High Brix Hydroponics

[Skybound]

I've pretty much settled on the idea of just foliar feeding the calcium to my plants. Though I understand foliar feeding, I haven't done it and was curious about a couple specific things if you guys have ideas.

1. Are magnesium and low amounts of sulphur well received via foliar feeding or better left out?
2. Do you think there's any inherent damage to mixing in a little carbonated water into the foliar with calcium carbonate to introduce CO2 to the water and help enhance solubility? Since this is hitting the leaves and not the roots it seems like it could actually be very beneficial, but not positive.

I'm very much a novice about foliar applications, so take my words with a grain of salt, but I would be concerned about adding reactive substances to the leaves, but I will tr to work this idea into my studies because it sounds great in theory, like how amino acids chelate calcium, but after the 2 are separated, the amino is used for something else, so if we could spray a solution that first releases some CO2 before being absorbed into the leaf, that would be a desirable effect if it's doable.

Lots of people use Epsom for foliar sprays so I'm strongly leaning that mag and S are good for foliar application.

 

[Skybound]

LOL dude in my world this would be a disaster waiting to happen. Can just see myself wide eyed saying, "oh shit" as I look around the part of the bedroom I accidentally just sprayed down with calcium via pressure washer

Fuck around and sneeze and accidentally blast off the whole plant, LMFAO

I would first completely disable to primary function as a super redundancy!

 

[Aroxol]

I'm very much a novice about foliar applications, so take my words with a grain of salt, but I would be concerned about adding reactive substances to the leaves, but I will tr to work this idea into my studies because it sounds great in theory, like how amino acids chelate calcium, but after the 2 are separated, the amino is used for something else, so if we could spray a solution that first releases some CO2 before being absorbed into the leaf, that would be a desirable effect if it's doable.

Lots of people use Epsom for foliar sprays so I'm strongly leaning that mag and S are good for foliar application.

I've been using sea salt lately (yes sea, not epsom) and I'm taking it a step further with bamboo salt which has higher concentration of sulphur. My thought is to foliar feed water infused with small amounts of bamboo sea salt, age old cal, and maybe a small amount of carbonated water (only because I'm reading on beer brewing forums the CO2 in carbonated water makes cal carbonate soluble). All pretty new but fun to play with.

 

[Skybound]

I think the rules of solubility are less applicable to foliar feeding than they are for roots. Chelated calcium for example is soluble for foliar spraying, but not reservoir mixing. I learned that the hard way, lol. Vinegar will chemically strip the calcium from carbonate which makes it a liquid. IDK if vinegar would be bad for leaves though.

 

[FelipeBlu]

vinegar would be bad for leaves though.

Vinegar is about pH 3. I would think it would be disastrous.

 

[Skybound]

Vinegar is about pH 3. I would think it would be disastrous.

surprisingly for at least the first 3 days after mixing with calcium carbonate it is highly basic, I estimate more days too but as soon as I seen the health of my plants dip I had to switch back. PH was a nightmare to keep down. Emilya's Egg Shell project shows that the PH goes back down over time, but it will never be down as low as 3 again. PH Up is made of calcium carbonate.

 

[FelipeBlu]

Hey Sky,
Ran across this:

Sulfur also aids in the translocation of sugars and starches down to the roots. This is why it is considered such a critical nutrient in root crops. Gypsum is often side dressed in crops like peanuts and potatoes to stimulate this translocation. If brix levels do not rise during the day it can be due to a sulfur deficiency. Excess nitrates, with their inevitable nutrient dilution factor, may be accumulating in the leaf due to a lack of sulfur. The other likely cause of brix levels remaining static throughout the day is a boron deficiency, as this mineral opens the trapdoor, which allows the nightly movement of sugars from the chloroplasts in the leaf down to the roots.

Starving For Sulfur

What protective mineral fell free from the skies for many decades until legislation shut down supply? Ironically, this “pollutant” counters toxicity in humans and animals and helps to neutralise the negatives associated with excess nitrates in the food chain and environment. This pungent...

blog.nutri-tech.com.au

 

[Skybound]

Hey Sky,
Ran across this:

Sulfur also aids in the translocation of sugars and starches down to the roots. This is why it is considered such a critical nutrient in root crops. Gypsum is often side dressed in crops like peanuts and potatoes to stimulate this translocation. If brix levels do not rise during the day it can be due to a sulfur deficiency. Excess nitrates, with their inevitable nutrient dilution factor, may be accumulating in the leaf due to a lack of sulfur. The other likely cause of brix levels remaining static throughout the day is a boron deficiency, as this mineral opens the trapdoor, which allows the nightly movement of sugars from the chloroplasts in the leaf down to the roots.

Starving For Sulfur

What protective mineral fell free from the skies for many decades until legislation shut down supply? Ironically, this “pollutant” counters toxicity in humans and animals and helps to neutralise the negatives associated with excess nitrates in the food chain and environment. This pungent...

blog.nutri-tech.com.au

Awesome find Felipe! That is in full agreement with everything else I've been reading the bast few days, and ties that to what I learned some months ago about sulfur.

 

[FelipeBlu]

And this:

The Citric Acid cycle--acetyl CoA is used repeatedly and contains sulfur. Furthermore, acetyl-CoA can later be condensed to acetoacetyl-CoA which is an essential reactant in the pathway leading to production of isoprenoids (the monomer units that make up terpenes, and frankly most cyclical molecules in biochemistry).

 

[FelipeBlu]

I recently picked up some battery acid (33% sulfuric acid) at the auto parts store - to make my own “pH Down”. I figured it was also a way to add a little more sulfur.

 

[FelipeBlu]

I then diluted this product (17ml into 250ml distilled water). If I did the maths right, each ml of “pH Down” should provide about 19ppm S. I’m currently using about 1.5ml (+29ppm S) to get to my target pH.

I need to use a pH down anyway, and if I use Epsom salt to add the sulfur, I would be getting my Mg out of the ratio I like (3Ca:1Mg).

 

[Skybound]

I recently read to be careful when choosing buffers, especially if it's something that will be taken up. If the sulfur is taken in, it won't be in the drink to buffer anymore.

 

[Skybound]

I'm going a different direction with my Ca:Mg ratio. After seeing some green spotting on old leaves, and also reading about how Mag can be as much as on par with Cal, plus also how important Mag is for creating chlorophyll as well as carbs, I've decided to give all my previous Mag targets a 5ppm bump. I also bumped my P targets across the board by 5ppm as well with hopes of chasing out the last of the reddening petioles. It seems my sulfur targets were not only reached, but exceeded which I view as a very good thing. I'm trying out using gypsum as a secondary source of calcium. I can't make a concentrate of it, so I'll have to weigh out the grams for each res change. I also need to be very watchful for any issues at all regarding unmanageable PH or an onset of Ca deficiency if I'm misunderstanding how gypsum can be used. Everywhere says it's soluble till north of 2.5 grams per liter, I'm only going to be using ~1.5 grams per gallon, and I can't find anywhere that says or suggests it shouldn't be used in hydro so I'll give it a whirl, if for no other reason than to rule it out as I have with chelated calcium, calcium edta, calcium carbonate and calcium acetate. If this fails, I want to revisit calcium acetate, but I gotta do some more snooping specifically about that.

My targets are on the left, the errors are on the right, and for the N on the right I have it to mean NO3 + NH4+ so I can also see ammonical N. I want to internalize the ratio between the N's for later use. Micros is a fixed dose at 3.78ml/Gal that I round up to 38 to mix 10 gals. Gypsum represents total powder weight to make 10 gals. My veg is 6 gallons of RO and x3, x4 and x5 are mathed out options I give myself depending TDS I want to reach.

 

[Pennywise]

Now to see how this works out.

 

[Skybound]

Now to see how this works out.

The good thing about a perpetual grow is I have'em alive at every stage so can test an entire grow in just a few weeks, but the bad thing is that because I need all to live and produce, I can only make baby adjustments and be willing to accept a possible loss of yield in the process. My last chop was also subpar despite the plant looking so well all throughout. A month ago I tested calcium carbonate in water, then again in vinegar back to back and both tests gave me wicked PH swing and for a week I was killing the water with PH Down. I reverted my feed just as the leaves were starting to express Ca def, but the spotting from the induced PH issue did just enough damage to cost me a few zips. This time I will put one week between the adoption of gypsum so if I cause damage, it will only be one or two rooms, but not the whole grow.

 

[Pennywise]

Yes this is a long term project so go slow.

 

[FelipeBlu]

[QUOTE="Skybound, post: 4470633, member: 144844"]
I recently read to be careful when choosing buffers, especially if it's something that will be taken up. If the sulfur is taken in, it won't be in the drink to buffer anymore.
[/QUOTE]

Thanks for that tip. I suppose it also happens to some extent with store-bought pH down (with phosphoric acid), but atm, since I decided to leave her in a smaller pot, she is drinking enough every day to empty the reservoir (it’s a 100% perlite hempy grow in a 1.5 gal wastebasket, so only about 875ml reservoir capacity). So there’s very little time for the solution to change - a totally different scenario than DWC or flood/drain, where ya have to maintain a large reservoir.

Next time, I’ll bump up the pot size to give me a 2-day reservoir during flowering. Then it might be an issue.

 

[Skybound]

Thanks for that tip. I suppose it also happens to some extent with store-bought pH down (with phosphoric acid),

This reminds me, I wanted to correct myself yesterday when I said CalCarbo is in PH Up. It was Potassium Carbo that's in the Up.

Is that system like an over/under with a Venturi water lift that steady trickles a top feed from below? GH sells those kits with some sample GH 3 part, those are very reliable and passively feed like a coffee percolator.

 

[Weaselcracker]

This reminds me, I wanted to correct myself yesterday when I said CalCarbo is in PH Up.

For ph up I usually use sodium hydroxide- which is the ‘spa and pool’ stuff. I do have some store-bought ph+, which is potassium hydroxide.

 

[FelipeBlu]

Is that system like an over/under with a Venturi water lift that steady trickles a top feed from below? GH sells those kits with some sample GH 3 part, those are very reliable and passively feed like a coffee percolator.

No, nothing fancy like that.

It’s a Dollar Store wastebasket, with a 1/2” hole 2” up from the bottom, and filled with perlite.

I really should have uppotted before flowering.