Optimal Time To Introduce Nutes & Strength Of Nutes

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G'Day,

 

After a lengthy hiatus i am returning to one of my favorite hobbies. Problem is in the 3 years or so since i last put a plant on i have forgotten a great deal of information.

 

At the moment my little 7 day or so old seedlings have nute burn. I have decided to let them grow and see if they can recover or not. Today I have germed a new batch of seedlings and im looking at starting again correcting the mistakes that i made with the first batch. Anyways that's a little off topic,

 

I have spent the last day or so researching the topic of this thread and i have come up with a fair amount of varied information. There seems no definite answer as to how much nutes should you feed your seedlings and when to introduce it. Greg Greens Bible sets a guide line of a cautionary method where you feed the plant water until it has grown 3 sets of leaves (i'm not sure if this includes the sun petals or not?), then you plant it into your system using a 30% then 50% strength solution. This seems fairly wise as under fertilizing your plant is better than over fertilizing it.

 

I couldn't find any information in the Closet Cultivator book by Ed Rosenthal i have (i may have overlooked it though).

 

The guide i read that came with my set up advised to use half strength for the first two weeks.

 

I am using Canna Veg A+B nutes and the packaging on it advises use 1-2ml/L for first couple of weeks.

 

However, i think that using 50% strength nutes on seedlings after a week is too strong. The dude i talked to in the hydro shop today seemed to agree and so did a random that was in there too. The random dude recommended feeding only water for the first two weeks, set to a PH of 5.5. I am not sure if setting the PH would have any effect as its pure water with no nutes. It's my understanding that you set the PH to allow the plant to have access to the nutes, so if there was no nutes in the water would it really matter setting the PH? unless it was something ridiculous like a PH of 1 or 14 right? Out of our tap we have a PH of 8.5 which is fairly alkaline.

 

Way back in the day, being the poor cunt student that i was i wouldn't bother feeding nutes, i would just use water for the first 1.5 weeks then put into the system at full strength. This worked for me for the 3 grows i did.

 

What is your method? is cautionary best? At the moment i am thinking of this ...

 

1/ water in rockwool small cube till the roots break through

2/ transfer to large rockwool cube, plain water until the roots break through

3/ put into system with 30% strength nutes for first 2 weeks (under 600 watt light)

4/ after 2 weeks drain tank, add at a rate of 50%

 

so ... ^^ what do you guys think?

 

as for those interested in the seedlings i have burnt, i have put them under my 600 watter. The tank (40lt) has a 50% strength canna A + B, canna rhizotonic at 4mL/L & a few drops of superthrive. hopefully they bounce back, i've heard good things abt rhizotonic

 

Peace

[everest]

i always use plain water , and usually set the ph to 7 , but i use jiffy pots then into soil or hydro .. my tap water is similar to yours ... not that it really matters but i set ph out of habit ..

 

ev

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yeah ok sounds like a plan. I bought some "Seed 'n' Clone" & Canna "Rhizotonic". Both can be applied as foliar feeding. I'm thinking about using 30% of what they specify on the bottles as soon as the seedlings throw out thier second set of leaves (not incl sun petals)

 

For first phase of veg i have my seedlings under an 18 watt flouro. I am thinking of upping this, maybe getting two.

[jimbojones5678]

As I was reading your 1st post I was going to suggest that you buy some of the seed and clone food - it's very good and easy to use.

 

I start my clones/seedlings off on 0.6 EC of grow nutes once they have a decent root system, and slowly up it until I'm at full strength.

 

You can keep the seedlings under a fluro for quite some time, I usually keep them under fluros for about 2 wks.

 

Grow Hard,

 

Jimbo

[Frazz]

frazzalova method: plain water until 7-10 days old (or 1st set of real serrated leaves) then 0.06 EC or quarter strength nutes in already wet perlite/vermiculite medium

like i water with plain water before applying quarter strength nutes, so it is further diluted when it hits the medium

 

all da best with 'em

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thanks for the replies guys

 

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I had a chat with the dude at the local hydro shop today and he recomended that i don't use the 'seend 'n' clone' as it has nutes in it and will burn them if you use it too early.

 

Kind of clicked that i was getting nute burn on my seedlings probly due to using 50% canna A+B and the 'seed 'n' clone' way too early. The amount of nutes from the seed n clone would have compounded with the A+B thus giving greater than required nute strength at only 7 days in.

 

But yeah, lesson learnt cautionary approach = win

 

The dude at the shop also said that the Rhizotonic has no nutes in it, it smells like seaweed and you can use from day one. so ont he seedlings i've started im using it at 30% strength from day one. I'll update if it ends up being fail or otherwise.

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Oh and btw i think that spraying the seedlings with plain water and then with the seed n clone (if you are going to use it) is an awesome idea.