calcium phosphate to treat calcium deficiency?

TheGreatSouthern

Well-Known Member
Hi.
I've got a couple plants with what we're pretty sure is calcium def, but also a bit of nitrogen toxicity and they are in week 2 of flower (autos).
I ran into this about year ago and foliar sprayed a calcium nitrate solution which fixed the cal def but made the nitrogen abundance worse, which made dense but super leafy buds with little to no resin. In short, regular cal nitrate based calmag didn't work well for me in flower.
Can calcium phosphate be foliar sprayed to fix this?
 

cannabineer

Ursus marijanus
Hi.
I've got a couple plants with what we're pretty sure is calcium def, but also a bit of nitrogen toxicity and they are in week 2 of flower (autos).
I ran into this about year ago and foliar sprayed a calcium nitrate solution which fixed the cal def but made the nitrogen abundance worse, which made dense but super leafy buds with little to no resin. In short, regular cal nitrate based calmag didn't work well for me in flower.
Can calcium phosphate be foliar sprayed to fix this?
Calcium phosphate is rock or bone. Poor solubility. Can you get calcium acetate?
 

cannabineer

Ursus marijanus
might be able to get calcium magnesium acetate. it's used in my country as road salt. mixture of lime and acetic acid. do you know if that is soluble?
Haven’t heard of it, but the fact that it is used as road salt is very promising. High solubility is a necessary factor in road salt. I would give it a go.
 

TheGreatSouthern

Well-Known Member
Haven’t heard of it, but the fact that it is used as road salt is very promising. High solubility is a necessary factor in road salt. I would give it a go.
Thanks. I spent an hour researching this morning and it turns out calcium acetate can be made by reacting crushed egg shells (calcium carbonate) with white vinegar to produce calcium acetate + carbon dioxide and water.
I picked some egg shells out of the trash, dried them in the microwave, bought some white vinegar across the street and mixed them together. It fizzed like crazy, so I'm guessing that was the co2 and the other reaction products must have been there too.
filtered and diluted it by estimation and foliar sprayed half as soon as the girls went to bed and dumped the rest in the res. I guess we'll see what happens.
I will bump this thread if it works, cos if it does it's probably a valuable tip for someone searching to solve the same problem.

Cheers
TGS
 

cannabineer

Ursus marijanus
Thanks. I spent an hour researching this morning and it turns out calcium acetate can be made by reacting crushed egg shells (calcium carbonate) with white vinegar to produce calcium acetate + carbon dioxide and water.
I picked some egg shells out of the trash, dried them in the microwave, bought some white vinegar across the street and mixed them together. It fizzed like crazy, so I'm guessing that was the co2 and the other reaction products must have been there too.
filtered and diluted it by estimation and foliar sprayed half as soon as the girls went to bed and dumped the rest in the res. I guess we'll see what happens.
I will bump this thread if it works, cos if it does it's probably a valuable tip for someone searching to solve the same problem.

Cheers
TGS
What % is your vinegar? Usually eggshell calcium carbonate is the limiting reagent.
 

TheGreatSouthern

Well-Known Member
What % is your vinegar? Usually eggshell calcium carbonate is the limiting reagent.
It doesn't say, so I'll assume 5%.
I watched two youtube vids on it. One by the chemist guy Nilered and one by some gardening channel. Nilered used 10% commercial grade acetic acid and the gardener guy used 5% table vinegar. I pretty much just guessed the ratios and used about 20g of crushed egg shell with about 30ml of what I assume to be 5% acetic acid. when the fizzing stopped I topped up the vinegar a bit at a time until it would no longer fizz then let it sit for ten minutes. I'm no chemist but I would assume when the fizzing was happening calcium acetate was being produced and when it stopped I wasn't likely to get much more out of it without fine grinding, heating, sonicating or something along those lines. Low hanging fruit you might say.
 

fragileassassin

Well-Known Member
Thanks. I spent an hour researching this morning and it turns out calcium acetate can be made by reacting crushed egg shells (calcium carbonate) with white vinegar to produce calcium acetate + carbon dioxide and water.
I picked some egg shells out of the trash, dried them in the microwave, bought some white vinegar across the street and mixed them together. It fizzed like crazy, so I'm guessing that was the co2 and the other reaction products must have been there too.
filtered and diluted it by estimation and foliar sprayed half as soon as the girls went to bed and dumped the rest in the res. I guess we'll see what happens.
I will bump this thread if it works, cos if it does it's probably a valuable tip for someone searching to solve the same problem.

Cheers
TGS
If you end up liking the eggshell method, you can buy it in bulk from some bird supply places.
I use a cheap $10 coffee grinder to grind them into a very fine powder in a few seconds and use it to supplement calcium in my dogs homemade food.
This is the stuff I got and was one of the cheapest places I was able to source more than a pound at a time. Maybe you can find the same product available to you
 

kmog33

Well-Known Member
You could try lowering your nutrient solution for a couple days and see if you ca issue gets any better as you bring down the n tox.
 

CannaCountry

Well-Known Member
Food for thought; high levels of N will lock out other nutrients. If you fix your N, you may find you don't have too many other troubles vs. robbing Peter to pay Paul. Good luck
 
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