Going to start using the K.I.S.S method on my furure grows...Maxibloom for the entire grow with liquid Koolbloom in early flowering and granual Koolbloom in late flowering. This method is as close as it get's to the Lucas formula using only Maxibloom and nothing more for veg and flowering. The Maxibloom supplies cal/mag and will mix water at a rate of 50-50 with tap and purified water for some extra cal and to lower the ppm of my tap. This should help with the cal/mag issues when using coco coir... Looking for more input so, let's kick it around awhile....
Seen plenty of success with the maxi start to finish. A boost in K during flower would help but not so much with the P. A silica supplement is a good idea; pro-tekt adds the Si along with K. If you decide to use the pro-tekt add it first as Si falls out of suspension in high concentrations. Si is also a must if you run CMH as the cell division rate is increased with them and the Si promotes rapid cell growth. I'm on Lucas/H3ad right now but am going to try Jack's hydro + Protekt with clamag standing by as my tap water is shit so i use rain water. I also don't let the plants feed off of themselves late in flower as they need the N in order for the ferment during the cure to take place. Canna specific nutes are well and good but there are products out there that perform very well and they don't kill your wallet. A 25# bag of Jack's is about 30 bucks....
finally, someone around here is starting to see the light here are some buds that are almost done. grown w/ maxibloom, liquid/dry koolbloom and floralicious+. northern lights and sourAK Enjoi.
heres a few plants going in veg, running on 2ml pro-tekt, 7grams of maxibloom, 10ml S.O.S, 5ml bio-root here and there.
Nice nugs man... pretty frosty. I'm looking forward to trying out Jack's hydro blend as it's pretty damn close to maxibloom and cheap as hell. You can also send them soil and/or water samples and they'll tailor a blend just for your situation. I'm having nice results from G/B but always looking for something more efficient.
Actually I am going with the pro-tek, just forgot to list it in the post. My filtered water is at around 6.0 ph out of the jug, before nutes and hear that silica will raise the ph. That should help get my ph in range with something useful, rather than adding large amounts of ph up...Nice tip on adding it first... Been doing fine in the past with my tap @600ppm and when I changed to filtered sorta got my plant's off track... Will check into Jack's and think maybe DynaGro product's are much the same as Maxibloom... I like those plant's man.... Been hanging out at ICMAG doing my reading and seems to be the easiest way to grow without all the hassle of being a chemist....
Hey cola farmer I must of missed something whats the deal with coolboom liquid and dry during dif times in flower.
Taken from their website: Liquid KoolBloom is used early and it continually builds up flower production. Dry KoolBloom does the same in addition to encouraging ripening, but in an intense final push at the end of the plant's life cycle. Using Liquid Kool Bloom at the beginning maximizes the effect of Dry KoolBloom at the end. Start with liquid, finish with dry. The two have different NPK values. The liquid is the bulking formula and the dry is the ripening formula.
thanks just read that 2. just wondering why they switch to dry, and did you catch the sentence with "secret ingrediant" in it? screams pgrs all over it.
Never seen that sentence....Assume the liquid provides the N for the transition to dry. Have not read any post of anyone using the liquid so, not sure if it makes that big of a difference...
Ya..Must be all those those "secret ingredients". That's for the dry and is what the maxi method uses, so must be good...They just had to hype it up with the usual BS.... Thinking that extra N in the liquid might do some good going into flowering though...
600ppm's holy shit! Well if it aint broke don't fix it i guess. I take it you get plenty of Ca from your water then? Looking forward to checking out the Jack's hydro.... the site where i have my journal is full of people using dyna gro, jack's or a combination and are some really amazing grows. many of them are on the CMH train too. Jack's will also tailor a nutrient mix according to your soil/medium and tap water to be in perfect balance.... just send them samples and they customize a nutrient base for you.
Hi colafarmer, I'm basing what I say on experience from two grows only as I'm a newb & even though I've been studying for a year & a half there's no substitute for experience, My first grow using KISS was on AK-47 went well and produced as well as I could expect for a newb. Ounce a plant. Had to chop early due to a stuborn mold problem but was satisfied that I got that much. My second run, Vanilla kush immediately had a nitrogen deficiency as soon as I started feeding. I switched to maxigro & the leaves turned a nice shade of green. When I switched to 12/12 & started feeding with Maxibloom, immediately the plants started turning yellow again. I held off for a bit to see how bad it would get & the plants continued to yellow. I switched back to maxigro, with powdered koolbloom & Floralicious Plus & the plants recovered. Every time I back off on the Maxigrow the plants start to yellow. I think the KISS method is a great way to grow with the right strain, it's hard to beat simplicity. But I think KISS is strain specific. That might be why some people hate it. Cheers & Happy New Year, bruce
Nice info badbruce... Were you using the recommended dose of 1 tsp per gallon or, were you going by ppm /EC. What were your EC/ppm value either way...
Hi thesage3, It's my understanding the powdered Koolbloom is just a stronger version of the liquid. Cheers, bruce
Hi colafarmer, First grow I was going 5 grams every watering using the small plastic spoon that came with Maxibloom. PH 5.8 constant, EC in veg was approx. 1.2 & 1.6/1.8 in flower. AK-47 very forgiving Second grow/current in late flower Maxibloom still 5 grams (1 tsp. pg), 1/2 tsp. pg ProTekt, Floralicious Plus 1/4 tsp pg, Powdered KoolBloom 1/4 tsp pg, Molasses 1 Tbl pg. PH 5.8 constant, ppm American 900/1000PPM. Vanilla Kush, tempermental Current watering schedule feed water water feed water water Botanicaire ReadyGro coco/pearlite 70/30 in airpots Cheers, bruce BTW: being a newb if you see anything I'm not doing right or what might lead to problems please mention it. Many Thanks, bruce
Lucas calls for 7g of maxibloom per G.... 40% more N might have been the difference between green and healthy and yellowing. Cola is also looking to add CaMg, as he is using part RO water on top of running Ca hungry coco. This provides a boost of N as well as the Mg, Ca and Fe. Without breaking out the math it seems the Floralicious and koolbloom is giving you pretty much what an increase of 2 ml per G of maxibloom would. I'll have to break out the calculator and check that out. The Protekt is good stuff and adds a nice little K boost on top of the Si. While the plant definitely likes varying amounts/percentages of the nutrients throughout different stages of the grow, it's important that they don't get too far out of balance. What will happen is called nutrient antagonism... basically when the balance is far off enough they will fuck with each other and cause what looks like a deficiency, which it is, but not because it isn't there but due to lockout from higher concentrations of other elements. I saved a chart somewhere that shows the relationship between the elements and how they can effect each other but i'll be damned if i can find it now. Your regimen looks pretty solid either way, let us know how it turns out for ya.
Great stuff to work with here... At first I thought the liquid koolbloom had nitrogen and was the boost going into flowering but, was wrong on that call. It's the dry that has the N...Seems a little strange to use a fert with N for ripening though. There are plants that require a higher level of EC. The extra(40%)would have probably been even better with the AK 47 grow but, may have required even more (above the 40%) in badbruces's second grow. The 1 tsp per gallon is basicly a starting point and depending on the plant's needs may be even more in some hungry strains and is why EC/ppm are more important than recommended doses from the mfg... I will start with a 1.2 EC and work up to a 1.8 depending on how the plants look. I'm considering using a small dose of MaxiGrow during veg to raise the N value in my soil grow, if needed. My auto pots with coco are being fed nutes all the time so may only need just the MaxiBloom. Badbruce....Your watering shedule sounds ok and use that myself a lot, but a feed>water>feed>water might be better while keeping more N available to the plant. Even a 1/2 dose every watering might be better. There's a couple ways to tell if your over or, underfeeding by the ppm or,ph of the runoff. Low ph runoff could mean the plant is not using all the nutes and can lead to salt build up and high ph means the opposite. If the ppm of runoff has a lower value than what went in the plant, the plant is using the nutes and the opposite if high. Either way adjust until your plants are looking happy....
Right on Cola. EC is the most closely monitored aspect of my garden. At the moment i'm working out of some pretty small containers and my EC has yet to be pushed past 1.3 or so. Had some tiny issues of tip burn but nothing major. Without a huge root system I don't know as if they'll take much more, but we'll see how much they eat during mid flower. Another approach would be to go with Dyna's other products which I may try in the future. A fellow grower on another site (where KISS is king) runs foliage pro as his main nute, levels it out with mag-pro and pro-tekt to keep up with the CMH bulbs. He also runs RO as his tap is junk so CalMag is a necessity. He does keep some Jack's acid pro on hand to amend with as the urea based N greens them up if they are looking nitrogen thirsty. Lots of ways to keep it simple; good discussion going on here. Top shots of big bud at ~30 days veg in 26 oz.'s of coco: