High EC feeding…

Hey guys. Just wondering what’s the highest EC you’ve ever successfully fed at with no problems?

i know it can be strain dependent but programs like Athena calls for 3.0 EC from start to finish and Jacks 3-2-1 calls for 2.4 EC start to finish. Right now I’m 4 weeks into flower with a plant and after adding a bloom booster to my jacks mix it bumped it to around 2.8 EC so I’m gonna see if my girl can take that. I’m in Coco/perlite

what is everyones’ target EC range from start to finish? Just wondering. Just wanna hear what different people are running and ideas.

My plants like 1.4 to 1.5 EC. Sometimes less is more.

Im running 1.5 e.c right now also, last grow i went up over 2 ec.

I was going to up it, but if they stay growing healthy there may be no need to.

I am trying high EC right now vegging at 2.6 (0.7 starting EC) and will try to exceed 3.0 in flower. Floraflex also recommend these crazy high EC for LED growing due to the low transpiration. They have different target ECs for different lighting types. But it's all so hard to say because everyone's water is different, everyone's ambient temps RH and air flow are different, different lights everything plays a role.

I’m running the highest EC crop I’ve ever ran currently. 0 hiccups so far and everything is healthy as can be.

I couldn’t pull myself to run their highest EC schedule at 3.0

Milky Weed said:

Im running 1.5 e.c right now also, last grow i went up over 2 ec.

I was going to up it, but if they stay growing healthy there may be no need to.

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I agree. Usually I keep them in the healthy range and don’t modify unless there’s a need. But I wanna see some testing and see how hard they really can be pushed and if there’s a noticeable difference.

bk78 said:

I’m running the highest EC crop I’ve ever ran currently. 0 hiccups so far and everything is healthy as can be.

I couldn’t pull myself to run their highest EC schedule at 3.0

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I’m scared of hitting 3.0 myself. I have a huge flowering plant in a 10 gallon and I’ll be going from around 2 to 2.8 on this next feed and if burn kicks in it’s gonna be a BITCH to flush out. I would have to just start watering with low EC feeds until it corrects itself because there’s nowhere for me to fully flush a 10 Gal in my place. Hopefully there’s no burn and all is well

Currently running 1.6 EC. Previous run in 1 gallon pots were run at 1.2 EC. Others at 1.4 EC.

Your max EC is going to be largely dependent upon other factors in your environment. Lower temps justify higher EC due to lower accompanying transpiration levels. If you want to push higher EC, you will also want higher light and CO2 levels, so that the plants are actually able to use the higher EC levels.

Armyofsprout said:

I’m scared of hitting 3.0 myself. I have a huge flowering plant in a 10 gallon and I’ll be going from around 2 to 2.8 on this next feed and if burn kicks in it’s gonna be a BITCH to flush out. I would have to just start watering with low EC feeds until it corrects itself because there’s nowhere for me to fully flush a 10 Gal in my place. Hopefully there’s no burn and all is well

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If and when I see any signs of tip burn I’m going to try and correct it with more frequent fertigation intervals, currently they are getting 1250ml every 4 hours during lights on. Everything else in my room is in check environment wise.

Plants don't use the same start to finish in flower the required ec rises and backs off later in the grow.

I don't think you/me can choose the ec it's the plant, environment and lighting that decides it, your plants plant in my room might need less/more depending on the various factors.

Star Dog said:

Plants don't use the same start to finish in flower the required ec rises and backs off later in the grow.

I don't think you/me can choose the ec it's the plant, environment and lighting that decides it, your plants plant in my room might need less/more depending on the various factors.

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I think we all pretty much know that. High EC feeding is more so about finding out the limits of your plants and then pulling back from there. If you low EC feed forever then you’ll never know if you can actually be feeding harder and benefiting even though they may be healthy.

PJ Diaz said:

Your max EC is going to be largely dependent upon other factors in your environment. Lower temps justify higher EC due to lower accompanying transpiration levels. If you want to push higher EC, you will also want higher light and CO2 levels, so that the plants are actually able to use the higher EC levels.

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Good info. I did have low temps this winter which is why I guess my plants kinda did their best this winter with higher EC buildup in my medium and I wasn’t flushing.

I just know high salt content stuck in the medium is
A bitch. I started a new run and self buffered my coco with 1.2EC calmag and then didn’t rinse it after buffering (with the thought that I need to keep the Cal/MG in the medium. I immediately ran into MG issues and just figured out why. Luckily it’s still early so I flushed the mediums on my new run down to 0.6 EC and they look to be doing better. I’ll know for sure after a week.

now I know to always rinse my coco before use even if it’s washed and buffered already

Armyofsprout said:

I’m scared of hitting 3.0 myself. I have a huge flowering plant in a 10 gallon and I’ll be going from around 2 to 2.8 on this next feed and if burn kicks in it’s gonna be a BITCH to flush out. I would have to just start watering with low EC feeds until it corrects itself because there’s nowhere for me to fully flush a 10 Gal in my place. Hopefully there’s no burn and all is well

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If it were me doing it, i would try and walk it up from 2.0 ec to 2.8, that may be too big of a jump too fast going straight from 2-2.8.

Armyofsprout said:

I think we all pretty much know that. High EC feeding is more so about finding out the limits of your plants and then pulling back from there. If you low EC feed forever then you’ll never know if you can actually be feeding harder and benefiting even though they may be healthy.

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If you know that why guess the ec or just randomly push it, use the maximum ec the plant/environment will allow and adjust it accordingly with age.

New rooms are automated so our new feeding schedule is

First feeding of the day is 3.0 in early flower and up to 4.0 E.C late flower with massive in the solution, i also drop my N my lowering by base nutrients after about wk 4... not growing leafy greens, growing fruit/flower

Other feedings are dilulted so that the EC is a depreciatining amount till last feeding is around 1.2-1.4

I like a more dynamic approach to feeding. Over time the plant gets a higher volume of nutrients in the same amount of feedings at 6 per day. Which seems to being doing alright. No burnt tips..


Will see how it effects growth and quality at the end...this is exactly how we ran the last facility witj the same nutrients and genetics




Saturday teas are starting will see how that works...


These plants came out of veg just 3 days ago...2.4 EC 2 fertigations then one just RO. Then i start the cycle over again for as fast as they dry down...


Every time you feed your plant.."complete", " perfect" solutions or not. The plant produces growth hormones and emzymes to process those salts... everytime... its the plant not your recipe..but we all have one

Star Dog said:

If you know that why guess the ec or just randomly push it, use the maximum ec the plant/environment will allow and adjust it accordingly with age.

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There’s No set way you can tell a “maximum EC” the plant will allow. Please tell me what calculation there is that can tell you the precise maximum individual plants and genetics can allow. That’s telling someone “your kid can eat up to this much”

it’s all guesswork. You can try and calculate maybe but there’s no way to be for sure until you actually do it yourself and push. Each pheno isn’t the same.
Plus pushing your plants doesn’t hurt really. Once you start to see a little tip burn you just pull back. It’s simple correcting within a day, it’s not life or death like you’re making it seem.

Armyofsprout said:

There’s No set way you can tell a “maximum EC” the plant will allow. Please tell me what calculation there is that can tell you the precise maximum individual plants and genetics can allow. That’s telling someone “your kid can eat up to this much”

it’s all guesswork. You can try and calculate maybe but there’s no way to be for sure until you actually do it yourself and push. Each pheno isn’t the same.
Plus pushing your plants doesn’t hurt really. Once you start to see a little tip burn you just pull back. It’s simple correcting within a day, it’s not life or death like you’re making it seem.

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Well...technically the osmotic preasure can be so inbalanced at your root zone it reverses...and ir can indeed be a function of EC and will cause your plant to starve and die... so their is a too higg EC but again its not EC its the rhizo zone and the plants response...

Samwell Seed Well said:

Well...technically the osmotic preasure can be so inbalanced at your root zone it reverses...and ir can indeed be a function of EC and will cause your plant to starve and die... so their is a too higg EC but again its not EC its the rhizo zone and the plants response...

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Well I agree with that. I wasn’t saying that too high an EC can’t cause your plant to die. I was saying that in a medium like mine such as coco it’s an easy fix and you usually have a little time to correct it. So if you catch it once burn shows itself you can just flush and be well.

that’s the problem now I’m having with my small plants in too high of a Calmag EC it’s causing reversal and stripping my MG from my plants so I had to flush