Deep Freeze, Bloom Harvest, Electrical Conductivity

I’ve been adding Overdrive for the past two weeks, and now it’s time for the final flush and Final Phase. Yes, it’s almost harvest time, and I’m looking forward to cutting and bunching up my exquisite blooms and delivering them to select florists in our area.

I was watching Conan late last night and saw that temperatures in New York City are in the seventies. People are shedding their coats. When that happens in Canada, I start seeing shorts and T-shirts on the streets.

But, alas, the deep freeze is coming. I checked the long-term forecast on the Weather Network online and we are currently going down into the minus 8-10 Celsius range. That’s not all—on January 17th, the thermometer is supposed to dip to –11 degrees in the daytime and –22 degrees C at night.

That’s only five days from now! I checked my oil-based radiators to make sure that they are working properly and also the main gas-fired furnace for the house, which I had cleaned and maintained back in September.

Thank goodness, the solar panels have been installed on the roof and have been tested out and are working properly. We’ve had a whole number of overcast days, but the sun is due to come out soon, so the batteries will get fully charged in order to kick in in case of a power failure.

As you know, I use a drip irrigation hydroponic system in my basement recroom to grow circa 400 single stem Sim carnations each cycle, with extra cuttings in between from certain Mother Plants that continue to produce flowers for up to 18 months.

Every sixteen weeks I harvest all the remaining blooms and start most of my flowers from seed. Only the Mother Plants survive this excision and only as long as they continue to produce marketable flowers.

I checked the Nutrient Calculator on the Advanced Nutrients website, and double checked the quantities of ingredients that I have to mix in to my new batch of nutrient mix. After I flush with Final Phase I harvest my flowers and empty my reservoir.

For the Medium Feeding Bloom cycle, the Electrical Conductivity in my tank went up to EC 2.28 or 1600 parts-per-million (PPM). It always starts off lower during week 1 of the 8-week cycle, then gradually goes up to the maximum, only to descend again before the final week.

During the Vegetative cycle of my carnations, the solution goes up to EC 1.71 or 1200 PPM during week 4 and up to EC 2 or 1400 PPM during week 8. Then it drops back to EC 1.42 or 1000 PPM during week 1 of the flowering stage.

I’ve become much more conscious of my EC meter ever since I had a talk with a tech guy at Advanced Nutrients. He said that EC is a better measurement to use, than parts-per-million. In fact, different EC meters give different conversion from EC to PPM.

The one that Advanced Nutrients uses is made in New Zealand. It’s called the Bluelab Truncheon CF/EC/PPM meter and it converts EC 1 to 700 PPM.

The accuracy of my readings determines how rich the diet is that I’m feeding my flowers. For instance, during the eight weeks of vegetative growth, I am mixing in a total of 993.6 mL of Micro, the same amount of Grow, and 185.04 of Bloom, in order to make sure that the NPK ratio is at an optimum level for my carnations.

Other ingredients during vegetative growth include 1412 mL of Mother Earth Super Tea Grow, a total of 836.8 mL of Grandma Enggy’s Humic Acid, 792 mL of her Fulvic Acid, 3832 mL of B-52, 118.48 mL of Barricade, 2800 mL of Scorpion Juice, 3912 mL of Sensi Zym, as well as a total of 112.64 grams each of Piranha and Tarantula, and 541.6 mL of Voodoo Juice.

All those ingredients in my reservoir solution add up to a value of EC 2 or a measurement of 1400 PPM. Electrical conductivity in a solution is measured by inserting two probes and measuring the strength of the current between them. Not the resistance, just the flow of electricity, much like a voltage meter.

If you add more ingredients or subtract some, you should alter your quantities to maintain the proper EC. Also, don’t forget to take pH readings each time you mix up a new batch of solution. The desired pH level for hydroponic growing is 5.6 pH.