Hey all. I'm wrapping up my first run of Hempy buckets, and its my first run of hydroponic really. I feed the plants everyday, in a drain to waste system. I'm wondering what some tips are for using Less nutes . So lets say im feeding the Hempys ( filled with coco ) at 500 ppm pluss all additives , everyday 2 liters. What if i kept the volume of water at two liters , but halved all nutes and additives ? I think this will work because im mostly watering them to give fresh oxygen any way, right? Its just wasteful to be having that 20% runoff everyday of my expensive additives\ nutes when im really just trying to give them oxygen mostly . Any thoughts? I do really like watering daily because i think the growth is better, and it keeps the coco from drying out. Lots of people do it. So Any thoughts on how to save nutes? Thanks
Ok, since no one has chipped in, let me try! in short i think you can achieve what you want if you learn to micromanage nutes or if you supercharge the coco, or even by mixing both!
let me explain better.
i haven't done hempy in a while, though i'm getting everything ready to begin again. when i did hempy (love coco hempy's but this applies to all hydro i think) i got to a point where i did micro-managing of the nutes and sometimes "mixed" with supercharging, accompanied by constant ph checking... these are not necessary at all with hempy method, but they did give me the best results i've ever had (only done soil and hempies) and i fell i used nute much more efficiently this way which i think is what you are looking for right? Also, after a while o micromanaging i stopped worrying about runoff... i would just water the plants until reservoir was full and got a bit of runoff. I assume you have a tds meter, which will allow you to do this and IMO provide the best amount of nutrient for your plants or allow you to go low without affecting plants.
micro-managing is basically setting the ppm of nutes you put in (input ppms) depending on the ppm reading of the reservoir/runoff (output ppms). If the output ppm is lower than the input ppm, it supposedly means you plant need more food, so your input ppms should be higher (so more nutes per water). if it's higher than input it means you are giving too much and should lower nute concentration or check for salt buildup or ph irregularities that could bock nute absorption; if ppms do not differ much or are equal, that means you are on spot with the feedings. measuirng reservoir ppms in hempy buckets can be done in a few ways... I sometimes checked runoff but felt it wasn't accurate since it was old liquid mixed with new, so i endend up setting a little tube from the bottom of the bucket out through the reservoir hole and used a syringe to suck out enough liquid from the reservoir to be able to measure before adding new nutes.
super charged coco by itself could also help you with what you want and there are several tutorials online. the supercharging mix I sometimes did with micro managing (just for curiosity sake) was basically supercharging my coco as usual per instructions but complimented with micromanaging. Here goes the explanation of this "mix"... i hope it's not too messy. So if i began my super charging with an EC of let say 1.0, before increasing the EC to 1.1, i would make sure the plant was actually ready for more EC which i would interpret as so if the output ppm would be at least 100 ppms lower than input. So with this example of initial ec of 1.0 input ppms should be 500 or 700 ppms, and to increase input to 1.1 i would first make sure output ppm was below those input ppms... if it wasn't id either stay with the sameinput ppm/EC or decide to reduce a bit before continuing with the gradual increase of EC. Once i saw they did need more i continued to gradually increase the EC up. When approaching the desired EC goal (some say 3.0, i never went beyond 2,4 but could have) i would only reset back to 1.0 if output ppms where getting higher... if they remained below or equal i would just keep the same EC until it became equal or higher and then reset. this method didn't really give me better results than just micromanaging, but it did allow me to save a bit on nutrient compared to just normal super charging, which in turn i think is better than just feeding a steady amount all grow or using brand's recommended doses.
Hope it helps. i cant wait to get my grow started again to get my coco hempies back again!
