Just Jackin it with JR Peters HEMPY style

Yo ho ho what a great day to grow. I have 4 gg#4 cuts that I rooted in 5 gallon coco / perlite hempy buckets with a lava rock reservoir. My nutrients are JR Peters Jack's 5-12-26 with calcium nitrate and Epsom salt otherwise known Jack's 321.

It took me through the veg cycle to dial things in and now things are right as rain. As with most nutrient companies JR Peters suggests too much fertilizer if you use the amount they suggest. I found that I had to lower the ppms while maintaining the 1:.67 ratio of jacks to calcium nitrate that Peters suggests, but in lower concentration. I got tired of weighing salts so I made stock solutions of my Jack's and calcium nitrate in separate containers. I now add 440 PPM of Jack's and 140 PPM of calcium nitrate to reach my sweet spot of 600 PPM. With my tap water at 140 my total PPM is 740. If I feed a higher PPM they burn.

I'm finishing week 1 of flower now. 7 to go and everything is looking great. I do add floralocious plus every other watering. That is the only extra that I use. I stopped using Epsom salt a week ago. I feel that the Epsom is not necessary for this strain. Jack's has enough magnesium by itself.

If anybody else is using Jack's please join the conversation and post some pics of your garden. I paid $72 shipped to my door for 25 lbs of Jack's. Got my calnit off Amazon for $13 and Epsom salt at Wal-Mart for $5. It will probably take me 5 years to burn this down. That makes me very happy

I will never use coco again because it is not an inert medium and it is not ideal for my needs. When I'm growing hydro I want my medium inert that does not interact with my nutrients. I also will not do the lava rock reservoir again. I think it's not necessary and the roots have trouble penetrating through them. I will do all perlite next round. I do not like adding vermiculite. The shit has a tendency to wash away from the perlite and clump at the bottom of the bucket. And for anybody who may be thinking all perlite doesn't work, I can assure you it does.

Pics

why wouldnt you just use coco? jacks is Ionic. you dont need anything to interact with it. I use 321 in coco and dwc side by side. I can assure you coco is awesome, throw some ogbiowar bennys and you wont turn back.. just dial back your potassium and make sure you run enough through in feedings that salt doesnt build up.. I switched to Tupur this round for even more "interaction".

If you can get a chiller go dwc now that you have all that jacks.

and just perlite? know it works but is less than Ideal.

Purpsmagurps said:

why wouldnt you just use coco? jacks is Ionic. you dont need anything to interact with it. I use 321 in coco and dwc side by side. I can assure you coco is awesome, throw some ogbiowar bennys and you wont turn back.. just dial back your potassium and make sure you run enough through in feedings that salt doesnt build up.. I switched to Tupur this round for even more "interaction".
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If you can get a chiller go dwc now that you have all that jacks.

and just perlite? know it works but is less than Ideal.

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Honestly I'm not sure if the leaf twisting I experienced was from the lava rock reservoir or the dirty home depot black magic brand coco. The coco was very shitty. I had to rinse and rinse and rinse some more to get the TDS down. It seemed like a never ending process. The lava rock reservoir may very well be the cause of the problem. I've never done one before and rinsed thoroughly prior to using, but several plants that I tossed out I noticed the roots did not penetrate the lava rock. To be fair I suppose I could grab a good quality coco like Canna brand and run 2 buckets with straight coco and perlite to see what the result is. Clearly many people are having success using coco. I'm just eating sour grapes because I don't know if it's the coco or the lava rock reservoir and even worse - I did this to myself. I should have used a reputable brand of coco instead of going el cheapo at the depot and I should have stuck with what I know works instead of experimenting with the lava rock reservoir.

Experimenting is nice when you have a stockpile of weed to fall back on, but I currently don't and should not be experimenting. I have a friend that grows very well in coco and uses nothing else. He gave me the "look" when I told him I bought my coco from home depot. Operator error on my part. Home Depot has since removed all black magic products from their shelves at my local store. I'm thinking that is a good thing.

Nice root ball you have there!

Finishing week 2 of flower. The tent is so full that I can barely fit them all back in there when I take 'em out. Flowers popping up everywhere and all 4 plants look very healthy. Watering frequency is increasing to every 2-3 days. I never exceed 600PPM feed solution. With my tap water @ 150 PPM my total PPM each feed is 750. If I ran it any higher than that the plants would burn.

Jack's is much easier to mix up when you have stock solutions prepared. I just keep adding jack's until I hit 340 PPM and then add calnit until I hit 260 PPM. Super easy and super reliable. I add a dose of floralicous plus also, but that is my only additive.

I'll keep posting pics up until harvest. My plan is to eliminate calnit by week 6 as many others have done.

" I feel that the Epsom is not necessary for this strain. Jack's has enough magnesium by itself."

but what about the sulfur content of the epsom that helps terps & potency ?

mr. childs said:

" I feel that the Epsom is not necessary for this strain. Jack's has enough magnesium by itself."

but what about the sulfur content of the epsom that helps terps & potency ?

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Jack's 5-12-26 has 8.5% sulfur.

jonnynobody said:

Jack's 5-12-26 has 8.5% sulfur.

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you think it is a different kind of sulfur than the one in epsom ? like how maxi bloom has a couple different versions of sulfates in it ?

mr. childs said:

you think it is a different kind of sulfur than the one in epsom ? like how maxi bloom has a couple different versions of sulfates in it ?

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As far as I know sulfur is sulfur. I see what you mean though in the guaranteed analysis. They use several different types of sulfur compounds like magnesium sulfate, potassium sulfate, zinc sulfate, and manganese sulfate. Jack's uses magnesium sulfate to provide both Mg and S. From my understanding when something like magnesium sulfate or potassium sulfate breaks down in water is that you're left with a percentage of soluble magnesium and sulfur in the case of magnesium sulfate or potassium and sulfur in the case of potassium sulfate. There are many different compounds that can be used to provide sulfur and another element. Is one compound better than another? I don't think so, but that's a very good question.

Update:

Pics taken several days ago. Day 30 of flower..


All are healthy as a horse, but my 2 largest plants suffered a touch of what I suspect is a magnesium deficiency which only affected the leaves directly under the light. All of the other leaves not directly under the hood are just fine. The 2 smaller plants which also has space directly under the hood suffered little to no leaf damage. I believe that is because the plants are smaller and did not demand as much magnesium as the much larger 2 plants. Easy fix. Adding 1 gram/gallon of magnesium sulfate at the next watering.

I'll snap some pics with the light off. The smell and resin production is incredible. Leaves that are nowhere near the flowers are covered in trichomes. The plants are indicating they want some more magnesium, so for the first time since the beginning of veg I'll be adding epsom salt to the reservoir to boost mag and sulfur levels. I increased my feed ppm to 750. With my tap ppm of 150 my total ppm at watering was 900.

I flushed each bucket with 5 gallons of ph adjusted water. Runoff ppm went from 900+ to around 350 before I stopped the process. My next watering is tomorrow and I will add epsom at the rate of 1 gram per gallon.

Before I do that though I need to add 1 gram to a gallon of water to determine how many ppm's it adds to the solution. I definitely don't want to exceed 900PPM so I'll adjust accordingly while maintaining the 1:.67 ratio of jack's to calcium nitrate like peters recommends.

Day 38 of flower pics. I'm discontinuing feeding calcium nitrate at this stage of growth to cut back on the nitrogen. Jack's 5-12-26 has no calcium, so I will be adding cal-mag at 1 tsp/gallon. To boost the P&K I will be adding koolbloom for the next 2-3 weeks to bulk them up. I'll get a 10-14 day flush in depending on chop day. I'm shooting for the 7th of next month. That will be 68 days. I won't dare chop them early though. If they take longer then more time they will get. It's a dam tragedy to see a grower chop their shit too early. A sad waste through and through...

jonnynobody said:

Day 38 of flower pics. I'm discontinuing feeding calcium nitrate at this stage of growth to cut back on the nitrogen. Jack's 5-12-26 has no calcium, so I will be adding cal-mag at 1 tsp/gallon. To boost the P&K I will be adding koolbloom for the next 2-3 weeks to bulk them up. I'll get a 10-14 day flush in depending on chop day. I'm shooting for the 7th of next month. That will be 68 days. I won't dare chop them early though. If they take longer then more time they will get. It's a dam tragedy to see a grower chop their shit too early. A sad waste through and through...

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Looking great. I'm running Jack's 321 as well and am really liking it.

N.R.G. said:

Looking great. I'm running Jack's 321 as well and am really liking it.

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Thanks man. What ppm's are you running with the 321? I'm feeding 600 right now, but I'm going to bump it up to the actual 3.6 / 2.4 / 1.1 recommended by peters for the next couple of weeks for the bulking phase. If I remember correctly it's around 990 PPM at full strength.

I noticed what appears to be a K deficiency on my lower leaves. GG#4 is a very heavy feeder and I think 600 PPM is just too low for the strain's appetite. I am curious about their 7-15-30 finish formula. 9.7% sulfur. It looks like a good product.

jonnynobody said:

Thanks man. What ppm's are you running with the 321? I'm feeding 600 right now, but I'm going to bump it up to the actual 3.6 / 2.4 / 1.1 recommended by peters for the next couple of weeks for the bulking phase. If I remember correctly it's around 990 PPM at full strength.

I noticed what appears to be a K deficiency on my lower leaves. GG#4 is a very heavy feeder and I think 600 PPM is just too low for the strain's appetite. I am curious about their 7-15-30 finish formula. 9.7% sulfur. It looks like a good product.

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I'm also running GG#4 and noticed you said they are heavy feeders and you noticed some sort of deficiency in the leaves...I also noticed my leaves are showing a light deficiency seems the inner part of the leaves aren't as dark as the rest...Its not easily noticed but it's something a parent notices....I wonder if that could be why?Nice plants by the way keep up the good work!

jonnynobody said:

Thanks man. What ppm's are you running with the 321? I'm feeding 600 right now, but I'm going to bump it up to the actual 3.6 / 2.4 / 1.1 recommended by peters for the next couple of weeks for the bulking phase. If I remember correctly it's around 990 PPM at full strength.

I noticed what appears to be a K deficiency on my lower leaves. GG#4 is a very heavy feeder and I think 600 PPM is just too low for the strain's appetite. I am curious about their 7-15-30 finish formula. 9.7% sulfur. It looks like a good product.

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I'm running around 800 PPMs in coco. I add my mix and then add water to bring down the PPM a little.

jonnynobody said:

I'm going to bump it up to the actual 3.6 / 2.4 / 1.1 recommended by peters for the next couple of weeks for the bulking phase. If I remember correctly it's around 990 PPM at full strength.

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Yeah it's around 1000 PPMs with my water when I mix it all up.

Day 42 flower nug shot. I forgot how much I hate staking branches. I must have had to use 10 stakes for 1 5 gallon bucket. The things we have to do do smoke quality herb

Smitty42088 said:

I'm also running GG#4 and noticed you said they are heavy feeders and you noticed some sort of deficiency in the leaves...I also noticed my leaves are showing a light deficiency seems the inner part of the leaves aren't as dark as the rest...Its not easily noticed but it's something a parent notices....I wonder if that could be why?Nice plants by the way keep up the good work!

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What ppm's are you running? I find the plants respond best to the 3.6 / 2.4 / 1.1 per gallon. When I do 600 I see deficiencies crop up.

N.R.G. said:

Yeah it's around 1000 PPMs with my water when I mix it all up.

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How's jack's doing for you in the coco? My flowering girls are in a coco / perlite mix myself and the grow is going well, but I don't much care for coco. I switched back to 100% perlite for my clones and greatly prefer it for hempy buckets.

jonnynobody said:

How's jack's doing for you in the coco? My flowering girls are in a coco / perlite mix myself and the grow is going well, but I don't much care for coco. I switched back to 100% perlite for my clones and greatly prefer it for hempy buckets.

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Coco is going smooth, I'm just pheno hunting some strains right now and coco was the easiest although I've never tried pure Perlite, that sounds interesting. I have a room with I think 28 plants or so in it and coco just seemed the easiest to toss them in and get a fast look at them. Once I see what's what I will put the ones I like into the RDWC next round.