The meter already came in this morning and I was able to use a different stand that allowed for drainage. I decided to double her watering with 1 gallon of water today, no nutes, just ph’d to 6.0. I made sure to evenly soak the whole pot. A little of the drainage water spilled but I cleaned it all up and was able to collect 3 cups of runoff, so counting the spilt water I think there would have been 4 cups of runoff from the gallon. Unfortunately I didn’t realize I needed 12.88 ms/cm calibration solution for my ppm/ph meter, so I am not able to check the ppm at the moment. I found some on amazon and it should be here in two days. The meter did come with the proper calibration stuff for the ph so I calibrated it and measured the runoff to be 6.22 ph. I still have the runoff water, so I can save it until I am able to measure the ppm in a couple days if that would be helpful.
These pens typically come calibrated. If you feel more comfortable waiting that’s fine.
We can get it on the next feed
That’s a lot of runoff for one single gallon of water in a 5 gallon pot. Definitely some nice loose soil
Oh I didn’t know that they came calibrated. Well in that case I just measured it and it was 602ppm runoff. And I would say my soil is pretty loose and has good drainage because I mixed 2 parts soil to 1 part perlite.
Okay fantastic. Yeah these pens come pre-calibrated. But it’s smart to have some backup solution for when things don’t seem right with the meter. I’ve got a meter like yours they’re very durable.
I’m getting ready to step into a meeting it should be brief I hope. When I get done I’ll put together a plan. When did you actually water the plant?
about 40 minutes ago
In the meantime. I want you to measure your tap water and let me know how many ppms are in your tap water. This will be important to know because the ppms of your tap water are actually added to the total feed of your nutrients
The tap water is 344ppm. I keep it in a 5 gallon bucket and run an air pump tube to blow bubbles from the bottom.
You want to maintain a runoff of 1,000 PPM (+/-150) each time you feed. When your ppms are higher than 1,000 you reduce the nutrients when lower than 1,000 you increase the nutrients. You’ll get it!
Here’s what you can do with only having 600 PPM your plant needs nutrients and is definitely hungry.
Since you have 344 ppms of tap water I want you to feed your plant total ppms of 700 (combined tap water and nutrients)
Simply make a gallon of water, slowly adding a little nutrients at a time mixing and testing until your ppms come up to 700 PPM
Then I want you to feed your plant that 700 PPM of nutrients right now. It’s not over watering and it’s not going to hurt anything. Before you feed them this 700 PPM feed I want you to pH your water to 6.5 after you add your nutrients.
Collect your runoff measure it and post the measurement runoff numbers here
Sorry about the delay, I had to go do something. I got a gallon of water and started by mixing half the recommended nutes, 1.5 tsp Big Bloom, 1 tsp Grow Big, and 1/2 tsp Cal-Mag. That only brought the ppm to around 550 so I tried adding the same amount I just did again so now the same ratio as the feeding chart, and the ppm was a bit over 750 so I poured out some and added more water until the ppm read 705. Then I adjusted the ph and got it to 6.48. I watered her with the whole gallon and I collected around 9 cups of runoff, so a little over half of it ran off, I’m guessing because the dirt was just watered a couple hours before. The runoff measured 739 ppm and 6.17ph.
You know what they say about burnt tips
Over nutes
It’s drooping like it’s over watered
But it completely dry out
Going to stick your finger in that soil and it’s dry
Or you will have bigger problems
And unfortunately in soil those problems won’t show up for a week or more
I’m about to harvest just did a flush so I got a little droopy leaves too
Both are girl scout cookie extreme autoflowers for my ILGM
I’m in a heat wave right now so my tent’s been anywhere from 88 to 94
Next time I’ll do it in the winter
Good to know, I just did a big watering with less nutes as LostGirl suggested above so she definitely isn’t dry anymore. I live in the north and my tents in the basement so I haven’t had to deal with the heat.
I also have a girl scout cookie extreme autoflower outside but it doesn’t seem to be doing as well
Although it just went through 5 days of 105 degree heat
The incredible bulk and super sour Diesel to not do as well although those have budded as well
Oh and I wanted to say grow big and tiger bloom will burn the crap out of your plants
I would only use half the amount of grow big on the chart
Have to 2/3 tiger depending on the plant some can handle more some at half
These are just my experiences with Fox farm and I had at least 30 grows with whole line dirty dozen
Uploading: IMG_20240228_133558.jpg…
Uploading: IMG_20240228_133618.jpg…
Processing: IMG_20240228_133229.jpg…
Uploading: IMG_20240228_133345.jpg…
Uploading: IMG_20240228_133335.jpg…
These two polar opposites were from the same batch of girl scout cookie extreme auto seeds
I’m smoking them now harvested them 5 months ago
Ok, your definitely going to have to get use to mixing the nutrients. It’ll take time.
Sometimes notating how much you put in whether it went over or under can be a document of how much it takes to reach a certain number.
Example
You used 1.5 tsp Big Bloom, 1 tsp Grow Big, and 1/2 tsp Cal-Mag. That only brought the ppm to around 550
So now you know how much it takes to make 550 ppms of feed. It’s little things like that that will make this easier.
With that said. Your goal is to get to 1000ppm runoff and now you’re at 739ppm so we need to up your feeding on the next feed when your plant totally dries.
You don’t want to add a ton of nutrients as an increase to reach these numbers because it will burn the plant up. You want to slowly get to that number while the plant adjust itself to the nutrient intake and uptake.
I like to go up about 50 ppms at a time. So your next feed, mix it to 750ppm total then ph to 6.5 and document the numbers.
I know you were used to feeding one time with nutrients then doing a water only the next time. I don’t suggest doing that. I suggest feeding them with nutrients every time maintaining a thousand PPM runoff every time.
I know your new and this is your first grow. Your doing fine. However, this is the time that I express my opinion on the nutrient line that you’re using. It’s total shit (my opinion) you should never have to flush your plants four to five times throughout a grow because the nutrients are so salty and salt is the enemy of the root zone.
Nevertheless, they will work and you’ll get through this grow just fine.
The Last time I grew a GSCE autoflower was a little over a year ago. The weed is outstanding. 1-2 hits and your stoned. She was a monster that produced right around 1 lb of weed.
So you have a great strain.
Okay that clears things up. Watering was one of the things I wasn’t putting a ton of focus into researching at the beginning, so I’m not apposed to switching things up. Good to know that the nutrients I’m using aren’t the best pick, I just chose them because they are the same brand as the dirt so I thought they would work well in conjunction with each other. Your grow looks amazing, I think it’s some pretty good genetics based off some other grows I’ve seen on here too. Excited to see where it takes me.