a veg grow with a friend's bag seeds he wanted me to try and they came out fine but what they did to my nutes solution was backwards to everything I know. They seemed to like the 5.5 end of the scale and would go down every morning to as low as 4.3 to 4.5 instead of up to 6.1 to 6.3 as my other crops always had in the past. I panicked. I checked with friends and every source I could find and I even tried a couple of forums. I got all kinds of well intentioned but bizarre opinions as to the cause of the problem. Finally one of the teachers at the local hydro classes reminded me of the first step of the scientific method of investigation; "Identify the problem." He asked me how my plants looked? When I told him they looked fine he said to trust my sources and readjust the pH back to 5.8 every morning and stop worrying. I did, and it came out fine. Before you ask strangers I suggest you check the literature and resources you should have available to you. I hope this helps. Hank
This is good advice, and a great example. Remember, when growing you will only about half the time do what's in the books. Basic information and techniques should be followed but everyone's experience differs. Like I say "What works for you, works for you". Just do whatever makes you and your babies happy and you will end up with a quality product.