Help with my nute regimen please!

[Young Yoda]

Hi,

I've got a plant at about 5 weeks. She's doing pretty good but thanks to some members here I've diagnosed her with a calcium and maybe magnesium deficiency (cal-mag plus ordered).

My regimen at the moment includes only age old grow and protekt (I have age old bloom as well). I think the soil is pretty hot also as I added a dry veg mixture of all the usual organic nute sources to the soil during the first re potting.

As a total beginner, I would like to know if there are any other products I may need along the way that I don't know I need yet. From reading around I see a lot of different 'extra' nutes on top of the general grow/bloom phase products. What do I really need? / What will actually have a significant positive impact? Bloom booster?

As a side note, I really don't care about organic vs. chem nutrients. The organics I'm using only because it all came in a sampler I bought off ebay, and also because I feel like organic fertilizers probably contain a wide range of nutrients that I may not really be thinking about.

I will need more nutes after this grow so I am also looking at different nute lines, and would love some recommendations. Besides FF I am also looking at botanicare. The main thing I care about is completeness. In other words a couple supplements or boosting products I expect, but I don't want to have to buy bottle after bottle of nutes. One for veg and one for flower sounds nice.. But maybe too good too be true.

Thanks for your ideas!!

 

[Weaselcracker]

I've been using Botanicare for years and am happy with it. Just the two bottles, veg and bloom (power flower). Cal mag is essential in my case because I use rainwater. Everything besides that is optional. I haven't been using a bloom booster. I do add mollases sometimes in flowering as a sugar.
The only other thing I add regularly is tea. In the tea I brew I have quite a lot of beneficial bacteria and fungi and I also add Botanicare Liquid Karma and Hydroguard to it. The tea does wonders for plant health.

 

[Young Yoda]

Good to hear about botanicare.

Hmm, do you have to start thinking about the health of your micro heard as in super soil? Or do you just add your tea like nutes? Mind sharing your recipe?

Also, I hear see a lot of conflicting info on molasses.. Is it just for your bacteria or is it for the plant itself?

 

[Weaselcracker]

besides hopefully containing a lot of micronutrients and helpful bacteria and fungi, the tea isn't very strong as a nutrient, at about 150 ppm or less when full strength. I give it to the plants in the week in between feedings. I'm always changing my tea mixes at this point because -I'm just learning and- sometimes have trouble finding what ingredients I need.
This round I mixed in 5 gallons rainwater
3 cups worm castings/compost I dug from my pile
50 ml Liquid Karma
25 ml Hydroguard (another botanicare)
4 tsp mollases
Some Subculture B (powdered beneficial bacteria)
hmmmm what else...
At the end after bubbling(48 hours this time) before serving up the tea I mixed in 2 tsp Subculture M (beneficial fungi).
I first started making tea because of root rot and reading the Cap'ns thread about bennies here- Live or Sterile? Why I choose Live

You're stretching my knowledge a bit with those questions! I posted the one about the mollases on the Roach's thread, where greater minds than mine actually answer the question properly. I definitely think it makes the buds happier and better.

 

[Young Yoda]

Thank you so much for those links. Doing my best here to catch up on the teas..

Just a couple quick questions..
Since I don't have a compost pile I need something like gh ancient forest alaska humus amendment?
Are you doing hydroguard in soil?

In general I'm having a lot of difficulty figuring out what all these nutrient products do.. There's just one after the other with a lot of overlap between product lines. Any chance you've stumbled across some pages that might help me do broad research on all the common products used for our application? And I mean both general plant nutrition as well as microbial life.

 

[Weaselcracker]

Yes. I can't buy ancient forest where I live but my understanding is that humic acid is a key ingredient for the tea. I got that info here- GreenThumb J's Modified Heisenberg Tea - Blogs - 420 Magazine ®

(I take that back- i remember now GreenThumb J told me in his journal that the ancient forest is there as a source of humic acid- but the info should be in that link I think)
Liquid karma has some humic acid and it's possible to find various sources of it. The hydroguard is a source of bacillus beneficial bacteria. Growing in sunshine mix at the moment - peat moss and vermiculite. I mix some powdered beneficial fungi and bacteria (subculture m and b) into the sunshine mix in a large tote and keep it moist. That's my basic 'soil' and with that and the occasional teas I'm hopefully keeping some sort of helpful colonies of symbiotic life growing in my plant roots. The root rot epidemic is long gone and my plants seem to be thriving so I'm happy with my invisible bennies even though I can't prove they exist.

As for the nutrient basics. Hmmm... I hope someday I'm a lot less ignorant of how it all works than I am now. I'm slowly starting to learn what deficincies are which and get my plants to 95% health by eliminating problems. I can't think of the reading material you mention but I'm sure it's in here. There is several lifetimes worth of reading on the subject in this forum I'm sure. I think the number of products available makes it look more confusing than necessary. There is N,P,K and some micronutrients and bennies. It's basically all the same stuff arranged in different ratios and concentrations. Any decent nutrient line should just have two or three bottles which you can use to grow with perfectly well. Then there are usually a pile of fancy looking additives and frills which are generally unnecessary but help tweak things a little. If you post questions in the forum people can explain their nutrient lineups.
There's an oldish thread here comparing some nutrient lines. Maybe worth a read. A top nutrient study - Which is the best? Produces most? a little searching will probably find you something better. I grew Neanderthal style before I joined this forum and am just catching up with learning what I'm doing now. Whew a lot of typing hope this helps

 

[Young Yoda]

Yes, there definitely is a lot to read here.. I'm trying to read more than I write but every answer just raises more questions! Thanks for the links, it definitely helps, ill be looking through them more.

Ok so, theoretically this could be done with?
subculture m (bacillus)
hydroguard (myco)
liquid karma (humic)
molasses
EDIT: and airstone and bucket of course

Do you cover the bucket?
EDIT: Only asking cuz I don't want it smelling up inside and I'm guessing there's a risk of baddies invading if I leave it outside?

 

[Weaselcracker]

Sub M is myco and Hydroguard is bacillus, for what it's worth. Subculture B is bacillus bacteria.
The myco is a fungus that grows on plant roots. I added it to the mix at the end for convenience. It's not actually part of the tea though. My understanding is that it needs to live on roots- so wouldn't thrive in the tea the way bacteria does, and would probably die if it was in there the whole time.
The tea is mainly about producing a large army of hungry beneficial bacteria, which hopefully are going to eat any harmful elements in your root zone, and provide other benefits I am too ignorant to understand and write about here.

The basic tea recipe as I dimly understand it is all about - sources of bacteria, and food for it to thrive and grow into a large population.
Sources of beneficial bacteria- Compost/worm castings, subculture B, Hydroguard, Great White and plenty of other commercial products
Food for them - molasses, humus, fish or kelp based nutrient, and nutrient in the compost

I don't cover the bucket. I put it somewhere warm and put an airstone fish tank bubbler in it attached to an air pump. The bubbler is essential. I bubble 24-48 hours.


I'm sort of feeling my way in the dark over this one and I know you will learn more by posting somewhere where you can find people who actually know what they're talking about . The Roach's thread would be good. SweetSue's current journal The Joy Of Growing - SweetSue Goes Perpetual would have an even larger swarm of friendly organic experts who could keep you busy reading for many days.
If you don't maybe I will because I'm curious what the basics are too. I'm pretty sure the bare bones tea is just compost and mollases and a bit of fish/kelp fertilizer.

 

[Young Yoda]

Done. Thanks for the suggestion. And for clearing up which was which, I had just read about both products so im feeling pretty silly