Cannabis hydroponics principles
What’s cannabis hydroponics?
Hydroponics is just the growing of plants without soil.
Instead, plants are grown in an inactive medium ( or none whatsoever ) and an oxygenated, balanced nutrient solution is dropped at a their root systems.
That is it! Why does Weed Hydroponics produce such superb results? By giving a plant the precise nutrient elements it needs we achieve many things : one We give it a perfect diet. In nature this is almost impossible, so when this basically occurs, plants GROW & GROW & GROW. Two When we GIVE the plant it’s food it does not have to go out hunting for it. Plants basically use energy searching for food by growing big root systems. If the plant hasn’t got to waste energy hunting for food, it puts the entire thing’s effort into the parts above ground. The results are fast, massive healthy growth and massive fruit and flower production. Three By prerequisite, hydroponic systems are automated. This takes away the negative human influence from plant cultivation. In particular , failing to water, or watering too much. How do I grow my cannabis plants hydroponically? Luckily, many techniques of hydroponic growing have been invented through the years – from painfully simple to a little complicated.
All that you need to do is decide on the system that meets your wishes and build it. As chance would as blind luck would have it, all the systems that have been invented use awfully basic items assembled into really basic mechanisms. There’s practically no system you can’t construct at home with only hand tools and commonly available parts. Nutrient elements All plants, weather grown hydroponically or in soil, need sixteen essential elements to grow. Many of us are familiar with the top 3 that are consumed by plants. These elements are called the Macro-Elements and they’re Nitrogen Phosphorous and Potassium, they’re shortened N P K. You most likely have seen these letters on bags of common manure. The other thirteen elements are grouped together as the Micro-Elements.
Most folk aren’t acquainted with these elements as we have always counted on them being present in the soil, which works for the main part. Pre-Formulated Nutrient elements : This is actually the best choice for the pastime to tiny farm hydroponic grower. You may be guaranteed that all the obligatory nutrient elements are present and available to the plants. All you have got to do is mix a destined quantity of concentrate with water and add it to your system. If you need to achieve success as a first time hydroponic grower, employ a prepared made nutrient in particular for hydroponics. Pre-Formulated Nutriments come in the forms of 1-part powders, 2-part powders, 1-part liquids, 2-part liquids, & 3-part liquids. I’ve found that nutrient elements are just about nutriments, with the exception of the General Hydroponics 3-part flora series. This one nutrient system truly stands out above the rest, it gives the most satisfactory results by far. You can customize the mix for particular crops and different phases of the crop ( i.e. One mix for vegetative expansion and another for blooming / fruiting phases of expansion ). Creating your own : when you have some experience with hydroponics and you are manufacturing enormous crops of a particular plant, you may wish to look into constructing your own nutriments.
Since all plants don’t consume the same amounts of nutrient elements ( individual elements ) you can presumably save a little money by making specific formulas for your crop. This involves a good quantity of chemistry data, some lab apparatus and each one of the 16 individual elemental nutriments. Many crop precise formulas exist from others’ research, all you have got to do is find the right recipe and mix it up. Over time you may doubtless adjust this formula to match your growing conditions and crop closer. Mixing your own is best left to the more experienced who are manufacturing big amounts of one crop ( i.e. Quarter acre on up ). Miracle Grow : many folks insist on making an attempt to use miracle grow plant food as a hydroponic nutrient. It’s right this is excellent stuff for soil, I actually use it on my flowers, grown in the dust garden, and man do they freak out. Let me stress though , this stuff is not a complete nutrient for hydroponics. It contains some micro elements, but not all. Your plants will start out fine using this, but ultimately they’re going to suffer from inadequacies.
In the longer term it isn’t worth the price tag savings over a genuine hydroponic nutrient. The simile would be something similar to purchasing a new corvette and then having the least expensive tires put on it and filling up with the most cost-effective gas. You won’t even come near to getting the performance that’s possible.
Nutrient additions
There are a few hydroponic additions on the market.
They principally consist of mixtures of kelp extracts, bone meal and blood meal. They’re frequently sold as “Organic” boosters solely to hook the “green” crowd. They’re intended to supply enzymes, hormones, vitamins, amino acids, sugars, and plant acids that cannot be supplied by hydroponic nutriments. I suspect that there are some merits to using these additions, but plenty of the claims put forward by these products are UNFOUNDED and Wrong . I have attempted the “Earth Juice Catalyst” and I suspect that I saw a performance increase, but nothing major. In the future I’m going to perform an experiment with a control group of plants to find out how this stuff truly performs. One addition that falls in it’s own class is the “DynaGRO PRO-TEEKT”. It’s a potassium and silicon supplement that is meant to help increase resistance to pathogens, increase temperature resistance stress and build stem strength. I have not begun to try this product.
The base line on additives : There are no systematic studies showing any benefits so that the jury is still out. Consumer beware!! PH pH is just the measure of the acid content of a solution. The pH scale runs from one to fourteen, one being awfully acidic, seven is neutral, and fourteen is really basic. PH has effects on the capability of a plant’s roots to soak up nutrient elements.
The range in which nutrient assimilation is best is from 5.8 to 6.5. Measuring pH : You can measure pH either chemically or electronically. Chemical test kits cost about $8 to $18, they’re correct but you’ve got to replace them intermittently as the chemicals are consumed. Electronic strategies generally are packed as a pen that you simply dip into the solution and the pH is read out on a digital LCD display. PH pens cost about $65 to $100, they’re reasonably correct and must be calibrated intermittently. The benefit is simplicity of use and they do not wear out – a smart investment.
Adjusting pH : To lower pH add acid. The best acids to use are phosphoric, nitric, and sulfuric acid, these acids disassociate and free up phosphorous, nitrogen a sulfur respectively. Nitrogen, Phosphorous and Sulfur are all elements that plants need for expansion. I’ve been told of folk using Distilled Vinegar for pH adjustment, this appears a bit flaky to me but I suspect it might word in a pinch. To raise pH add a base. The bases employed in hydroponics are Potassium Hydroxide and Sodium Hydroxide. These disassociate and supply Potassium and Sodium .
Another pH up “elixir” that I’ve been told of is baking soda – personally I suspect this is a terrible idea. TIP! When adding acid or base to adjust your nutrient solution, add tiny amounts at a time and wait about half hour to take a measurement. The closer your pH is to seven, the less acid or base it takes to effect change. This change takes place incredibly, as an example : it can take 2 milliliters of acid move the pH of twenty-five gallons of nutrient from seven to six. From six to five it can take 8 milliliters, from five to four it can take 5 hundred milliliters. BE CAREFUL and make changes slowly. Making your own pH adjusting solutions : One quart of acid or base from General Hydroponics sells for approximately $7.00.
This is the most important rip off in the hydroponic business! It takes roughly $10.00 of concentrated acid or base to make 2k gallons of pH adjusting solution. Subtract packing and shipping and you will see that they turn $10 into $4000. OUCH!!!!! Organic Nutrient elements ( ?????? ) With the comparatively up to date green movement the theory of “Organic” food production rings louder and louder each day. “Organic” rules sometimes forbid the utilization of any refined chemicals in food production. The result’s manure derived from compost and animal waste. Naturally folks need to try and apply these beliefs to hydroponics in the shape of a teas made from compost and other natural ingredients. This appears logical but the result’s counter productive when employed in a hydroponics environment. To grasp why, we must first understand what nutrient elements are and how they’re soaked up by plants. Plants rely on sixteen basic chemical elements for food – Nitrogen, Potassium, Phosphorus, Calcium, Hydrogen, and Oxygen are just some. These elements must be in a form that may be soaked up by a plant. This form is a chemical salt – an exceedingly basic chemical compound containing one of the sixteen elements and a complementary element that forms a salt.
These “elemental” salts are what’s soaked up from the soil by a plant’s root sysetm. To be completely clear here – it is salts and only salts a plat absorbs, nothing else.
So, the actual question is – In the natural”organic” cycle of things how do these chemical salts get into the soil? Let’s start with organic material ( compost ) and follow it to assimilation by the plant. A little bit of compost contains complicated organic chemical chains that contain the elements for the chemical salts that eventually will be soaked up by a plant. At that point these complicated chemicals can’t be employed by a plant. When the compost gets stirred into the soil it starts to be acted upon by soil born bacteria. This bacteria is what breaks the organic material down into the chemical salts that may be used by plants. Organic material + Soil Born Bacteria = Nutrient Salts Mother Nature uses bacteria to refine organic material into inorganic chemical compounds for plant assimilation. In a hydroponic system adequate bacteria aren’t present for this imperative conversion, instead we must provide these refined chemicals to the system. For people that demand that they can do it “organically” there are some “organic” nutrient mixes available for you to try. They often produce limited results that I think is wholly counterproductive to the hydroponic philosophy. I advise that if you would like to grow organically, do it in the mud.
Heavily supplement your soil with natural manure and you’ll get excellent results.
I do this in my very own mud garden and everything grows wonderfully.
Oxygen
We all learned in grade school that plants “breathe” in carbon-dioxide and exhale oxygen.
the thing that was not discussed is the way in which the root systems use oxygen!! In hydroponic practice one of the major directives is to deliver an oxygenated nutrient to the plat root system. So, in whatever type ofhydroponic system that we utilize, we want to ensure that the nutrient is correctly oxygenated. Placing it all together All right, all right, you do not need to understand all the unclean details to get going, you can learn that stuff later. Here is what you do : Overview : to get your feet wet with hydroponics we’re going to select a straightforward, low upkeep hydroponic system and grow a hefty medium growing speed plant in order to keep nutrient use low.
Employ an one-part nutrient ( just mix with water ) and unless you live in an area with very tough water do not be disturbed about pH. The system : I strongly recommend using the “Aquafarm” type bucket based system ( see the free plans ) to start. They’re very cheap and need practically no effort to operate. The Plants : to start with grow a semi-hearty cannabis like thyme, mint, or basil. These plants are largely weeds and do not care too much about having a critical nutrient or pH balance. Also, since they seem to be a weed, they go nuts when you give the hydroponic treatment. We also select this kind of plant as it is comparatively slow growing and will not be using big volumes of nutrient solution. In the top of the growing season, plants like tomatoes, mash and cucumbers can use many gallons of nutrient every day. Avoid all these in the start otherwise you’ll be continually troubling about maintaining nutrient levels – later on you will see that with a larger commitment, there are straightforward techniques of keeping up the nutrient elements immediately.
Nutriments : At first , I suggest employing an one-part nutrient like the General Hydroponics “Flora-Magic”. It’s an one-part powder that you simply mix with water. Upkeep : the single thing you will have to do is monitor the nutrient level in your hydroponic system topping the level off with water between prepared nutrient changes. At first , your young plants won’t use much nutrient at all, so changing the nutrient once every fortnight is satisfactory. Once the plants start consuming the nutrient then an once-a-week change is in order. Drain the old nutrient into your flower beds ( it’s still good stuff ) and recharge the system with fresh.
HID Lets talk light!
Or Clarifying one of the great puzzles of gardening. The very first thing we want to do is build a basic vocabulary about light & lighting. I may describe the terms and attempt to put them in as plain of English as possible. Next, we want to create reference points towards work from. Ultimately we’re going to examine different synthetic lighting systems.
Language Lumen : This is the basic unit of light. If you might grab some light in your arms, the term lumen would describe the quantity of light that you have. Since this is the outline of the full amount of light, it might go to follow that if you stuffed that light ( the ball you had in your arms ) into a jar, the quantity of lumens you have remains the same.
Conversely, if you let the ball of light expand to fill the room the quantity of lumens is also the same. Foot Candle : This is the basic unit of light power or how much light you shine on a given area. The foot candle is reliant on how many lumens of light you shine on a given area ( measured in sq. feet ).
An example would be : If you shine one lumen of light on one square foot – you get one foot candle. If you shine ten lumens on one square foot – you get ten foot candles.
Light power is what truly counts for plant expansion. This is the term you need to appreciate, for we’re going to be talking about it the most. Watt : The watt is a unit of energy that’s frequently applied to electricity. We’ll be using this term re synthetic lighting. Lumens per Watt : This is relation to synthetic lighting.
Lumens per watt appertains to how many lumens of light a bulb generates per watt of electric use. The bigger the proportion, the better the lighting system will be. Reference Points Outside Sunlight : This is the biggy! Direct outside light in the summertime time is somewhere in the area of ten thousand foot candles. This is the same as ten thousand lumens per square foot. If you already know a little about lighting, you’ll find this truly fantastic. If not, as our discourse continues this can eventually hit you as dazzling. Overcast Daylight:1,000 foot candles. Open Shade : While standing under a big tall tree, you experience the quantity of light called open shade. The light power you experience here is somewhere in the area of three hundred foot candles.
Deep Shade : fifty to one hundred foot candles.
Average Lit Room : five to ten foot candles.
Full Moonlight : .02 foot candles.
Starlight : .00011 foot candles ( that is eleven one-millionths )
Now is this extraordinary or what? The human eye is mindboglingly delicate, it can see from sunlight all of the way down to starlight ( one of my past-times is astronomy and I’ve found that after your eye dark adapts you can see quite well under the starlight ). This is a proportion of ninety million to 1! Even more fantastic is the indisputable fact that the eye can make the majority of this adjustment in a little part of a second. The rest occurs in about twenty mins. Having brought this to light, you can know how it is simple to come to the position that an unknowingly not suitable light source would basically appear bright enough to grow plants under by having a look at it. Lighting Systems Now we intend to review the major lighting systems, their potency, and examine how they perform in a horticultural situation. If, per chance this debate gets too technical or uninteresting you can skip to the end of this segment and have a look at the comparison chart to get a general concept of how different lighting systems perform.
Foundation for Calculations:In all the following examples we’re going to say that the potency of the lighting system is 75%. To explain, only 75% of the light made by the bulb is reflected onto our example garden. Similarly , we’re going to significantly shed light upon things by presuming that all the light directed at our selected area really hits the area – there’s no “spillage” you might say. In practice results will be much different – often far lower than the stated figures. The idea of this show is to speak the versatility of different lighting systems by placing them on common ground ( which actually doesn’t exist ) and comparing them to each other. Incandescent : Incandescent lighting is your common everyday household light bulb. Their potency is in the range of four lumens per watt. This implies that one hundred watt bulb will generate four hundred lumens – TOTAL. ( Here’s the giant jump ) Now, if we COULD reflect all of that four hundred lumens onto one square foot we’d get a light power of four hundred foot candles. It isn’t practical that we could design any reflector system that’s 100 percent efficient, so for the needs of our dialogue we may think 75% reflectance for all our lighting systems.
If we account for the loss in reflectance, we now get three hundred foot candles from a traditional bulb concentrated on one square foot. Lets step back here and do a comparison….
Three hundred F.C. Compared to 10,000? Wow! We’re not even close to sunlight.
If we used one one hundred watt bulb over a four foot by 4 foot garden the light power would be 18.75 F.C, Which is absolutely pointless. If we would have liked to shoot for five hundred F.C. For growing low light plants, we might need twenty-six – one hundred watt bulbs. If we needed to shoot for one thousand F.C. We’d need 53 – one hundred watt bulbs over our garden. Apart from the electric nightmare, we have succeeded in making an easy-bake-oven rather than an indoor garden. I’m hoping that you see that incandescent light bulbs are actually unreal for horticultural purposes. Quartz Halogen : Halogens do far better at and potency of roughly 20 lumens per watt. Halogens are available in one thousand watt bulbs and since we are trying[*(*]for as much light as practical, we’ll use this for our example. A thousand watt bulb manufacturing twenty lumens per watt give us 20,000 lumens of total light energy. Our theoretical light fitting can only reflect 75% of this, so we currently have only fifteen thousand lumens to work with. Our sample garden, four foot by four foot, has 16 sq. feet. When we shine our 15,000 lumens onto sixteen sq. feet of growing area we get a light power of 937 foot candles. No we are getting into a useable range however there’s one serious downside to halogens…..HEAT.
Halogens produce an inconsistent quantity of heat compared to their light output. Let’s look for something better. Fluorescent : Since we try to be educated gardeners, we’re going to have sought out the additional high output tubes for our garden. These Fluorescent tube generate 2750 lumens per forty watt tube. That is 68 lumens per watt – now we’re getting somewhere. Let’s use enough fixtures to cover our 4×4 garden. The fixtures are four feet long by 6 inches wide.
This permits us to cram eight fixtures over our garden – employing a total of 640 watts. Each fixture hold two tubes, so we’ve got a total of sixteen tubes generating 2750 lumens each – that could be a total of 44,000 lumens. Taking away for the loss due to reflectance, we now have 33,000 lumens to cover our garden with. 33,000 divided by sixteen sq. feet equals 2062 foot candles of light power, presuming the lights are right on top of the plants.
When you raise the lights to accommodate for the plants the light intensity drops quickly. When you double the distance, you cut the light power by 4 times – OUCH. Using an array of sixteen – forty watt tubes you may expect to reach about five hundred foot candles at a distance of twelve inches. With this setup we are able to grow low to medium light plants without burning them. Metal Halide:This is what we’ve been searching for. Metal halide lights have a potency range of eighty – 120 lumens per watt.
This let’s us employ a lower input wattage, generates more light and less heat than all the prior systems. The following table shows the different wattage bulbs, their potency, total light output, and the light power over a four foot x four foot garden. Many people choke over the original price of a High Power Discharge fixture, but in the future they’re much cheaper. For a similar quantity of light output M.H. Uses 2-20 times less power than other light sources. Sodium Vapor : The king of efficiency! Sodium vapor lights output from 90-150 lumens per watt.
Sodium bulbs put out more light than metal halides but the range is severely shifted towards the red end of the range. The aftermath of the reddish light are meant to produce more flourishing and fruiting than more balanced lights. As you can see by the table, sodium vapor wins the light power contest hands down. Range .
The diagram above shows the complete range of light and where each kind of lighting system falls inside that range. Synthetic lights produce merely a piece of the complete range. This leads directly to much discourse and experimentation to ascertain which, or which aggregate of lighting is best for a selected crop. Lets establish a reference point to work from, inspect many sorts of lighting and put this information to practical use. Reference point : For the majority of the light hours, the outside sunlight peak is targeted on 5500 degrees Kelvin ( refer to the above chart ). Metal Halide : These lights emit a light on the bluish side of the range.
They’re considered a grow light and it is considered that they produce a more stalky vegetative sort of expansion in plants. These lights are typically used thru all phases of plant expansion and produce glorious results. Agro Sun Halide : Agro Sun is a half-breed halide bulb that generates additional red light for flower and fruit production. This is said to be the best choice for synthetic lighting of plants. Sodium Vapor : Sodium vapor lighting is way down in debt.
There is some indication as well as a large amount of selling hype the range produced by these lights promote ripening. Personally, I want to see a systematic study to confirm this. The final analysis on range : Range is secondary to the over all indensity. Remeber, in any synthetic lighting situation, we can provide only a small fraction of natural lighting. it is more necessary to provide power than any other lighting factor. For instance if you have got to select between a 70 watt sodium vapor and a four hundred watt metal halide the sole choice is the four hundred watt system.
The over all performace will be much larger, even if you favor a certain range.