A customer has a question or concerns and I hope we can get some opinions on it, thanks
"I am growing for 2 years now. But my results are a shame compared to what you show here. Everything goes best on 18/6. As soon as I move to 12/12, my leaves start showing problems. And at the end, when I dispose the plant, the roots are terrible. It is very important do feed the plants with 20% runoff water, right? I wasn’t doing it. I was used to feed them with Bio Bizz. At that time all went well. Except that I had small harvest. But very fine. Then I started with GH Nutrients and drip irrigation system. And things went terrible wrong. I saw pictures of drip irrigation system in professional farms and was fascinated. Time saver! I measured PH and EC of runoff and was surprised with values: EC 10!!! It looks like I have my answer. Lot of salt built at root zone. Anyway, I will fill the questions, so maybe more advice can be given, if you don’t mind. I live in Brazil, I really love growing. Is a nice hobby and maybe I can run a professional farm in the future. Maybe you guys know a place where I could learn? join a workshop? Whatever help I appreciate.
Strain (type, bag seed): Vanilla Kush; Tangie Dream; Master Kush; Power Plant; OG Lemon Kush; Aywuaska Haze.
Soil in pots, hydroponic, or coco?: Pots. I was using 1/4 coco; 1/4 hummus; 1/4 Peat Moss and 1/4 perlite. This subtrate was a bit complicated. So I tried to simplify things and tried 100% Coco coir. But after some research I discovered that brazilian coco coir is not good: way too much salt. Any other hint for me here ?
PH of runoff or solution in reservoir?: Run off PH 5.2. I am feeding with 6.0 adjusted with Potassium Hydroxid
What is strength of nutrient mix? EC, or TDS: EC 1.0 at the beginning of 12/12 period; increasing 0.2 every week. Untill EC 2.2 on week 6. Week 7 EC 0.4 and then week 8 flush.
Indoor or outdoor: Indoor
Light system, size?: 1 x HPS 600 W and 1 Led 300 Watt (5G growsun series) next to each other.
Temps day, night: Day range: 23C to 28 C; night range: 20C to 24C depending on weather conditions. Weather is crazy outside. I live in Sao Paulo City exactly at tropic of Capricorn. And lately we had 34 C IN WINTER !!!
Humidity day, night: 50 % to 70 % depending on weather conditions
Ventilation system (yes/no, size): Yes. 2 x fans inside ( 1 on top and 1 on side); 1 X 100 mm extrator fan in cool tube and 1 x 100 mm exaustor intake.
AC, humidifier, de-humidifier?: Just de-humidifier 200 W. Sometimes it is very wet. Not right now.
If you know you have a lot of salt build up in soil you might want to consider flushing the plants just firm you comment I’m thinking you are locking out nutrients with the salt build up
Most chemical nutrients will leave a lot of salt in soil and need to be flushed FYI
I use the fox farm products and found the same issue
With salt build up and found two or more flush per grow to be necessary I have been trying new organic nutrients tho so I would need to flush due to salt
I’ve heard the flower power they offer at Iglm is very good line and plan on trying them next you might also consider trying them justva thought
Hope this helps
Happy growing CB
Couple of things, coco dries out really quickly and needs water and nutrients daily and the plants need different nutrients when they go into flowering (12/12 lights) Since you haven’t listed what you use for nutrients it is hard for us to know exactly what is causing the issue, but as @Countryboyjvd1971 pointed out, flushing is important and most nutrient lines include that info with their feeding charts!
The biggest tip i can give you is join the forum and see if we can’t work with you a little one on one (or two on one) we might be able to figure this out rather quickly!
I gotta agree with @Countryboyjvd1971 coco holds salt like a jar. With my coco grow I flush every 2 weeks like clockwork only if I’m in a bind would I go 3 weeks. I’m only familiar with fox form liquid nutes, but would assume bio buzz is kinda the same the general hydroponics I was told had less salt but don’t quote me on that…
Ok with my coco and soil grows I maintain ph . No fluctuation of any kind . 5.8 for coco going in and if the run is more then 0.1 maybe 0.2 different you know you have a problem. My run off stays the same unless I have a problem.
Great. I already flushed. It looks like the problem is under control. A few leaves are already gone, but the most are still there and is not geting worst. We are going to week 4 here. In a few weeks I will leave a new message. Thanks
I am using the flora series of GH. Their website have a feed chart generator with a feeding schedule week by week. I am following the program recommended there.
And I already went back with my old substrate mix: 1/4 coco; 1/4 hummus; 1/4 Peat Moss and 1/4 perlite.
Thanks
You say: “5.8 for coco going in and if the run is more then 0.1 maybe 0.2 different you know you have a problem”
Is that on the very same water day ? Water in, water out ? Or in the next feed ? I mean, does the water out hold PH over the days between water ? I was wondering if the substrate holds PH stable during 4 or 5 days ?
Thank you
Let me clarify I water to run off, water or nutes in at ph 5.8
The run off should stay the same. Any variance and it a clue to a problem.
Useing a feed , feed , water , feed, feed , water schedule at 1/4 - 1/2 strength no days off. This is my schedule no days off , gives less time for the ph to move in the medium. As long as my ppm is over 600 . I haven’t had any ph swings
So you don’t water with 20 % runoff. Many people say it is important to water until 20 % runoff. But than the medium is so wet, that one don’t need to water for the next 4 days.
I will try a similar schedule in a few plants here ! Thanks mate.
I just finished a grow with a 70/30 coco perlite mix.
Number one mistake folks make with coco (me too) is to treat it like soil.
You cannot over water coco. It does not matter that it appears “wet” as there is a huge school of thought that coco “should never dry out.”
I have a 10 gallon pot with two plants in it growing in coco. Water with nutes twice daily, every day. I always water to 10% or thereabouts, runoff. Must have runoff. You cannot water too much if you have runoff.
These plants, watered (spelled fed) twice daily since established, never flushed and they remain quite healthy. Not saying flushing doesn’t have it’s place but I have no flushings in my nute schedule until the last 10 days they get plain water with a ph of 5.8.
CB 
