Tapering food.

Vlad the Inhaler

Active member
Hope everyone is well.
I'm about halfway through blooming my first coco grow.
I'm just wondering how do I taper the food off in last week.
Watering three times daily atm, run to waste.
Using 60/40 expanded clay/coco and watering to saturation and slight run off at every irrigation.
I've maintained constant EC readings through whole grow, and haven't needed to flush any bucket with pure water.
Not sure how I'm meant to taper down, to nothing.
I plan to step the liquor down in last two weeks to less than half strength of what I'm using now.
It's 56 day bloom strain.
All advice appreciated, thanks.
 
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Did a bit of research last night and found a General Hydroponic product Flora Kleen.
That company doesn't trade in Australia anymore, but I can get 5 bottles.
A week and half before harvest I was going to step down feed to about 1/3 strength of current.

I'm only using coco bloom A+B balanced with pk+, fulvate/humate/Cmag, kelp and silica at the moment, + bacteria, yeast n fungus starter every two days

Probably 4 days out I'll use pure water and the Flora Kleen 3ml/L.
No water on last day.
I don't want it to sizzle n spark, or taste crap
I hope that's enough flush.
 
Kia ora mate,

Anzac day tomorrow, don't forget to have a Billy for the boys !

The macro element responsible for the green taste is obviously N, it's a bit late now but what I do is I start reducing N from about a week after flowers have set in, you can do this by reducing how much, calcium nitrate, potassium nitrate or calmag your using.

Have a look at your A+B bottles, what's in them ? It's common for 1 bottle to be a mix of potassium nitrate, monopotassium phosphate and MgSO4, the other calcium nitrate and trace elements.

The issue with coco is maintaining the balance of calcium to potassium, coco has a low CEC for calcium and a high CEC for potassium, this is why potassium toxicity is common with coco which looks like a calcium, magnesium, zinc and/or iron deficiencie's.

Hence why calmag is an easy fix but really all you need is a little more calcium nitrate in your feed which is about 10USD for a kilo.

So ideally you would with trial and error find out how much calcium nitrate you have to feed
to maintain this balance and no more unless you need the nitrogen.

Because your feeding with bottles it's a little harder to control then with salts, I have each salt mixed into a concentrate in individual bottles so I can mix exactly how I want, if you mess with the ratio of A to B you need to be careful not to throw the potassium and calcium ratio off.

If I was you at only a week & a half from harvest I would stop feeding silica because of the potassium, stop feeding calmag unless you need the calcium, reduce everything else down to 3/4ish except maybe the bottle with calcium nitrate in it and then down to half strength after a few days then stop altogether at 3 days left just go with water.

The reason I dont do a long flush is because I feel like it's harmful, the plants at it's mass gaining stage why cut off it's food supply when it simply goes into shock, then starts eating its own leaves, drawing all the nutrients out of the leaves into your buds anyway, the leaves have approximately 1000x the concentration of nutrients in them that you've been putting into your feed even after a 2 week flush the plants have just drawn everything out of the leaves into your buds anyway.

I've grown tobacco for over 10 years and weed for about 18, smooth smoke, the flavour, the smell and burn all comes from a nice slow dry and nice long cure, the very best air cured tobacco is hung in the dark in a 29ish C environment with about 80% humidity for about 40 to 60 days before it's dry, the heat, dark, high humidity environment keeps the leaves alive to eat away all the N etc but there is no light so they don't try photosynthesis, you need air flow as well of course but not directly on the leaves just to stop stagnant air.

I always just try to dry for at least 2 weeks then into jars, I'd love to have an environment set up to try the air cured tobacco method on weed but I haven't had the chance yet.

Phew sorry for the wall of text .... I suck at explaining things, hope I helped, any questions just shout out.
 
Hey man, thanks for that.
This strain is pretty quick and needed a bit of potassium.
I started vegging the cuts 37 days ago ( one mum )
It is 23 days in to bloom now.
I had one full sister that I grew from seed, so she was put into dark room nightly for 7 days before I flipped the cuts.
The bottom leaf on the denser girl is starting to turn.
The taller girl's just starting to lose the bottom leaf.
 

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Reason why I was going to drop the food down about ten days out is I don't think the plant needs that much food then
I broke the bloom down into 5*11 day blocks.
First bit in the stretch I gave it a bit more magnesium and nitrogen, and am removing the nitrogen and raising phosphorus as I go along.
Just checking bottom leaf to see how calmag is going.
I also kept lights to 13 hours first 11 nights of bloom, then down to 12.5 next stage.
I'm doing 12 hour days now, then 11.5 and I'll be down to 11 at harvest.
I did this to push the stretch out, because the guy who bred my seed reckon it was only 50day bloom.
Last stage they will be grown, and don't need a lot of mineral, certainly not as much as they are using now.
They need light obviously, photosynthesis is their food source but they should just be packing oil and building terps by then.
I'm trying to keep my leaf healthy because a lot of mineral is mobile, so the plant can use it as it needs
 
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Most of this garden is same cut.
This is 28th day of bloom after 15 day veg.
Grown under 3K cmh only.
I never grew the cut before, my brother just found her.
I haven't pruned, trimmed, trained or supported these plants. I'm just running her out to see how she goes.
I've got a full sister in there, but she's a lot shorter.
A Santa Marta gold/skunk for one son and some AK for another.
 

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I think your dead right Vlad, each macro nutrient has a build up of demand then peaks and drops off depending on whatever stage your plants are at, kind of like an inverted U graph.

I know to much N during flower can prolong flowering, I didn't grow tobacco this year but I have for the past 10 years and if there is to much N during the flowering stage your tobacco just won't ever ripen up.
 
Looks like a full house over there Vlad. You say Columbian and AK? Some nice green growing in your corner. I like your setup and thanks for posting up


Shaka
Mu
 
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