After some delay due to getting ph and ppm levels correct, I am now switching the plants (2 very bushy 20inch plants, deep water hydro, bubble, 150w HPS plus 130ws CFL) to 12/12 along with a change in nutes from veg formula to flower formula. Plants did really well (finally) with RO water, 5.8-6.1ph and 670-695ppm (higher than that and they burned). These poor plants suffered due to me being a nube, but they really came on strong with explosive growth recently (man that's fun to see!). My question is, should I continue to maintain the same ppm levels while in flowering? Last night a couple hours after the new nutes they were 5.8ph and 785ppm. Tonight (24hrs later) they were 6.1ph and 805ppm, which I brought down slightly to 6.0ph and 781ppm (they had drank about a 1/2 gallon). I did notice 2 down turned leaves on my weaker plant, and after all they have been through I would hate to hurt them yet again. I know I will need to "read" the plants, but any suggestions out there in general about ppm levels and flowering vs veg stage? Thanks in advance.
The ladies should be able to take more than 800ppm but not a whole lot. Continue slowly raising the ppm to 1000 or so. If there are any signs of burning, hold back some. I've gone to 1300+ ppm on some plants. Some strains can take it, others can't.
Sabatian. Did you happen to see the new High Times magazine? They had a nice table in there, with suggested PPM and PH depending on what stage you are in. For the early stage of flowering they suggest from 1040 to 1150ppm and then they go up from there. But like dnno said, each plant might be different. I also noticed they have a prefferred ph of 6.3 at that point. If you want the rest of the numbers, let me know.
I have not seen the article, let alone the mag! I forgot all about High Times... will have to check it out. I appreciate the advice. These plants seem to be particularly sensitive to nute levels... not really sure why. After checking levels again this morning and noting a few more leaves starting to curl down and show just a bit of burn, I dumped about a gallon out of the res and added ph corrected RO water with no nutes, bringing the ph back down to 5.8 and ppm 630. From there I will see how the feed and adjust accordingly. I've gathered and learned that there is no sense in pushing food on them if they won't take it... it kinda makes them "throw up" in the form of dead leaves. I can't imagine the nute levels would have anything to do with the quality of the product so long as they are not deficient. I'm kinda starting to see the value of hydropronic growing in that you can tailor everything to the plant pretty easily (once you get some experience I see! And more to come no doubt!). Thanks again!
most feeding charts have you slowly start raising the EC about .1 a week after putting it in flower.. Check the feeding charts for the nutes your using, you may not be at what they consider full strength but the relative differences from week to week should be roughly the same.