My plants have sprouted and I am wondering what the proper ratio of water to seedling fertilizer is used the first time I add nutrients to the soil. All of the water/fertilizer ratios would be much appreciated. Where on the ILGM website can I find these ratios? Thank you.
Jeffrey
For seedlings, I use a hot potting soil, which means it has nutes in it and no added fertilizers are needed.
As far as dosage, the type of fert you are using will have a schedule. Many folks on the site will recommend using a fraction of the dosage. I use 1/4 of dosage and water every other day in coco based soil at a Ph of 5.8.
Search on your fertilizer name and you’ll likely find a post with the dosage schedule.
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Hey. Thanks for the advice. I’m using FF Ocean Forest soil. I can use fertilizer during the veg and bloom stages, correct?
You can absolutely use these during the veg and bloom phases.
You have the “seedling”, “grow-time”, “flowertime” and “plant boost” starter pack? I have been using “Flower Power” ferts, which I understand to be the exact same thing, they were just recently branded by Bergman and have slightly different names (start/grow/bloom/boost). However, the feeding schedules are different. The Bergman schedule calls for 2 weeks of seedling/start, 4 weeks fo growtime.grow, 8 weeks of flowertime/bloom, and one last week of water. Flower Power only calls for two weeks fo seedling, 2 weeks of grow, before transitioning into the flower period (same 9 weeks, same flowertime/bloom, boost and foliar schedules). The dosages are also slightly different, but pretty close)
I don’t fertilize my seedlings for the first two weeks out of the ground - I just use/mist with plain 6.5pH water since they are in a true soil medium at that point. After two weeks, I transplant them into a 2 or 5 gallon fabric pot in a coco based soilless medium called Roots Organics. At that point I start watering the medium with 1/4 dose of seedling/start (~150ppm of added nutes to the water) every other day, about 3 liters for each plant (enough so it runs off to a significant amount, about 30% of original volume by eyeballing it). After two weeks, I transition to “growtime” at 1/4 dosage (~225ppm added). I watch the ppms (TDS - total dissolved solids) of the runoff and if it’s dropping too low, I bump up the dosage a little. If the ppms are getting to high, bump it down, or just use plain water for a feeding or two)
I understand FF ocean forest to have a very low NPK (nitrogen, phosphorous, and potassium) rating and is a “true” soil - so the watering requirements are different than the coco techniques. It’s also not considered a hot soil, and you can probably give them a little of the seedling formula in a nute solution pH’d to 6.5, and follow Bergman’s schedule. I would recommend using a fraction dosage, but if you were to put it to a vote, I’d bet you’d get a lot of differing opinions. In the end, whatever you choose, if you use caution, inspect your plant, and check your runoff to make sure pH (6.3 to 6.8) and ppms (less than 800ppm at seedling phase) are not out of whack, I think you’ll be fine. Plus we are all here along the way if it doesn’t go according to plan.
I threw a lot at you there, let me know if you have any questions. There is no right or wrong way - most of us learned by trial and error, making mistakes along the way and getting help from the good folks on this site. Good luck!
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Read your leaves. Start feeding at 20% of feeding schedule…adjust as the leaves indicate.
Plants will consume major amounts of water/nutes during the flowering…so, be ready to add more.
I’m going to suggest something different: no nutes until flower! FF Ocean Forest has everything you need to grow cannabis. Adding more nutrients to an already hot soil will inevitably cause issues. Correctly PH’d water given when it’s needed is the best thing you can do.
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Hey,
We had a previous discussion regarding FF Ocean Forest soil to grow my plants from seedlings. Is FFOF considered hot, with nutrients, for the first 4-6 weeks of vegetation? I want to begin fertilizing if the time is right. Thanks, man.
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As I said above: FFOF has everything in it to get you all the way into flower. You don’t need anything but PH’d water. Do your plants look happy? If so, don’t do anything to change it. You have plenty of time to react to a deficiency should one occur.
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