Hi Folks,
Thought I would write a quick post about a problem that I have had over my last 3 grows, that I have finally managed to solve. Hopefully it may help someone else
My problem was this, I live in a hard water area, and the baseline EC of my tap water, is generally around 0.5 or 0.6. My last few grows which have been in coco, I kept getting a calcium defiency.
So this made no sense to me, I live in a hard water area, and water is very high in calcium, grow nutrients are also high in calcium and magnesium, so it made no sense why I kept getting this problem. But like most of us, my way round this was to add even more calcium, usually in the form of a foliar spray, which would help.
So anyway after my last grow, I was cleaning out my reservoir and noticed a huge amount of lime scale, it had even blocked up my halo drippers.
After some research and reading, I found out that lime scale is a type of calcium, but a type of calcium that plants can not use or take up. So my problem was not being caused by a lack of calcium in the feed, but by the plants ability to take up that calcium.
So after more research I found the answer, adding amino acids to your feed schedule
I have put a link below for those of you interested in exactly what the amino acids do, but basically they stop the calcium from forming lime scale and keep it in a form that the plant can use. They also improve the plants ability to uptake calcium as well, which makes for stronger more resilient plants.
http://www.npk-university.com/plant_...mino_acid.html
So if you have to clean your kettle where you live, due to lime scale, and you grow hydroponically, this could potentially be an issue for you
Hope this helps someone
Bookmarks