New Grower Molasses - Plenty hot stuff

[Milky]

Bought some molasses for feeding horses and mixed up 100ml (6,76 tablespoons) to 13L (3,434 gallons) of water which has an EC of 0,22. Popped the pen in and whoa, landed on 1,8 EC! Recommended doses are 1-2 tablespoons per gallon and when the math is done 2 tablespoons is about 101ml for my 13L. Weird thing is when I first (before checking what EC the molasses had) mixed up the normal feed which was 1,8 and then dumped in the molasses it ended up at 2,4?

Whats going on here? And how much do you put in your feed and when do you start? I'm at day 47 atm!

Cheers!

 

[Torched]

Molasses is not salt based I don't know if you can get an accurate EC reading from it.

 

[Waira]

:smoke:...spot on Torched! ... Milky, EC meters are measuring electroconductivity of a soln., which needs free ions (charged atoms/molecules) to do so,.. the sugars in molasses are not ions (sugars are neutral charged), though they are fully dissolved...however, there are lots of other things in it that are...among them: Ca, Mg, K and even a little Fe, all in chelated forms, which are what us growers are interested in,.. well, along with those sugars for the media microbe herd! ...my understanding is that only a very small amount of sugars can be taken up by roots directly; boosting the herd up helps the plant in turn with nutrient cycling,... Unsulpherated molasses is what you should be using for the plants (blackstrap),... 1T/gal, once a week is a safe starting point,... :thumbs:

 

[Milky]

Thanks for the input guys but I´m still lost!

The molasses I got doesn´t have a table of content except how much sugar was used to make the product (it´s Swedish btw).

Why does it pump the EC so much? As it´s animal feed, maybe they´ve added salt to it to enhance the flavor? Hence the high EC?

Maybe I should ditch it and get some AN Carboload instead?

 

[Anthropolis]

Hmm, that's an interesting point. I doubt they'd have added salt, since molasses is sugar basically, even for animals it wouldn't make sense to add salt. I dunno about the EC, and it's hard to say if it's cannabis friendly without ingredients haha. It's probably okay, but... Well, probably doesn't cut it for my plants haha. I'd probably try to get something else :/

 

[Waira]

...yeah, good point-- I don't know if there's a specific formulation for horse, and there very well might be,... I'm referring to human/food grade stuff at the grocery store,... as mentioned, it's the Ca, mg, K, etc. in there that's upping the EC,.... sure, a dedicated Ca-Mg product is preferred over molasses,... AN is great if you got the $$ (and double check if AN has both Ca and Mg in there; they are infamous for splitting down supp's so you have to spend more $$ to get what you need), but there are many out there that are just as good and far less spendy,... $10-12 for most,... I like General Organics CaMg+...

 

[jaspercane]

Need a place to get good ole Blackstrap hi brix molasses go to any cattle liquid feed manufacturer. Tell them you need a gallon for a deer attractant mix. Most of em will give you a milk jug full for free. In the US any Farmland plant or QLF plant will hook you up.

 

[Torched]

Feed molasses is usually just a lower quality or 3rd extraction run from the same cane sugar. It should be just as good as any others for plants. Unless there was a reason for it there is no salt in Molasses.

To clarify a little: EC meters calculate EC but running a current through a solution. They are designed and calibrated for salt base solutions. Solutions such as mollasess with no extra salt will cause incorrect readings. It's not that the solution has a high EC it's that your meter can not read it correctly. The same is also true of PH meters.

 

[Milky]

Thanks guys! I'll try and feed the gals that hot stinking mess and see what happens!

Got some cash today so I might get some AN stuff but I'll hold off on carboload for now!