Dr. Bruce Bugbee method: NASA technique on Mars etc.

BIGBALLSJOE · Nov 17, 2020

Vizzaro said:
Thank you for this explanation. I too am trying out Dr. Bruce Bugbee's special media. I purchased a bag of Sphagnum Peat Moss from my local home depot and Vermiculite from my local Hydro store as well as some Dolomitic Lime (Unfortunately the Lime was not powder it was more like small rocks) and gypsum pallets. I also purchased a Jacks 20-10-20 General Purpose not realizing there is a Peat-Lite version of Jacks 20-10-20 with double the micronutrients of the General Purpose and the Peat-Lite 20-10-20 is the one Dr. Bruce Bugbee uses. My tap water has an EC of 0.5 at 240ppm I am not sure if that plays a factor into Fertigating, Please let me know if that is too high. So I have been fertigating my plant with my tap water and I guess half strength 20-10-20 since I want my EC to be around 1.0 - 1.3. This is my first grow and I have been doing a lot of reading and finding that people like to raise their EC in flower and since I am in flower I thought I would try it out and raise my EC, unfortunately my EC run-off sky rocketed to 2.0. I thought by fertigating my plant more often would bring down the EC, after reading about "high frequency fertigation" the article was about Coco-Coir but seeing as how Peat and Coco are both soilless medias I figured the same rules apply.

I do have a lot of questions to ask you. As to how to properly fertigate a cannabis plant in Peat/Vermiculite. Did you use the Peat-Lite 20-10-20? How do you catch your run off? How can I bring my EC down? Should I fertigate with R/O water only? You mentioned having to add CAL-MAG later when its depleted in the medium do you just add more Lime in a top dressing? Are you always testing your run-off pH cause I stopped again after reading an article that measuring that doesn't really help you know the real pH at root level? I have notes of my fertigation schedule as I am trying to find when the right time to Fertigate is and I am having a hard time trying to figure that out. Also I have been wondering about the Potassium and bud quality cause I know everyone talks about increasing potassium during flower to make the buds grow bigger and I was curious if you would consider increasing potassium for more thicker buds or if there isn't much of a difference.

its like any hydroponic media
this one offer great drainage/oxygenation for the roots thats why it will offer fast growth
for your ec its normal for it to climb in your runoff
thats why you need to give big runoff and recover it
depending on your climate/parameters you will give different value of EC
between 1.5 to 2 mS is the right spot

dont measure it its misleading

just be sure to give exta large runoff to rinse heavily your root zone
dont let salts accumulate and ec climb watering after watering because of too small runoff

dont do top dressing, just use the base nutrients
your water contains enough calcium, no need calmag
you can need it for og/cookie strains, you will see it quickly

Vizzaro · Nov 18, 2020

BIGBALLSJOE said:
its like any hydroponic media
this one offer great drainage/oxygenation for the roots thats why it will offer fast growth
for your ec its normal for it to climb in your runoff
thats why you need to give big runoff and recover it
depending on your climate/parameters you will give different value of EC
between 1.5 to 2 mS is the right spot

dont measure it its misleading

just be sure to give exta large runoff to rinse heavily your root zone
dont let salts accumulate and ec climb watering after watering because of too small runoff

dont do top dressing, just use the base nutrients
your water contains enough calcium, no need calmag
you can need it for og/cookie strains, you will see it quickly

This is confusing for me and contradicts what JonCreighton mentioned by keeping the EC between 1.0 and 1.5. and considering he has experience in growing in this medium I want to stick to his advice. Cause I am noticing problems with my plant. Her EC runoff is 2.0 and that's way too high and I am seeing nute burn on my plant. The pH run off is low too 4.8 and I know the proper pH should be 5.5. I'm thinking I may need to flush or something. I just gave her 2 gallons of nutrient solution and there was no change in the runoff. I don't know what to do other than flushing to bring the EC down and pH up.

BIGBALLSJOE · Nov 18, 2020

Vizzaro said:
This is confusing for me and contradicts what JonCreighton mentioned by keeping the EC between 1.0 and 1.5. and considering he has experience in growing in this medium I want to stick to his advice. Cause I am noticing problems with my plant. Her EC runoff is 2.0 and that's way too high and I am seeing nute burn on my plant. The pH run off is low too 4.8 and I know the proper pH should be 5.5. I'm thinking I may need to flush or something. I just gave her 2 gallons of nutrient solution and there was no change in the runoff. I don't know what to do other than flushing to bring the EC down and pH up.

yes
your runoff ph is to acidic because you have salt trapped in your medium. when medium dries, nutrients accumulate and acidify the root zone

if you give more runoff everytime you wont have these accumulations

they run low EC because they dont drain enough, so for counteract this they feed low
its not how you must do it

you need to 'flush' at each watering, not occasionaly.
each time you water you must give enough runoff to obtain the same pH/ec value on your drain and on your feed

if after 2gallon you had no change in your runoff EC, it means it wasnt enough

if you frequently give large runoff salts wont have time to accumulate
in fact they always accumulate a bit between the feeds, and its perfectly normal
but you need to rinse it everytime and RESET your medium ph/ec

you can believe me i went thrugh this with rockwool and coco some time ago and took me some time to figure

BIGBALLSJOE · Nov 18, 2020

what your doing basically is just adding new feed over the solution that is in you medium
you feed at 1.2mS ph 5.5 for exemple, with very low runoff
but it doesnt mean after that feed your medium ec ph is at 1.2mS 5.5ph

what you need to control is the value of your medium, and the only way to do this is to runoff heavily ( never hurt to do so) to equalize the value of your feed and your medium each time

Vizzaro · Nov 18, 2020

BIGBALLSJOE said:
what your doing basically is just adding new feed over the solution that is in you medium
you feed at 1.2mS ph 5.5 for exemple, with very low runoff
but it doesnt mean after that feed your medium ec ph is at 1.2mS 5.5ph

what you need to control is the value of your medium, and the only way to do this is to runoff heavily ( never hurt to do so) to equalize the value of your feed and your medium each time

I appreciate the advice. So I need to give more of the nutrient water? I was asking myself if that was a good idea or not. This media does drain really well but I still felt like giving it that much nutrient solution would be a bad idea. But if you say you have experience with this I trust you. I always give my plant 1 Gallon of nutrient solution every time so I figured doubling it would do the job in correcting the EC but I didn't want to water more than that fearing it would cause more harm to my plant to do so. Also after 1 Gallon of nutrient solution I get 2 red solo cups of runoff which I felt was always enough runoff. I have been documenting my feeding schedule the best I could for my first time. So maybe you can notice something that I haven't.

Overgrowtho · Nov 18, 2020

Interesting discussion guys.

Another related question: I have just brewed up my first compost tea for my super soil plants.

I wonder if it would be good to feed some of that to my Bruce Bugbee plant? (in photo you can see I used his fomular + pertlite).

A couple weeks ago I heard an interview with a pro grower using sterile rockwool/synthetic nutes, and he still nonetheless did a compost tea weekly to flush.

BIGBALLSJOE · Nov 19, 2020

Vizzaro said:
I appreciate the advice. So I need to give more of the nutrient water? I was asking myself if that was a good idea or not. This media does drain really well but I still felt like giving it that much nutrient solution would be a bad idea. But if you say you have experience with this I trust you. I always give my plant 1 Gallon of nutrient solution every time so I figured doubling it would do the job in correcting the EC but I didn't want to water more than that fearing it would cause more harm to my plant to do so. Also after 1 Gallon of nutrient solution I get 2 red solo cups of runoff which I felt was always enough runoff. I have been documenting my feeding schedule the best I could for my first time. So maybe you can notice something that I haven't.

yes in fact in hydro medium you can't overwater by giving too much water

can happen in soil because it has a high water retention and low oxygen content
if you water too much soil with small plants not already established they can show overwatering signs

i dont know the bruce bugbee method but i think its similar to flock rockwool
will allow you to feed several times a day since the day 1 because of the high oxygenation of the medium
with big runoffs you will always get the ec/ph levels inside the medium in check, and get the fastest growth rate and health

BIGBALLSJOE · Nov 19, 2020

Overgrowtho said:
Overgrowtho said:

Interesting discussion guys.

Another related question: I have just brewed up my first compost tea for my super soil plants.

I wonder if it would be good to feed some of that to my Bruce Bugbee plant? (in photo you can see I used his fomular + pertlite).

A couple weeks ago I heard an interview with a pro grower using sterile rockwool/synthetic nutes, and he still nonetheless did a compost tea weekly to flush.

Click to expand...

i think its more interesting to use it with mineral nutrition
feeding several times a day
no organic fertilizer

Kassiopeija · Nov 19, 2020

Vizzaro said:
I appreciate the advice. So I need to give more of the nutrient water? I was asking myself if that was a good idea or not. This media does drain really well but I still felt like giving it that much nutrient solution would be a bad idea. But if you say you have experience with this I trust you. I always give my plant 1 Gallon of nutrient solution every time so I figured doubling it would do the job in correcting the EC but I didn't want to water more than that fearing it would cause more harm to my plant to do so. Also after 1 Gallon of nutrient solution I get 2 red solo cups of runoff which I felt was always enough runoff. I have been documenting my feeding schedule the best I could for my first time. So maybe you can notice something that I haven't.

Your plant can leech some nutes out of the water while refusing others or excreting unwanted substances back into the rhizosphere. This means that the nutrition profile resident in your pot is being changed over time (according to a plant's needs) and needs to be drained out of the pot. You also don't want that these minerals crystal out near the roots, so you simply drain the old water out of the pot with each consecutive watering. How much that is, is up to you, but 20-30% do normally suffice.

How often you want to irrigate is dependant on the fact of how often the medium actually allows it (without causing root rot) or you find it economically viable. With both cocos and verm for a substrate this should be able to encapture more water (and thus, hold less atmospherical oxygen) as you can take from this table:

Spielsand/ Quarzsand	Hamann	0.05	leicht alkalisch	nichts [*]
Dreck vom Acker/Feld	(nach dem Pflügen)	0.08	neutral (Regen-Auswaschung)	fast nichts [*]
Muttererde	eBay	0.3		fast nichts bzw. negativ [**]
EuroPebbels	Plagron	hoch (ungewaschen)	stark alkalisch	~15 %
Elementarer Schwefel (auf 10% Bentonit)	Düngerexperte.de	0.1 (nach 1min ***)	leicht sauer	~20%
Hydro Correls 2mm	eBay	0.2 (ungewaschen)		~30%
Natur-Zeolith	eBay	0.02		~43%
Seramis	Seramis	0.05	7.4	~190%
Diatomin	AgriNova	0.5 (ungewaschen)	6.4	~200%
Perlite Perligran	Knauf	0	neutral	~220%
Premium Perlite (fein)	eBay	0.1 (ungewaschen)		~275%
Hochmoortorf		1.2	4.5	~310%
Vermiculite 2-8mm	Düngerexperte.de	0.2 (ungewaschen)		~370%
Vermiculite 1-2mm	Düngerexperte.de	0.1 (ungewaschen)		~480%
Cocos Block	Humus Ziegel	>4.0 (ungewaschen)	alkalisch (ungewaschen) leicht sauer (gewaschen)	~510%
Stockosorb/ Superabsorber	Terrabest	0	neutral	max. 30.000% [!] bei RO [****]

So Verm is actually twice "as wet" as Perlite

greener side · Dec 30, 2020

"How often you want to irrigate is dependant on the fact of how often the medium actually allows it (without causing root rot)"

I am super curious about this, the Bugbee video is awesome and I have followed his soil recipe exactly. It is intended to work with his tap water which is high in minerals and ph. As am using ro water, I have been adding cal-mag to .3 um and then 10-5-13 to a total of 1.3. My issue is the same as the original poster, how dry should this medium be before watering. I do not believe Bugbee is fertilizing like with coco, but am not sure how dry I should let it become. Today was runnoff got to 2.0 so my next water will be half strength and a little earlier than normal. Has anyone kept this mixture saturated?

JonCreighton · Dec 31, 2020

greener side said:
"How often you want to irrigate is dependant on the fact of how often the medium actually allows it (without causing root rot)"

I am super curious about this, the Bugbee video is awesome and I have followed his soil recipe exactly. It is intended to work with his tap water which is high in minerals and ph. As am using ro water, I have been adding cal-mag to .3 um and then 10-5-13 to a total of 1.3. My issue is the same as the original poster, how dry should this medium be before watering. I do not believe Bugbee is fertilizing like with coco, but am not sure how dry I should let it become. Today was runnoff got to 2.0 so my next water will be half strength and a little earlier than normal. Has anyone kept this mixture saturated?

you want to go in the other direction... ur putting in 1.3 ec... and ur registering 2.0 in ur runoff... that means ur watering too much... ur not giving the plant enought time to remove all the nuitrents before ur putting more nutient into the medium...

i noticed above someone mentioed u basically cant overwater a good soiless medium. this is true it will just run out the bottom... but u can over nuitrient and thats the problem most people run into when dealing with good mixes. this mix has to get pretty dam dry before watering again

i dont like going half strength and i deffinatly wouldnt do any non nuitent flushing cuz u can mess with the nutrient retention. just 1.3 ec and u adjust ur watering scheudle based on the biomass of the plant. big plant in small bucket u be watreing once a day... small plant in big bucket u might be watering once every 3 days... thats fine. just for an example ill use 15 gallon pots in the outdoor greenhouse... when i water those things they are HEAVY.. couple days later when i go in to water again u can basically toss those thigns thru the roof if u wanted to.. they get that light

bugbee is actually counting on people using tap water i think cuz he doesnt include micro nutients or calcium and stuff... hes counting on you getting a lot of that stuff from your tap... i believe in his youtube video he starts at .4 ec from the tap and adds .9 of the jacks 20-10-20. if ur going to go the RO route ur going to need to starts adding ur own micro nutrients and more of ur own calcium magnesium maybe sulfer ect... you should be fine w tap water, jacks 20-10-20, and a little calcium and magnesium if they need it (meaning the calcium and magnesium from the ammendments in the mix might not be sufficient for the whole grow. you may need to add some eventually)

i kinda hesitate tio post this but if anyone is looking for a deeper understand of the way bugbee approaches nuteints you can look at this paper.

284231562_Nutrient_management_in_recirculating_hydroponic_culture

its a paper from his in 2004 on nutrients in reciculating hydropnics... i hesitate tio post it cuz hydropnic nutrients and soiles nutirents are different things and it took me a long time to understand the differnces and i dont want anyone to get confused... this paper is difficult and i domnt wnat anone to get confused.. just do the 20-10-20... but if u want to get an more indepth understandin of his methodology you can go a little deeper w the posted paper.

greener side · Jan 1, 2021

Thanks for the paper and the advice. I believe it is relevant to my situation and quite helpful. Hope to start both a coco and aeroponics grow before too long.

Mario9992999 · Jan 22, 2021

I have recently started growing with this exact method and ran into some issues. I have attached some pictures. Anyone else experienced this?

Ec 1.1 going in and coming out
Ph 6.5 in and 5.2 out
Been following the VPD

Could it be the ph fluctuation?

Thanks in advance.

greener side · Jan 22, 2021

I would suspect that, I believe this technique calls for ph in the low 8s to start with before adding nutrients, which likely only lower to higher 7s. Waste should be around 6 - 6.5. Your plants look pretty good, so should stop showing those issues in new growth if that is actually the issue.

greener side · Jan 22, 2021

greener side said:
I would suspect that, I believe this technique calls for ph in the low 8s to start with before adding nutrients, which likely only lower to higher 7s. Waste should be around 6 - 6.5. Your plants look pretty good, so should stop showing those issues in new growth if that is actually the issue.

Also try 1.3 in, some phenomes like to be a little higher and will yellow a touch at 1.3 as some may be happier at 1.1 I would guess.

Mario9992999 · Jan 22, 2021

They actually just showed up the day after watering. I thought it would be better to lower the ph.

Henchman2one · Jan 22, 2021

I'd be more interested in his ion concentrations and/or ratios.

Also...
Can you attain an elemental anaysis of a strain grown outdoors? Assuming all nutrients that the plant could possibly want are available within the soil, could you extrapolate an exact hydro recipe? You'd know essentially that your carbon component is coming from the atmosphere and not something you need to worry about providing, along with the H component ect, but the proportions and the exact specimens within the elemental analysis should correlate to the proportions of the ideal hydro recipe of the particular strain (assuming same SPD indoor as outdoor)?

greener side · Jan 22, 2021

Watch his video again, the recipe is specifically high ph water that contains lots of minerals. The vermiculite is supposed to be good for ion exchange. A friend has used it successfully.

Overgrowtho · Jan 22, 2021

Watched the vid a few times and don't recall about high ph water.

Have been using his medium successfully although I started with a normal EC like 400 ppm and 6.0 ph and slowly increase ec instead of ramming such a high ec from the start.

greener side · Jan 22, 2021

Overgrowtho said:
Watched the vid a few times and don't recall about high ph water.

Have been using his medium successfully although I started with a normal EC like 400 ppm and 6.0 ph and slowly increase ec instead of ramming such a high ec from the start.

It's in there, I remember because high ph water is an issue here too. I don't really know how any of the ppm scales translate. Seen a pheno of a mostly indica yellow up using the 1.3 ums, but just a bit. Fixed it with one heavier feeding. I'm sure this could vary widely with genetics.

Dr. Bruce Bugbee method: NASA technique on Mars etc.

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