which nutes are used in veg?

I'm trying to figure out which nutrients to buy from the store to get my veg cycle full tilt. I'm not asking which brands (but I don't care to hear suggestions), but which macro nutrients/micro nutrients in particular are more important. I was going to pick up one of the combo packs that has everything, but other then telling how much to put in and during which cycle, it didn't really explain what each one had in it (completely) so it kind of defeats the purpose of learning how to grow, and knowing what you are doing.

I picked up some roots organics Buddha bloom, I think it says its like a 2-.25-.15 or somewhere along the lines. I know nitrogen is a lot more important during veg than it is flower. I was thinking of also picking up some cal-mag, or is that for flower?

I want to give my plants every possible opportunity to do great. My growth has been painfully slow (at about 10 days from germination and only 5-6 cm), but for the first part I had not so great soil and cfl bulbs. Now I'm using some humus mixed with some very fine soil that I have and put up a metal halide, and I'm hoping that I can start loading some nutes little by little and get her going. The slow growth might be from the fact that the seed I'm growing came from some shwiggity.

So Monday I'm going to the hydro store, and all I have is the Buddha grow and pH +/- solutions. What else do I need to pick up to get me banging through my veg cycle?

If you don't know FOR SURE which one of the big three, N P K are important in which stage of life. Then I don't think you need to worry about macro/micro yet.

Get some of this and maybe some magpro to go with it.

My advice to the newb grower K.I.S.S.

Don't get the Dyna-gro "grow". It's way too high in P. Get foliage-pro.

joe macclennan said:

If you don't know FOR SURE which one of the big three, N P K are important in which stage of life. Then I don't think you need to worry about macro/micro yet.

Get some of this and maybe some magpro to go with it.

My advice to the newb grower K.I.S.S.

Click to expand...

The most important macros are N, K and Ca.

Don't bother with cal-mag.. Any balanced hydroponic nutrient with lots of N will also have lots of calcium since it's sourced with calcium nitrate, and you can get magnesium from household epsom salts. The calcium from cal-mag is also from calcium nitrate, so it's really an overlap of the same thing. Just straight up buy powdered calcium nitrate if you really want that. (I actually recommend that regardless because calcium nitrate is cheap and great to have).

In my opinion, the best veg NPK ratio is 3-1-5. Everyone will tell you something different.

See my Individual salts thread my suggestions on nutes:

https://www.rollitup.org/nutrients/658937-cropking-hydro-gro-yara-calium.html

I agree with churchhaze about the nutes.

I use a 6-3-8 NPK from start to finish.

I use a few other additives too but you can get from start to finish on pretty much anything within reason.


IMO you could probably use the 3-1-5 that churchhaze mentioned from start to finish too.



J

Yeah, I've heard a lot of great things about dyna grow. My Buddha grow is actually a 2-.25-1.5, so I guess that's basically an 8-1-6. I've fed my little guy (hopefully girl) 2 days in a row since I transplanted, and it seems to be taking it fine. I also realized my ph was as low as 4 in some places in my soil so I mixed some pH + with the water and the Buddha grow.

So should I go pick out the foliage pro from dynagro? Or do you think that the Buddha grows 8-1-6 is sufficient? I'm also probably going to do the Epsom salt thing, as well.

Still just thunderf*cked as to why my growth is so slow. My plants already about ten or eleven days from germination, I've got the temperature at a steady 80-82 during the day, around 75-80 when the sun goes down, I have a pretty good soil combo (probably going with fox farms next time around), and for the passed 3 days I've been giving nutes with waterings and it seems to be doing the same as it was when it was in the mulchy soil I had it in before. I also had it under CFLs, now its under a 400w MH bulb.

I just can't figure out why she's growing so slowly. In my top post I said 5-6 cm but she's really probably at 3 or 4, which I did add soil a couple times when it was getting stretchy under the CFLs. I'm hoping its just growing slowly BC its a seed from shwag, could that be the case?

Here's a pic of her progress.Here in a minute I'll get some top pics so you can see the difference in foliar development since yesterday. I mean its growing, but I've heard all these tales about how they shoot up overnight. Definitely not the case with mine.

Are you watering too much? also, you shouldn't be using any nutes on a plant that small

church is extremely knowledgeable on the subject of fertilizer and such. I have read several of his posts and I am impressed w/his knowledge in this.

Hey church I've used the dyna-gro gro for years and years. When I run out of this gallon I will take your advice and try the foliage pro. Thanks for the tip.

Another member homebrewer was running an experiment using only the dyna gro gro all the way through flower. He hasn't been too active lately.

What is your op on this?

joe macclennan said:

Are you watering too much? also, you shouldn't be using any nutes on a plant that small

church is extremely knowledgeable on the subject of fertilizer and such. I have read several of his posts and I am impressed w/his knowledge in this.

Hey church I've used the dyna-gro gro for years and years. When I run out of this gallon I will take your advice and try the foliage pro. Thanks for the tip.

Another member homebrewer was running an experiment using only the dyna gro gro all the way through flower. He hasn't been too active lately.

What is your op on this?

Click to expand...

Yeah I was definitely over watering there for a few days. Have had a buddy help me get/set up equipment and he was just way too excited, he kept grabbing my spray bottle and spraying (not just the soil, I found out he was spraying the leaves too). Its been 2 days since then and I think its picking up. Does over watering stunt growth?

absofuckinglutely.

You want your soil to dry out almost completely before your next watering. Do you have holes in the bottom of your butterdish?

Okay, so that's had to have been my problem. I had 5 small holes in the Dixie cup, but it still basically stayed wet for a week. The butter thing I transplanted to has like 15 or so small holes that I made the other day when I found out I was over watering. The holes are definitely helping it dry out. I let it get completely dry yesterday and watered/fed last night about 1 cup of water and this morning the soil already looked dry.

By the way, when I say feeding, I'm talking about literally adding 1-2 drops of the food (says to use 1 1/2 tsp for seedlings per gallon) for about an 1/8 of a gallon of water. Since I'm coming up on two weeks before long I figured I would start it out and see how she reacts to it. I fed last night and today I've seen some of the best growth I've seen so far, but its also the first time its not been overwatered.

Sorry the pictures kind of weird. Had to use my tablet and it only has a front facing camera.

IMO you want some more defined holes in that container.

When you water, pour enough until you get some runoff out the bottom.

Then as everyone else mentioned wait for it to dry out a fair bit. Then water again until you get some runoff.

This encourages the plant to send out roots in search of water. Which in turn creates for a healthy root system.


Also seedling growth comes in fits and starts. Expect slowish growth for up to 2 weeks from germination as the seedling is developing its root system to support its up coming veg growth.



J

What he said^^

Also, as long as you used decent soil you really shouldn't need any fert. at all until at least your 3-4th set of leaves pop.

OK, thanks a ton man. Its funny, most forums are pretty critical about getting off topic and posting in the right section, etc.. But around here, basically anyone asking for advice always turns there thread into an grow journal, lol. That is pretty cool that they have the option to add threads to the journal.

Well this is all starting to make sense to me now. I was thinking of veg as the first four weeks of growth (or whatever you want), but I guess that's generally when coming from clones. With seedlings it can a couple weeks, which I think that one is at ten days so I guess its not as horrible as I thought.

Had a buddy give me two more bag seeds that she started germinating five or six days ago and forgot about. One only had like an inch long taproot, but one was already like a 4 inch root with the little round cotyledon leaves formed. Sucks bc that big one grew kind of gnarled and was completely folded back on itself at the top.

But I took the other one and went ahead and started it in a big butter dish so I can let it grow a little bigger before having to transplant again. Plus its starting out in my good soil (haven't been able to add perlite yet, can only find stuff treated with miracle grow food so far) but I did take the razor knife and made a circling (revolution, not a rotation) so it cut out little circles about half the size of the head of a sixteen penny nail. They're about half the size of the ones in the other bucket but more defined. I'll take pictures when I get back to the house.

Thanks for all the good info man, I know its basic stuff but its a lot easier learning how a plant converts sunlight to food online then it is finding out how much water to give it, unless you actually have someone you can ask the question to. God, these forums are a lifesaver.