The trio is stand alone. Only changes are the amounts of each part for each stage. I bought it for hydro and hated hydro. Probably could restart since lungroom is spot on now.
The line is made and designed for start to finish growing stand alone mostly. Additional nutes on top, especially highly concentrated boosters, will be more detrimental than helpfull. We all want big buds but environment and uptake will trump heavy feed all day. Hydro and coco can get away with it a bit. Dialed in…perfect conditions. Most of us cant.
Here is the thing. A plant wont take up more than it wants and shocking them with toxic feed levels will lock them right up or burn the foliage unrecoverably. Trust your nute line, yours is reputable, and concentrate on PH and environment I suggest. Just what I have experienced. I have done liquid/dry styles. Hydro run. And settled into dry ammendment organic myself
So just use the trio I am using, with nothing else is what you’re saying?
Yessir. Its magic is strong grasshopper. Stay on suggested amounts. Go to the site to see any additions needed. Would only be calmag. I forget but comfy saying that. I finished the bottles off in soil grow. Great results. I dry ammend now since I am too lazy to mix.
Does dry mix work better or is it just easier? What kind do you use?
For clarification you are using FF Big Bloom like this along with GH flora trio(gro, bloom, and micro)?
Like @Storm said, that can be an issue itself since FF Big Bloom has micros in it. As their name suggests micro nutrients are needed in very small quantities so Flora Micro + Big Bloom could create toxic levels of micros and/or react with other nutes and make them unusable. It’s best not to mix different brands since each brand uses a different formulation. They use the same base elements but often don’t get along due to their different ratios or elements in each part. If you want to use a bloom booster with the flora trio then you can use GH KoolBloom like this.
It’s not required to grow healthy plants, but in some cases like coco or hydro it can improve the ratio of nutrient elements for more precise feeding. I’m not sure how much difference it would make in soil though since soil has more buffer capacity.
That is a topic of great debate among growers. The question at hand would be organic(dry ammendment/living soil) VS Synthetic (salt based nutes). They both have pros and cons and both can produce fine kind. There is some evidence to suggest that organics might produce slightly better quality, but synthetics produce faster growth. Either way 99% of the outcome is how well you utilize what you have rather than which method you use. My personal opinion is organics for soil (I and many others on here use Roadside Organics Highway Dust with a few tweaks) and synthetics for soilless media(I like GH products because they are very stable in a res, but there are cheaper options that work well too).
The dry amendment(ground up rocks, plant, and animal products like Glacial rock dust, kelp meal, and bone meal to name a few) isn’t instantly usable by plants. They have to be broken down into simple nutrients by the micro organisms living in the soil. In essence you feed the micro herd and the micro herd feeds the plant. The dosing and PH management is handled by the micro herd. The drawbacks are that it takes a few weeks for the micro herd to do it’s thing and you have maintain a healthy soil environment to keep the good guys thriving and the bad guys at bay. If you stay on top of it then it’s as easy as topdressing every 3 to 4 weeks and keeping the soil damp, but once it gets away from you pathogens can take over and it can take a couple weeks to get back in the zone and that can make it difficult for some people. Having good soil structure to start with will make it a lot easier to get started.
Synthetic nutes are already broken down and instantly available. If you make a mistake then you can correct it within a day or two, but you have to do the job of those microbes like PH adjustment and dosing. Generally you will also use more water and have to feed every few days rather than every few weeks. In coco or hydro applications it can be tough to keep the micro heard happy in that unnatural environment so synthetics might be easier in those situations.
Nice explanation.
Great information! Thank you. I do use the trio but not the fox farm. It’s big bud by advanced nutrients that I use with the trio but if it is hurting, then I won’t use it
Don’t get too discouraged. Some people are lucky and just get it right away, but most of us had to learn over time. Your in the right place. Just ask questions if you don’t understand something and I bet you’ll see your quality and yield improve. Before you know it you’ll be growing big beautiful monsters too.
At a glance I doubt the big bud alone is the source of your issues. It looks like it’s just K,P, and S and relatively mild. I’d still cut it out to get to the source of your issues, but I bet there is something else going on. Is that 4 weeks in flower or 4 weeks from sexual maturity? Either way it’s probably too soon to see that much fade and pistil death. The pic looks like it could be lockout. My first thought would be high soil salinity caused by under watering or overfeeding. Are you getting runoff each watering? What are you using for a nutrient schedule/mixing instructions? Both EC and PH going in and coming out would also help us figure out what is off.
I do get run off but not a lot and I haven’t tested it yet. My feeding schedule is water then nutrients. That’s about every 3 to 4 days. Possible that it’s too much nutrients. My next watering is just water, maybe a good soaking? I only started indoor a year ago and it’s been frustrating. I have been growing outdoors since I was a kid and rarely have problems. I keep an eye on temps and humidity daily and I do have a good spot indoors for those factors, so I am thinking it’s a nutrient issue. I do feed at full strength now. Those plants are 4 week into flower, they look good, smell good and are already very sticky. They are sweet tooth auto from ILGM My concern is the leaves getting lighter because that is how my last batch started and went downhill fast as you can see from my original pics.
I too started outdoor and still love it. I will argue till the bitter end that there is no substitute for sun and earth. Indoor is a completely different animal with a different set of skills and problems.
If you haven’t flushed out the soil since you started PHing your water there is a high probability that your soil PH and/or salinity is still out of wack preventing the plant being able to utilize those nutes or any fresh nutes you add. Even if the water going in is correct.That’s what we mean by lockout and possibly why they just spiral down hill. To clear the salts that are throwing off your root zone conditions it takes a ton of water. A three gal pot might take 9 gal of water to dissolve those salts and wash them out of the soil if it’s bad. That’s why the runoff numbers are so important. It tells you how much of those salts are washing out.
Once the root zone is in range then we can balance the ratio of individual nutrients (N,P,K, etc), The total strength of nutrient solution(EC), The frequency of watering, and the volume of water at each watering event with the stage of growth to keep that root zone in the sweet spot where plant can efficiently use them. When the plant starts flowering the amount of water and nutrients needed goes through the roof and ratios change throughout flower. here’s a basic guideline for Flora trio.
Each plant is going to be a little different. Even if seeds come from the same parents, each one will have it’s own preferences. It’s best to feed light then increase as needed. Underfeeding is almost always better in the end than overfeeding. An underfed plant will just be small, but an overfed plant will often stop growing all together.
Ok thanks. When I water this week, I will give them a nice flush and see what the PH is in the runoff . Should it be close to the same going in and out?
Would not worrie about electricity if your using LED, the newer LED’S are pretty efficient. I used a 320 watt LED made by Ion, I think. My bud turned out tight, and hard.
yup, +/- .5 PH is reasonable. If it’s out of range keep adding water until it comes back in range. Didn’t you say you have a meter that also measures EC and PPM? If so you’ll want to water until PH is in range and EC reads close to 1000uS/cm then immediately feed to charge the soil with properly balanced nutes. That will increase the runoff EC quite a bit but the PH shouldn’t change much. If your meter only has a 3 digit display then it will read 1.00mS/cm in stead of 1000uS/cm. It’s the same thing it just moves the decimal so it fits on a 3 digit display. hope that makes sense to ya
Yes, my meter does read that too. Tomorrow I will do that, thanks and fingers crossed!
I have been trying to get dense buds, my outdoor stuff is always dense but not indoor, I just got a 320 watt spider farmer so I hope that helps.
6.1 runoff, is that ok?
6.1 PH is on the low end for flower, but it’s ok. Just keep an eye on it. If it keeps dropping you’ll want to bring it back up.
Sorry, I was trying to figure out this meter. i tested another plant, the original ugly one I posted. the runoff is 5.5 but the ppm is 2500. I think that means more flushing is needed correct?
Yup, you’ll want to bring it up above 6.3ish Ph and around 700 ppm. The ph will probably come in line before the ppm. She might droop a little with all the water running through. It’s normal and she’ll stand back up in a day or so.
