Silicon - Effects Of On Cannabis

[AdaminCO]

I use the liquid Potassium Silicate type products. Actually make my own from powder. The pH of those products is usually 11.5.

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• farside05
• Dec 8, 2019
• 5

I've never heard of any wait or sitting time for Silicon. Never seen it as a direction on any manufacturers bottle either. Same goes for Cal-Mag. I see people saying you must wait 15 minutes after adding it too. I bet those people believed their momma when she said "you have to wait 30 minutes after eating before you can go swimming or you'll get the cramps." Nothing is "bonding". You're not making a new substance. You're taking a solid (potassium silicate) that's been diluted in water, and further diluting it with more water.

I was skeptical too, trust me.
They don’t separate the nutes in MC, so I never messed with it. Lol

 

[AdaminCO]

Bet taken, and beaten.

Thanks brother. I've touted that line. Why? I read it, and don't have the smarts to dispute it. Instead I relied on more experienced grower(s), and there was never harm in the waiting, vs potentially causing precipitate to form.

We all do that from time to time. Hence me throwing it out there.
I forget who I heard that from, but it was on here a couple months back.
I stopped using it.

 

[TorturedSoul]

Bet taken, and beaten.

Thanks brother. I've touted that line. Why? I read it, and don't have the smarts to dispute it. Instead I relied on more experienced grower(s), and there was never harm in the waiting, vs potentially causing precipitate to form.

I think that precipitate forms when things are added in the wrong order. With some combinations (of nutrient components), you can end up with gypsum in your reservoir that way, which probably doesn't benefit a plant, at least in the short-term time frame that people gardening via hydroponics are concerned with. pH probably plays a part - send the pH to one or the other end of the scale, and something might drop out of suspension. Ergo, if one of the things you're adding to your brew tends to have that effect on pH, you'd naturally want to add it first, so you can at least hope that the next thing you add (a) isn't, itself, affected by this and (b) will help bring pH back toward the range at which you don't have to worry about it for the next additions.

I remember that, when using General Hydroponics products, the instruction was to always add their Calcium + Magnesium combination product before anything else, unless also using the Silicon supplement, in which case, that was supposed to be added even before the Ca+Mg supplement.

I also remember, back in eighth grade, my science teacher starting with a clear liquid, adding a different clear liquid, getting a colored liquid, adding another colored liquid, getting a (different) colored liquid - then adding something else and ending up with a clear liquid. Or something like that. The exact details elude me at this point in time (I would have been really high at the time, because that class was immediately after lunch). But the lesson did stick that the order in which you add substances can sometimes be just as important as what those substances are. I also recall the strong wording on the General Hydroponics three-part Flora series component jugs to never add one component directly to another. One reason for having separate components is that it gives the gardener some ability to customize the mix - but another reason is that, at least at reasonable concentrations, some elements just won't exist together without combining into a compound.

Ramble, ramble. . . .

 

[Roy Growin]

I use citric with the Si, seems to stop the water clouding when I add PK
And Bob - totally with you brother
Slava Ukraini

 

[farside05]

I think that precipitate forms when things are added in the wrong order. With some combinations (of nutrient components), you can end up with gypsum in your reservoir that way, which probably doesn't benefit a plant, at least in the short-term time frame that people gardening via hydroponics are concerned with. pH probably plays a part - send the pH to one or the other end of the scale, and something might drop out of suspension. Ergo, if one of the things you're adding to your brew tends to have that effect on pH, you'd naturally want to add it first, so you can at least hope that the next thing you add (a) isn't, itself, affected by this and (b) will help bring pH back toward the range at which you don't have to worry about it for the next additions.

I remember that, when using General Hydroponics products, the instruction was to always add their Calcium + Magnesium combination product before anything else, unless also using the Silicon supplement, in which case, that was supposed to be added even before the Ca+Mg supplement.

I also remember, back in eighth grade, my science teacher starting with a clear liquid, adding a different clear liquid, getting a colored liquid, adding another colored liquid, getting a (different) colored liquid - then adding something else and ending up with a clear liquid. Or something like that. The exact details elude me at this point in time (I would have been really high at the time, because that class was immediately after lunch). But the lesson did stick that the order in which you add substances can sometimes be just as important as what those substances are. I also recall the strong wording on the General Hydroponics three-part Flora series component jugs to never add one component directly to another. One reason for having separate components is that it gives the gardener some ability to customize the mix - but another reason is that, at least at reasonable concentrations, some elements just won't exist together without combining into a compound.

Ramble, ramble. . . .

Yes, the preferred order if additions is Silica supplement, Cal-Mag supplement, then your base nutes.

To elaborate...

Silica can fall out of suspension at low pH values. You don't want to add it to a very low pH solution which is why you add it 1st.

In higher concentration stock solutions, phosphates and sulfates do not play well with calcium. That's why you typically see 2 part liquid fertilizers (ie part A and part B). So part A typically has the calcium and part B usually has the phosphates and sulfates. When you add them both to your gallon of water, things are diluted enough that it doesn't cause a problem.

 

[TorturedSoul]

Just about everything about this stuff makes sense - and becomes (more or less) intuitive, once you learn the simple rules. Like... If you feel the need to immediately dechlorinate a gallon of water by pouring a capful of H₂O₂ in, you do so before adding anything else to that water, and while its pH is still high. It's not magic - it's just science.

One of the reasons I used to wish that cannabis, cultivation of was a legal activity was that, after you've been doing it for five minutes or so, you end up with knowledge and experience that would prove useful in other fields. As an example: A buddy of mine once BSed his way into getting hired as night employee at a city's municipal wastewater treatment plant. Several people there during the day, but only one at night. So he spent a week or so on day shift, "getting trained." Which basically consisted of him shadowing someone while they made the rounds, making sure that there were no problems, taking samples, and then going to the lab (yeah, there was a rather complete lab on site - you sort of have to realize I was going to end up there ) with them. He learned how to figure out the TDS the correct way (evaporate the liquid, then weigh what remained on a scale so accurate that it was kept in a glass case, on a 1,000-pound granite (marble?) table, that sat on four springs, on its very own concrete pad).

So, anyway, he learned how to operate the plant - but not how to deal with any problems that might arise. So his boss judged him to be adequately trained (translation: the guy stuck on midnight shift was b!tching), and told him he'd start his solo shift the following Monday. My buddy asked me if I wanted to hang out, keep him company, maybe see if I could make use of the lab (heh...). So there we were, smoking some hash oil that I'd brought. I glanced at the clock and asked, "Hey, didn't you tell me that you have to do your thing at 2:00am?" "Yeah, why?" "Uh... because it's a quarter after three." So he ran out of the break room. He ran back in, a few minutes later, and told me that he thought maybe he f*cked up. I asked what made him think that - and he said that the ringing I was hearing was an alarm, lol, and that it was going off everywhere in the facility. "And that's the only thing that's running," he said.

Whoops. And he wasn't really even sure where he was at when he noticed the alarm, let alone what, specifically, he'd done just prior to it going off. It was a small city - but it wasn't really what you'd call a small facility. Seven - no, eight separate buildings, stairs going up and down the hill, sidewalks everywhere, three basements (one of which had four levels in two sections that couldn't be accessed from each other), half a dozen big-@ss aeration tanks that you could have dropped a small house into, the biggest press I had ever seen, and more. And the lab, of course .

I asked, "Did your training cover this kind of thing?" "Man, I... NO!" Huh. Well, sh!t. So then I asked, "But you do have an operations manual of some sort, right? He pointed to six full bookshelves, and said, "Yeah, that's them right there." He was... Well, he wasn't slobbering, but I guess you could say that he was stoned stupid. In a bit of a panic. I guess it hits people in different ways - I was feeling mildly amused. Then again, it wasn't my paycheck, and it wasn't like they could send me off for a drug test. So I said, "Hit this and chill out a minute, let me think."

And we figured everything out. Turned out he had - among other things - shut down every one of the aerators on the big tanks, flipped the master switch when he tried to restart them, completely ignored the great big sign that said to only restart one at a time, tripped a breaker that looked big enough to run half a city, caused not one but two big Detroit Diesel powered generators to activate, jammed two large-capacity valves shut (when they're 20' up and controlled by a long chain, do not use your entire body weight to cause them to turn faster ), broke one - leakage ensued (he was able to deal with that repair - and it's a good thing because they sure weren't paying me to deflect sewage with MY face)... There was a little matter of the industrial-sized chlorine tank that he'd somehow managed to empty in the 20 minutes that we were diagnosing, instead of the three days that it was supposed to last. Luckily, that building had its own exhaust evacuation system, and it was on an independent circuit. Interestingly, the fans were in the floor (grated, of course). Yes, chlorine is heavier than air. I learned that part of the overall process uses organisms to deal with the biological portion of the sewage (or some of it). There were some other issues, but nothing major. Taken together, though, might have resulted in the shortest career, ever (duration: less than the buzz, ha ha). But get this - one of the things he'd goofed on was forgetting to replace the big circular sheet of paper that went in the machine that kept a general record of how things were going! Which was a simple @ss-chewing offense, LMAO. The plant actually had a big bank of what ultimately made up some kind of remote monitoring setup that had been installed years earlier, like 1967 or thereabouts - probably at a cost of several million dollars, what with government rates and all - and never used.

<LAUGHING> So we basically put everything to rights and got high again. In the end, it was actually pretty easy. The entire process was simple. BIG - but simple. And logical. Like... seventh-grade biology, and eighth-grade chemistry. Tenth-grade plumbing and PhD-level breath holding <WINK>. It was cool, because-- Well, for a variety of reasons. But one of them was because on a normal day, you couldn't have heard an artillery battle - but, after I shut off the last alarm, you could have heard a gnat fart, probably for the first time in more than half a century. At the beginning of his shift, he knew how to get this number, and that number, and what to do when this number is N, and what to do when it is >N.

By the end, he knew what the numbers actually meant. And I think he had the knowledge to be able to make useful predictions from the numbers.

Er... I kind of forgot what my point was, for a while. It's this: Anyone with even basic hydroponic gardening skills, along with half an ounce of common sense could have done that job in their sleep. But in order to get one, you had to have two out of three of: past military service and an honorable discharge, a benefactor in the local government, or related experience. That job was loud and much of it was... odoriferous. But it paid well, came with an excellent benefits package, and there was a ZERO chance of ever getting laid off - because sh!t happens. But it's not like I could have taped a picture of a hydroponic garden setup to the section where it asked for your experience in related jobs. Had that been the case, I'd probably be trying to decide whether I wanted to take a 60% pension and go to work somewhere else, or keep working for another ten years. And breathing without difficulty. . . .

 

[Buds Buddy]

Hey Bob - I think some are talking about Potassium Silicate (pH 9.0) and Salicylic Acid (pH 4.0)

The Article about Silica was referring mostly to Mono silicic acid which is the type of Silica I use. It's by Alchemist Stout & is really good stuff. Yes, it lowers the pH some. It's an acid. Kind of like using lemon juice to lower your pH.
As far as raising your pH you could use Baking Soda.

 

[Buds Buddy]

From what I understand it needs to sit before use in order to bond properly.
I heard 2 hours and all the way up to 24 hours. Lol

@farside05
What did you end up with on sitting time for Si?

That's for the Potassium Silicate Si. Mono Silicic Acid Si doesn't require that.

 

[farside05]

That's for the Potassium Silicate Si. Mono Silicic Acid Si doesn't require that.

There's no need to let potassium silicate wait either.

 

[Buds Buddy]

There's no need to let potassium silicate wait either.

I believe @Rexer found some info on it that says you have to let it sit to bond. Kind of doesn't make sense though since there's already some in your nutes.

 

[farside05]

"Bonding" would involve sort of chemical reaction that would change potassium silicate into some other, completely different substance.

There's a wealth of misinformation on the web. Even on this site.

Here's the instructions from Dyna-Gro on their Pro-Tekt (Potassium Silicate) product.

"Pro-TeKt is introduced first into the mixing tank/container then add ¾ of the intended volume of water. Finally, add the other nutrients and top off with the remaining volume of water. Because a very high pH is required to keep Pro-TeKt concentrate in solution, it is important to fully dilute it before adding other Dyna-Gro nutrient solutions which have low pH. Mixing the two concentrates without first diluting them will turn Pro-TeKt into a lump of silica gel!"

You are never told to wait any period of time.

 

[Redcup]

This question has some good answers already, i will just add a little more info. I hope this is informative without being too obtuse.

Silicon has been demonstrated to deposit in the plant cell walls and provide structural strength as well as resistance to invasive threats like powdery mildew. It may also be a growth elicitor (promote better growth). So its a highly useful addition.

You have a few options available, additives high in silicon for soil will provide small amounts of Si over a long period when mixed into the medium. This includes rice hulls, and wallastonite. In nature, silicon is present as silica (silicon dioxide) which is not very soluble but provides the silicon that plants take up.

In hydro or coco you will use a salt, (these will work in soil too) either potassium silicate KSi or orthosilicic acid (OSA). The most common and cheapest is KSi, which is Protekt for example. The KSi is high pH because it’s made using potassium hydroxide (which is also used as pH up). As previously posted, this must be kept at a high pH to keep it stable. At the pH we use for hydroponics, the silicon will polymerize and drop out, especially at high concentration. Generally in recirculating or with a large res, KSi will only be stable for a few days. You can also buy the dry salt directly and save more money.

The other choice for hydro is OSA, like PowerSi, which is a chelated form of silicon. Its considerably more expensive, because its a patented process and also needs a bit more processing. The benefit is that its more stable around 6.0 pH. It is acidic and may be easier to work with, and its more concentrated in that smaller amounts are needed. OSA is closer to the form that plants can directly take up.

Most growers use KSi for cost effectiveness but cheaper formulations of OSA are coming on to the market. KSi will readily polymerize and clog your emitters. In either case just adjust the pH.

 

[Icemud]

There is soild scientific basis for using "silicon" with marijuana cultivation - subpost to boost yields, ect. ----anyone ever use this ? from what I understand it helps plants produce strong trichomes when given silicon plants transport sisicon given to the roots from roots to trichomes making them stronger and tough. any information will be appreciated - best silicon is ?

There was a study I read a few years ago that showed potassium silicate had a direct effect on trichome production. I can't remember where I found the study though.

I have also read other studies that show increased silicate in cannabis (and other plants) reduces a lot of pest and insect pressure on crops as well as molds/mildews.

I personally have used both potassium silicate and silicon dioxide.

 

[safeman]

There was a study I read a few years ago that showed potassium silicate had a direct effect on trichome production. I can't remember where I found the study though.

I have also read other studies that show increased silicate in cannabis (and other plants) reduces a lot of pest and insect pressure on crops as well as molds/mildews.

I personally have used both potassium silicate and silicon dioxide.

you are correct - good info - that's one that should be used thru grow

 

[Redcup]

There was a study I read a few years ago that showed potassium silicate had a direct effect on trichome production. I can't remember where I found the study though.

I have also read other studies that show increased silicate in cannabis (and other plants) reduces a lot of pest and insect pressure on crops as well as molds/mildews.

I personally have used both potassium silicate and silicon dioxide.

I have never seen a study on silicon effect on trichome production, if you ever recall where you saw it i would love a reference.
Btw, silicon dioxide is not soluble in water, if the manufacturer lists it on a label they are being obscure. Sometimes they will list SiO2 and phosphoric acid as the ingredients, but that is really potassium silicate. Or they may list the percent of silicon as SiO2 but thats not the true ingredients.

 

[safeman]

I have never seen a study on silicon effect on trichome production, if you ever recall where you saw it i would love a reference.
Btw, silicon dioxide is not soluble in water, if the manufacturer lists it on a label they are being obscure. Sometimes they will list SiO2 and phosphoric acid as the ingredients, but that is really potassium silicate. Or they may list the percent of silicon as SiO2 but thats not the true ingredients.

I remember that also about trichome production -maybe not directly but it helps - not like a bloom booster talking about keeping a plant healthly that a lone can increase trichome productuion !! (will look for that article)