Nitrogen, Phosphorus and Potassium: Why do plant's need it?

clasonde

Active Member
We all know (or for those of you who don't) that during the different stages of a cannabis plants life cycle, different levels of nutrients must be introduced.

During a plant's life cycle it is able to grow effectively as long as it is in the right conditions; ex. light, soil, nutrients, water. Pretty basic. Now I am going to explain how N-P-K affects a plant's ability to utilize it's surroundings.

Nitrogen:
Essential to a plant's developing stages of growth. Most beneficial to root development, fan leaves, and general foliage. If you've ever noticed your leaves a nice green color, then you have a little nutrient called nitrogen to thank.

Phosphorus: This is a very key nutrient in both vegetative and flowering stages of life. This nutrient helps your plant to utilize all the light energy it receives into new growths, leaves, stems, and of course those beautiful flowers. Also, much like nitrogen, phosphorus aids cannabis in helping root growth and helping to speed up the metabolism.


Potassium: Aids in photosynthesis hand in hand with phosphorus. Also helps with bulking up stems and helping to keep the plant "sturdy". This nutrient also is a major contributor to helping your baby girl become more resistant to disease, fungi, and also help her retain water.

Now all these nutrients are very effective in benefiting plant growth and bud development, but using in excess can cause irreversible damage, or even death!

But there is a way to help your plant and regulate the levels of nutrients to give to your plants.

When it comes to nitrogen, I wouldn't recommend using more then a N value greater than 30 during vegetative and less than 10 during flowering.

Phosphorus on the other hand, I like to keep it a little bit lower than nitrogen during vegetative cycle, but during flowering I find it most beneficial to use a P value between 30-60. If using a fertilizer with a P value of 50+ I would recommend diluting it greatly, and slowly graduating up during flowering.

Potassium can be deceiving. Yes it is very beneficial but it needs to distributed in smaller doses. I recommend a K value between 8 and 15.


*These dosages are the ranges that I would use and I am not saying that you can only grow using these values*


There are also a lot of micronutrients that cannabis needs to grow but I don't feel like going over those at the moment.

Thanks for reading, and I hope I helped atleast some people become more informed about their beloved cannabis' diet.


:joint::hump:
 
Top