Here is what I found on the Lucas Formula...
Lucas Formula (actual)
To grow with the Lucas formula you use 8ml micro, 16ml bloom, GH Flora Series nutes. this should come in around 2.0 EC and works great for HPS light.. (or MH if you are oldschool and want lower yields)
for fluorescent light, I suggest you drop nutes strength to 5ml micro, 10ml bloom, per gallon of water, about EC 1.4 ( as a rule of thumb, I would try not to exceed 1000ppm @.7 conversion
when using fluoro light )
I veg with bloom nutes if veg happens under HID
alternatively, you can grow with GH Flora Nova Bloom, a one part nute.. and you could veg with their Veg formula, which will produce a LOT of veg growth.. taller plants, larger (hollow) stems...
for a 600w light, in hydro, I would use a rule of thumb of 1.5 gallons of reservoir or root zone medium per 50 watts of light..
that means 18 gallons for a 600w lamp..
that could be 18 1 gallon pots of hand watered medium, or ONE 18 gallon pot per 600 watt lamp.
Consider a Hydro Hut with a Multiflow system.. the Hydro Hut will provide light proofing, the frame of the hut will support your light and fans, and the Multiflow will provide an ebb flow system with pots large enough (2 gallons), to support large plants, I suggest 9 buckets per 600w.. in a 3x3 hydro hut...
as to your question about what size to grow the plants to.. I suggest you veg to a height of 18"-24" before blooming... cut off the top 4", and remove the bottom 3 branch pairs 2 weeks before blooming.. Expect the plants to grow an additional 2-3 feet taller after you begin 12/12 lighting..
in terms of multiple lights, for each 600w, provide a 3x3' footprint, regardless of whether you fill it with one plant or nine.
btw, the reason the tomato outside grew smaller than indoors, was partly because it got less hours of light per day..
I have great respect for people who grow in handwatered pots.. my bias is to hydro because of the automatic irrigation.. allowing for unattended gardening for a week at a time..
I also like to use a standardized nutes program, instead of trying to teach people how to "feel" what the plant needs. Many beginning gardeners chase perceived nutrient defficiencies with additives that create more nutrient problems...
plants grow well despite all the things we do to try and force them to grow bigger faster and stronger.. focus on good light, good air, good temps, good irrigation and oxygen delivery, and good feeding strategies.. iow, focus on everything <g>, then try to do less and let the plants grow.
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The current Lucasized Formula with GH Flora is still 0-8-16 as you said. Other nutes, such as PBP can also be made to approximate similar NPKMg values, for example PBPBloom @ 15ml/gal plus 5ml/gal Cal Mag.., or 8ml/gal Flora Nova Bloom
Both with target TDS @.7 of about 1300ppm (use less FNB, like 6ml/gal if your TDS exceeds 1400 with 8ml)
The original reservoir strategy I learned from pH was to dump and replace as you described, once an equal volume of addback water has reached. IOW, when a 20 gallon res, got 20 gallons of top up water, the res was dumped and refilled at fresh 0-8-16. This was not with pH adjusted water, because it works best to allow the res pH to fluctuate within a range of 5.3 to 6.3
An alternate reservoir management strategy I now prefer, is to add nutes to the reservoir in the
addback water. The goal is to bring the reservoir back up to 1300ppm. In this strategy, I feel a single res change at harvest is sufficient.
Despite the obvious concern that this non dumping approach allows toxins to build up, I never experienced toxin buildup. this surprised me and caused me to alter my thinking about plant metabolism. It seems they do not excrete toxins the way organisms with digestive tracts do.
How much nutes goes in the addback water varies by res to light ratio. For example, a 50 gallon res under a single 1k can be topped with 33% of 0-8-16, and the 1300 tds will be approximately achieved... Im not a stickler for that number, and am happy fluctuating anywhere between 1100 and 1500ppm over the course of a week, such that if one chooses to top only with water for a few days, the nuteing can be done in a single session each week.
If the same 50 gallon res is used under twice as much light, it will probably require twice as much nutes in the addback water.
The most primary concern is to achieve the TDS increase, while staying within pH range
adding nutes lowers pH, so sometimes one can avoid pH adjusting, by adding more or less nutes
adding water raises pH, so dont adjust a reservoir, until it is topped up with water and nutes
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> to grow with the Lucas formula you use 8ml micro, 16ml bloom, GH Flora Series nutes... [does that mean you mix veg and flower ferts together in the res...? and if so, why...?]
veg and flower is not applicable here.. Flora series nutes is a 3 part system, of which the micro is the source of N, and the bloom is the source of P and K.. mixing them as above, 0-8-16 is a bloom mix due to the low N and higher P and K.. I omit the Grow nute, which increases N.. because that is how the formula is biased.. its a bloom formula.. all about everything that happens up to harvest so it wont have too much N at the end
>this should come in around 2.0 EC... [i do not understand EC... i am assuming that the ONLY way to know the amount of nute's you have in the res is by measuring them AS THEY GO IN and that there is no meter a person can use to check nute levels... but what is EC please...]
to grow hydro, I like owning the Hanna HI98129
http://tinyurl.com/33cths
it allows me to measure TDS both in .5 and .7 conversions, as well as EC
EC is Electrical Conductivity
the way to work with a meter, in hydro, is to take readings of the EC or TDS, adding nutes periodically with the top up water, to maintain the target nute EC or TDS..
the target EC or TDS is the same value produced when you mixed a res with the measured nutes
>I veg with bloom nutes if veg happens under HID... [is this a reference to the mixture of 8ml micro, 16ml bloom mentioned earlier...?]
yes 0-8-16 is bloom nutes
> alternatively, you can grow with GH Flora Nova Bloom, a one part nute.. and you could veg with their Veg formula, which will produce a LOT of veg growth.. taller plants, larger (hollow) stems... [is this really so different from the fert mixtures mentioned above...? i do want vigorous growth for max yield...]
yes it is REALLY different to use veg nutes during veg
most hydro grows dont invest a lot of time in vegging, and it is impractical to dump a res that was used for such short periods
ideally though, if you have a veg area with veg nutes, and a separate bloom area with bloom nutes, you would be rocking..
example, veg area with Flora Nova Grow at EC 2.0, which is TDS 1000@.5 conversion, under a 600w HPS
then a bloom area also with 600w HPS, but with Flora Nova Bloom @ EC 2.0 (about 6ml/gal)
> -for a 600w light, in hydro, I would use a rule of thumb of 1.5 gallons of reservoir or root zone medium per 50 watts of light.. that means 18 gallons for a 600w lamp...[what would you recommend for 1000 w lamps...?]
30 gallons..
which is why Im pointing you to the Multiflow, it has a 50 gallon res, and can be had with all the hoses and kit you need, including 5 gallon buckets as an option. for 6000 watts you would want about 180 gallons of water.. you could get by with 3 50gallon barrels feeding the buckets..
one caution on the way..
if you re-use your growrox, you need to get all the dead root bits out of them, quite a chore.. otherwise you may have a problem with insects feeding on the roots, for example the larvae of fungus gnats..
so, if you can make 2.5 gallon pots work, you will have half as much work on the cleaning, or disposal and replacement, of rox each cycle..
> would the different formula in the veg room give you a better plant to put into the flower room...? better stalk development, root growth, etc.
yes, and more yield..
here is another iteration for you to consider
once you are ready to veg, and lets say that you want to use the bloom room for vegging..set the lights to 18 hours per day.
mix nutes intended for veg, but on all the addbacks, use bloom nutes
example, 600w light, 25 gallon res, at 6ml/gal Flora Nova Grow, topped with Flora Nova Bloom for the remaining veg time plus the bloom time as well.. how much in the addback, about 2ml per gallon.. confirmed by a TDS of about 12-1400 @.7 conversion (about 2.0 EC)
a TDS or EC meter wont tell you how much Nitrogen is in the nutes mix, we are only measuring the overall conductivity of all the stuff in the nutes, combined, not segregated by ingredient.. so, changing from Grow to Bloom nutes, even when keeping the same TDS target, does not produce the same growth style or rate..
with bloom nutes plants have woody stems, and yellower leaves
with veg nutes plants are brighter green stretch more, and get hollow stems
smoking greener material is less pleasant than smoking less green material..
however, setting up a plant with high nitrogen at the beginning, and low N at the end, has the potential to produce bigger buds.. better harvests
its not that the plants grow "faster" its that they grow "fatter"
> You seem to speak highly of Flora Nova Grow @ 1400ppm during veg, but the local hydro shop doesn't carry Flora Nova. What's the equivalent recipe made out of the 3 part Flora?
The equivalent recipe to Flora Nova Grow at 8ml/gal is to use the General Hydroponics standar veg formula for the Flora series.. 15ml/gallon of Grow, 10ml/gallon of Micro, and 5 ml/gal of Bloom
The Lucas formula, 0-8-16 is very close to the standard GH Flora bloom recipe of 5-10-15 g-m-b.. you can use either recipe if you already own Flora Grow.... the GH 3 part bloom formula is a bit higher in Nitrogen than the Lucas formula..
nitrogen is good for vigorous growth.. its only bad in high quantities before harvest.. but by high quantities, I mean double what any of the above bloom recipes provides.. so, no need to worry about too much N with GH bloom formula..
> so what this is saying is to keep the N levels higher as in the veg mode while entering into the bloom cycle for the first week at least, letting it taper by adding bloom to the add back...?
yes
> and that this may give a healthy kick in the pants to the cola development...?
yes
the tradeoff is the leaves are greener, which is not good when it comes time to smoke..
> has anyone done any follow up on this yet...?
I give credit to Mr. Highway for writing an article in which he used the term, "feeding the stretch". As I understood it, he wanted to make the high growth rate of the first 2 weeks of 12/12, to have plentiful nitrogen
> has this become the/a standard method...?
nope.. everybody does what they do.. then some of us tell others, then some of us read how others do it, and some of us try to sort out whose advice to follow..
>>>
Flora Nova Bloom has the same elemental values as the 0-8-16 Flora Series recipe.
I think 800ppm @.7 conversion of 3 part Flora is fine under fluoros, but When going to HID light, I have no problem going right to 13-1400ppm @.7 conversion.. I dont bother to increment up to that value, but if it makes you feel better, you can.
On a .5 conversion meter the eqivalent HID light target ppm is 1000, the Fluoro light target is 600ppm
I agree with gisisi who said
"whatever ppm it reads at 0-8-16 in 1 gallon of water
is what you shoot for.
Same for 0-5-10 when you are using low intensity flouroscents, such as T12s."
> I am using your formula at 3/4 strength of the 0-5-10 as the light is only a 250hps and they don't like too many nutes.
that is not correct usage of the formula.. For a 250HPS you should use 0-8-16... I NEVER alter the recipe to use 3/4 strength..
the formula you are using is too low in Mg, which is the central element in the chlorophyl molecule. You NEED the Mg in the full strength formula.
as to your curled leaves.. I would look at increasing the amount of dissolved oxygen in the root zone.. As a rule of thumb, if you have 10 gallons of DWC root zone, you should be adding bubbles from at least a 5watt airpump.. but if you have temps above 72 in the water, the plants will be much happier with 1 watt of airpump per gallon of water
iow, for warm water I recommend a 10 watt airpump for a 10 gallon root zone..
and lastly, your plants look absolutely beautiful, congratulations.. the only other thing I think could help, is better ventilation of the canopy.. it looks dense enough that in some spots it may be difficult for air to move thru the mass of leaves and colas..
If air does not reach part of the canopy, CO2 will be lacking to those areas, and growth will be stunted..
in conclusion 3 suggestions
1. 0-8-16, not diluted 0-5-10
2. LOTS of bubbles
3. plenty of airflow
btw, you dont mention your water and canopy temperatures.. they should be below 70 for the water, and below 80 for the canopy
> can someone tell me the lucas formula for floranova grow and bloom?
Try 6ml/gallon and see if it gives you EC 2.0, which is what you want. Flora Nova varies in thickness, so you should use EC to confirm your nutes dosage.
An EC of 2.0 is the same as a TDS of 1400 on a meter that uses .7 conversion.
An EC of 2.0 is the same as a TDS of 1000 on a meter that uses .5 conversion.
Some EC meters read 4 digits, in which case EC 2.0 is the same as EC 2000
> Q: Nutrient question. When I use 0/8/16 my ppm = 1490. I have read that we can reduce, but do we just reduce both, or better to reduce the micro or grow.
keep the amount of micro and bloom in the same proportion, but use less or add more water (if you are currently mixing based on a certain amount per gallon, lower the amount per gallon, or raise the number of gallons in the calculation. 1490 is a little too high
>Enough is enough, read for yourself!
There have been several questions lately on how to alter the Lucas Formula by adding Calcium, or Nectar, or Liquid Karma, or even using the formula backwards for veg at 16micro/8Bloom without Grow.
I do not recommend any of those changes, but if you want to get into designing your own nutrient formula, I suggest you learn to use the spreadsheet.
The Lucas formula is 8micro/16bloom. If someone tells you it needs an additive, dont ask me how to use it, cause I dont.
also, measurements are in milliliters, not "parts" cause nobody knows how many mil are in your "part". And most certainly, 1 part is NOT 10ml, nor 5ml, nor any other value. "Part" has no measurable meaningful value.
If you want a veg formula, I suggest the original GH recipe, that uses the Grow@15ml/Micro@10ml/Bloom@5ml This is the same as what is inside the Flora Nova Grow bottle.
For a bloom formula that is the same as the Lucas Formula but uses only 1 bottle, I recommend Flora Nova Bloom.
The Flora Nova products are a bit thick, and depending on how you shake the bottle, or how little you pour out, it varies in strength slightly. I suggest you start with 5ml/gallon. Then verify if you have achieved TDS between 13-1400 on a .7 conversion. Thats 2000EC or TDS 1000 if your meter is a .5 conversion.
Please understand the Lucas formula is very very simple, and does not need anything added to it, other than to adjust pH to 5.8 for hydro.
If you come here asking how to modify the formula, or reporting that someone told you to add things to it, feel free to do that and let us know how it works out for you, but please dont expect me to keep telling you over and over, that I do NOT RECOMMEND ADDITIVES!
