Hi errbody. So yesterday I put all my ladies under an ez-up for the last half of the day and misted them. They’re already doing better and showing less signs of heat stress! However, I have a new problem I think.
I got my ppm meter and ran distilled water through my girls so I could test the pH and ppm of their runoff. Some of the girls gave a little runoff while others were giving runoff before I even finished dumping the gallon. The problem is that the HIGHEST reading I got was something like 320. I remember reading they should be around 750 in their vegetative state. This makes me think they don’t have many nutrients available in their soil–which could be adding to the problems.
Something to consider: yesterday was their normal day for nutrient feeding, but with the various problems that have been going on, I decided not to give them their usual nutrients last night. That means that their last nutrient feeding was a week ago, so perhaps their were no nutrients because they were already used up from the week before? Additionally, I also remember that with how hot it is, nutrients may be getting pushed around them way too fast, which means that maybe there were no nutrients in the soil for THAT reason. But, one of the problems suggested was that it could be heat-induced nutrient burn so I don’t want to end up giving them the wrong thing.
And, testing the pH of my big girls, their runoff ranged from 6.09-6.45. These are the lowest readings I’ve gotten off of them–could it be because I ran distilled water through them rather than their regular 6.5 pH’d water? (I use pH down to get their water to the right pH). How accurate is this reading and should I be concerned?
Bottom line: my TDS results are way too low, correct? Is it likely they are low either because they’re due for a feeding or because the nutrients have already been pushed around and used up? Both? Neither? Should I go ahead and give them their nutrients tonight (it was suggested to do 1/3 of their regular dose) or what should I do to fix the ppm and possibly pH problem? Thank you everyone!