Hey guys hope everyone is ready for a very dank Christmas as I am. I’ve recently decided to try this new organic line from australia but everything is highly concentrated. The Silica for example is %53.2! The Dyna Grow Protekt I use now is %3.7. They recommend .170 ml/litre or .644 ml/gallon. This is far from what i’m used to with the Botanacare i’ve been running. I have graduated cylinders that go down to tents of a ml but how much room for error is there here? Im hoping you guys may have some advice on running a highly concentrated line such as this. Any advice is greatly appreciated!
Potassium silicate is made of two things, potassium (K) in the form of potash (K2O) and silica (Si) in the form of silicon dioxide (SiO2). The amount of silicon dioxide is what’s important in terms of a products silica concentration. How much of that 53.2 % is actually silica? Well by looking at the back label I can see it’s 31.2% potash (K2O). The label say’s 21% silicon dioxide (SiO2), made soluble (SiO2:xH2O) by monosilicic acid, which isn’t too shabby a percentage of silica.
I don’t have a physical bottle yet and was assuming the %53.2 on their literature meant %53 potassium silicate. That’s great to know, I assume they have such a high concentration to save on freight from Australia but will the highly concentrated nutrients be too much of a headache to deal with? At .644ml/gallon how much to you adjust if you want to make a change…a couple tenths of a ml….in that case left over drops in my graduated cylinder from rinsing it would be a factor. I tend to over complicate things so please just tell me if running organic nutrients is just not that critical. Thanks for your explanation jmystro!
I don’t follow most labels because they are for regulators. lol. The best way to find out how much to use would be to check the ppm. You always want to mix silica to water first before adding any other nutrients. The industry standard for all of horticulture, not just cannabis, is 35-40 ppm of potassium silicate. If you can check your water’s ppm before you add anything to it, you can gauge how concentrated your silica product is by measuring out small doses and checking the ppm until it’s where you want it.
That’s a great bit of info there Jmystro, thank you! I’ll do as you said and find how much it takes to achieve that 35-40ppm
Here is an old post all about silica. https://www.dudegrows.com/use-silica-cannabis-garden/. It goes over just about everything to do with silica and Jmystro has it spot on with the concentrations and labeling regulations. I also cant overstate the importance of mixing silica first thing in the reservoir and let it stabilize before adding in the rest of your mix. Silica is very finicky with its ph, it will precipitate at pretty much any ph under 7 and fall out of solution. Check out the link though i dont want to sound like a broken record and just repeat most of the awesome information on that post.
I’ve talked to the rep for bloom yellow bottles as well as used their products for a test run. The formulator also claims to have monosalicylic acid in it they just can’t put it on the label. Bloom is an interesting line as they have numerous plant extracts that contain a number of different hormones and a 3 part bloom where you have a different bottle for early, mid and late bloom. There silica in my test produced thicker stems and more dry flower weight than Armor Si from GH which I uses for a cheap side by side in many of my trials and both produced thicker stems than the control group receiving no silica. Not all silica products are created equal nor are they all as available to your plant. Availability and solubility are key when choosing a silica. Ones containing ortho, mono or both have also been shown to cause a systemic acquired resistance in cannabis.
Its one of the most well known and studied antagonist for the plants immune system. Thank you Aspirin(its the main ingredient)