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Hydroponic gardening - Hydroponic nutrients
There are fertilizers and there are Hydroponic nutrients and as such these are totally different products. Fertilizers were made to be used in the ground soil where the natural physiology of plants is to send out many roots searching for all the nutrients and macro nutrients that they need to survive, grow, flower and fruit. There are much less mineral ingredients in fertilizer and the plants in the ground soil are left to search out what is missing from the fertilizer, which, in a good garden soil, they will eventually and hopefully find at least part of these things. At least this is what every soil gardener is wishing will happen.
Unfortunately this is not always the case. Many plants grown in soil never reach their maximum growth or production capabilities because of what they are lacking in certain nutrients because of poor soil conditions. This combined with a shortage of oxygen and carbon dioxide in the soil just adds to the detrimental effect on the plants. This is not the case in Hydroponic gardening. Read on to see why Hydroponic gardening and Hydroponic nutrient ingredients make them so different from fertilizers.
Hydroponic gardening - Hydroponic nutrients
Hydroponic nutrients are the life blood of any Hydropnic system. If you look at the product label for any regular fertilizer you will see a list of ingredients by the percentage of each ingredient in each container. The N-P-K are always listed first. This is the Nitrogen, Phosphate and Potassium in the fertilzer which are the Macro elements. Read a little further and you will see the Minor elements, which if you are lucky are only about six. Some have even less. Let's use a box of Miracle-Gro 24-8-16 as an example. This is a very popular fertilizer and is sold in most garden centers almost everywhere. The Analysis says it has 24% nitrogen, 8% phosphate and 16% soluble potash as the Macro elements of this fertilizer. The Minor elements are listed as 0.02% boron, 0.07% copper, 0.15% iron, 0.05% manganese, 0.0005% molybdenum and 0.06% zinc.
This gives a total of only 6 Minor elements in this fertilizer and the plants must search out and find everything else that is missing here that they need to grow, flower and fruit. Almost every fertilizer on the market is blended this way with variations on the amounts of the different elements but almost always with the missing elements that plants really need. They are just not complete. Look at the analysis label below on a bottle of this Dyna-Gro liquid plant nutrients and compare it with regular fertilizer and you will see there is a big differance. These particular Dyna-Gro Hydroponic nutrients shown here were developed for growing ornamental plants and bonsai.
Hydroponic gardening - Hydroponic nutrients
Hydroponic nutrients are quite different from regular fertilizers and here is why. There are sixteen to twenty elements that are generally considered to be essential for good plant growth. The Macro elements required in higher concentrations are Nitrogen, Phosphorus and Potassium. Carbon is supplied in the form of Carbon Dioxide. The Micro elements are also very essential for growth, but are required in smaller concentrations. They are Iron, Chlorine, Manganese, Boron, Zinc, Copper, and Molybdenum. Certain plant species may need other elements for good growth such as Silica, Aluminum, Cobalt, Vanadium, and Selenium. Having said that, it is important that all plants, not just in Hydroponic gardening, receive all the elements needed for optimum and proper growth functions including leaf, flower and fruit production.
Most of the nutrients and fertilizers available on the market today are lacking much of the elements that plants need to optimally thrive. Most products have the basic Macro elements of Nitrogen, Phosphorous and Potassium but are sorely lacking the Micros. Some may have as many as eight or so total elements- which is only about half way there. A good Hydroponic nutrient solution with secondary elements like calcium and magnesium and the proper amounts of trace elements like cobalt, chlorine, molybdenum, zinc, iron, and manganese will get you through all stages of growth. In Hydroponic gardening, during the different stages of plant life, you are able to adjust the different nutrient levels needed at different times to optimize your growth, flowering and fruiting stages.
Some organic Hydroponic gardeners can even use organic Hydroponic nutrient solutions such as this Earth Juice from OGM in California. This is one of the organic nutrient solutions specifically designed to use in Hydroponic gardening. This is the Bloom formula. They also have a great Grow formula available for the vegetative growth stage of the plants. During the vegetative growth stage most plants need higher amounts of Nitrogen.
There are also many very good Hydroponic dry nutrients on the market designed for many different types of Hydroponic crops. If you will be using Hydroponic dry nutrients go to our Hydroponic PLANT GROWING DATA section to learn more about specific dry Hydroponic nutrient formulas. Other helpful information about specific Hydroponic plant Ph, Hydroponic nutrient strengths and more can be found there also.
Hydroponic gardening - Hydroponic nutrients
There are so many different Hydroponic nutrient solutions out there on the market that it is mind boggling. It seems there is one product for this and another product for that and it can be very confusing. The main thing to keep in mind when choosing any Hydroponic nutrient product is to read the label and know what it was designed for.
Is it high in phosphorous for blooming? Is it high in nitrogen or low in nitrogen? How about the potassium level in the product? Most importantly does it have all the minor elements in it and at the right levels? Some cheaper formulas may not be so cheap in the long run if they deprive the plants of the needed micronutrients. Read the labels and ask questions. A good hydroponic sales person will know if it is the right product for what you are growing. They get lots of feedback from their regular customers on the products also.
Hydroponic gardening - Hydroponic nutrients
Another great thing about Hydroponic gardening is that you have total control over the different stages of plant growth with the Hydroponic nutrients, the light spectrums they receive for growth and the timing of it all with simple electric timers. During the flowering and fruiting stages most plants need more phosphorus, potassium and calcium than they did during the vegetative stage. They still need some nitrogen but not as much as they did during the vegetative growth stage.
Some organic Hydroponic gardeners are more interested in using a Hydroponic nutrient solution that is more organic based like this Earth Juice Bloom product from OGM of Chico, California. It is designed for the flowering growth phase of the plants and as such has a different combination of elements than their Grow formula.
They also market other great products for adjusting your PH in your Hydroponic nutrient solutions using totally natural ingredients. We use them all the time, they work great and go a very long way so are very cost effective as well as being very easy to use.
PH is extremely important for making sure your Hydroponic nutrient solutions are working properly for optimum growth. Discussion on PH of your Hydroponic nutrient solution is discussed in another section of this site.
If you are trying to decide on a brand of Hydroponic nutrients by all means read the label. See how many elements it has and what it was designed for. Is it for low nitrogen Hydroponic plants or high nitrogen Hydroponic plants? Bloom or Grow? Ask questions!
Keeping your Hydroponic nutrient solution at the right concentration is very important if you want optimal growth in your plants.
If you are growing Hydroponic lettuce and need the strength of your solution to be 700 ppm you need a way of checking your solution to make sure it is just that. Tomatoes need a much stronger solution than lettuce so if need your Hydroponic nutrient solution needs to be at, say, 1500 ppm it should be at 1500 ppm. In case you didn't know ppm stands for parts per million and is the specific measuring method for strength of any Hydroponic nutrient solution. A perfect formula for Hydroponic lettuce by the way is 2 teaspoons of 8-15-36 Hydroponic nutrient with 2 teaspoons calcium nitrate and 1 teaspoon of magnesium sulfate in 5 gallons of water. Mix each ingredient in a small cup of water until dissolved before adding to the 5 gallons of water. Adjust the Ph to 6.4 for seedlings or 6.0 for mature plants. Your letuce will grow very well in this solution.
There are other measurements that are also important like tds (total dissolved salts) and ec (electrical conductivity) and others. Many different plants need different types of Hydroponic nutrient solutions. These same plants also need different strengths of Hydroponic nutrient solutions as they grow and mature. How can Hydroponic gardening nutrient solutions be easily checked and properly maintained at the correct levels? Read on and see how to easily make and maintain your Hydroponic nutrient solutions at the exact and correct strength for the Hydroponic plants that you are growing.
Hydroponic gardening - Hydroponic nutrients
In any Hydroponic nutrient solution we need to know the strength of that solution to determine if it is too strong or too weak of a solution to properly grow the type of plants we are growing and the age of those plants. Electrical conductivity (EC) or specific conductivity is a measure of a material's ability to conduct an electrical current. When an electrical potential difference is placed across a conductor it's movable charges flow giving rise to an electrical current.
Electrical conductivity (EC) estimates the amount of total dissolved salts (TDS) or the total amount of dissolved ions in the water. This amount of electrical conductivity gives us a conductivity factor (CF) or a parts per million (PPM) scale to measure strength of a solution.
So what does all this have to do with a Hydroponic nutrient solution and the Hydroponic method of growing plants? Plenty!
To keep it much simpler let's say we are making a Hydroponic nutrient solution adding something to pure water which originally had a conductivity value of 0. Now we have changed the water into a Hydroponic solution that now has a small electrical charge in it. You cannot see it with your eyes but it is there. Now we add some more of something to the Hydroponic solution and the electrical charge in our Hydroponic solution is even greater than it was before. In a Hydroponic nutrient solution this is called electrical conductivity (EC)- but for our purpose of growing plants let's call it PPM for part per million. To define PPM the equation would be 1 milligram per litre of water equals 1 PPM.
An ingenious way of measuring the strength of a Hydroponic nutrient solution for the Hydroponic growing of plants is with a TRUNCHEON METER. A truncheon meter measures the PPM in a Hydroponic nutrient solution and very accurately tells us how strong that Hydroponic solution is with flashing LED lights. By just dipping the Hydroponic truncheon meter into the Hydroponic solution it reads the electrical current in the Hydroponic solution and the strength of that current makes the appropriate lights light up. The more Hydroponic nutrients we add to the Hydroponic solution, the higher the reading on the Hydroponic Truncheon meter.
This is a very accurate way of telling us what we are doing in our Hydroponic nutrient solutions as different plants need different strengths of Hydroponic nutrients for optimum growth. Young plants need lower Hydroponic nutrient strengths and mature plants need higher solution strengths. With this ingenious Hydroponic truncheon meter you can write down what you did on paper and keep a record of exactly how to do it again later. The Hydroponic truncheon meter tells us exactly what we are doing each and every time. If you really want to make your Hydroponic gardening much easier a Hydroponic truncheon meter is a must have. It is the best and most accurate way of checking and adjusting the PPM in our Hydroponic nutrient solutions we have ever seen.
Always add your Hydroponic nutrients to the water and check and adjust the PPM before checking and adjusting the Ph of the Hydroponic solution. Adding the Hydroponic nutrients will usually lower the Ph of the solution. You adjust your nutrient PPM first at the level that you want because adding anything else after this usually changes the PPM level. Then check and adjust your Ph with tiny amounts of Ph adjuster. As the plants uptake the nutrients the Ph will go back up. Checking Ph should be done every day until you get a feel for what is going on in your Hydroponic system.
We know how to check the strength of our Hydroponic nutrient solutions. No matter how well we mix our Hydroponic solutions they will be wasted if the PH of the solution is not right for the plants we are growing. Plants have an inability to uptake certain Hydroponic nutrients if the PH is too far off for that plant. All plants have their own PH levels that they need to grow the way they should.
Discussion of proper Hydroponic PH is in another section of this site as well as Hydroponic PPM plant growing data. Find out all about PH and Hydroponic nutrient strengths for the plants you are growing. Learn more about specific Hydroponic nutrient formulas and for which plants to use them, specific Hydroponic plant Ph and PPM and other helpful Hydroponic growing information is in our PLANT GROWING DATA section. The more you know the better you will grow.
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Hydroponic gardening - Hydroponic nutrients
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