How to make a nutrient solution for plants
Growing outdoors for beginners. Strictly speaking, a plant doesn’t need more than nature can give it. Most plants in nature grow in forests, moors and other unfertilised areas and they’re doing fine. But you’d like to have a good harvest this summer, so you want to shorten the growing phase. To speed things up, you can help with base nutrients.
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A balanced diet
Plants can use a whole list of elements that positively influence their growth, the generation of chlorophyll and other important processes. In the growth phase, a plant needs these elements in other ratios than during bloom. Luckily you don’t need to worry about this if you have good base nutrients. Plagron’s Alga Grow is a good example: it’s tuned to the requirements of a plant in it’s growth phase. Base nutrition is available in all kinds of forms and content sizes. Plagron’s products are liquid and pretty concentrated. In other words: you need to mix it with water before giving it to your plants.
Ratios
Alga Grow has a concentration of 1:250. This means you need to add 1 ml of nutrients to 250 ml of water. If you translate this to a litre of water you need to add a maximum of 4 ml of Alga Grow. With every additional litre of water you add another 4 ml.
Start with the amount of water you need. Most buckets or watering cans have an indicator of how much water is in them.
Measure out the correct amount of Alga Grow and add it to the water. (For example: 12 ml to 3 litres of water.) Stir the mixture with a wooden stirring tool.
Once you’ve mixed the nutrition and water well, you can give the nutrient solution to your plants.
On prefertilised substrates
Of course, if you are using a prefertilised substrate in a pot, like Batmix, you don’t need to add grow nutrients for the first six weeks. After this period you might notice a color change in the leaves. If these start to yellow a little bit, you need to start with the base nutrition.