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Foliar Feeding ? Yes Or NO


GLMN
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Maybe Franco can chime in on this but I want to know if there are really benefits of foliar feeding? I ask this only cause I did some research online and found some people say it does and others say it doesn't have a real effect on plants ..Is this correct?

Anyone here foliar feed their plants and see a difference in growth?

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It's works very well. Foliar feeding is great because of quick action. Some info say: it give your plants extra boost. It's easy way to burn the leafs/plant.Can't be done so often. If u have EC meter try to spray 0.7-0.9-EC. Your fert should be 1/4 strength of normal feeding. Foilar feeding also help to wash yor plant (like rain does).

You shouldn't spray your plant after 2nd week of flowering period.

Spray Leafs it is a natural way to feed/wash plants.( Rain )

FOLAIR FEEDING - Cannabis Growing Guide

Folair feeding seems to be one of the easiest ways of increasing yield, growth speed, and quality in a well vented space, with or without elevated CO2 levels. Just prepare a tea of worm castings, fish emulsion, bat guano, or most any other plant food right for the job and feed in vegetative and early flowering stages. It is not recommended for late flowering, or you will be eating the sprayed-on material later. Stop foliar feeding 2-3 weeks before harvesting. Wash off the leaves with straight water every week to prevent clogging the stomata of the leaves. Feed daily or every other day.

Best times of day to Foliar feed are 7-10Am and after 5 in the evening. This is because the stomata on the underside of the leaves are open then. Also, the best temperature is about 72 degrees, and over 80, they may not be open at all. So find the cooler part of the day if it is hot, and the warmer part of the day if it is cold out. You may need to spray at 2AM if that is the coolest time available. The sprayer used should atomize the solution to a very fine mist; find your best sprayer and use it for this. Make sure the PH is between 7 and 6.2. Use baking soda to make the solution higher PH, and vinegar to make the solution lower PH. It is better to spray more often and use less, than to drench the plants infrequently. Use a wetting agent to prevent the water from beading up, and thereby burning the leaves as they act as small prisms.Make sure you don not spray a hot bulb; better yet, spray only when the bulb has cooled.

Perhaps the best foliar feeding includes using seltzer water and plant food at the same time. This way, CO2 and nutrients are feed directly to the leaves in the same spray.

Foliar feeding is recognized in most of the literature as being a good way to get nutrients to the plant later when nutrient lockup problems could start to reduce intake from the roots.

WARNING!: It is important to wash leaves that are harvested before they are dried, if you intend to eat them, since they may have nitrate salts on them.

NOTE: One grower who reviewed this document comments: "Fish emulsion smells. Bat guano could be highly unsanitary. Stick to the Rapid-Gro, MgSO4 (epsom salts), hydroponic trace element solution. Nitrate salts (The "N" in NPK) are unhealthy to smoke. Personally, I never foliar feed."

It simply does not seem to be necessary when using hydroponics.

Foliar feeding can give your plants a quick boost for a bigger, better, and overall higher yeilding harvest. Foliar spraying will not replace your regular program of root feeding, but this technique will supply valuable supplementary nutrients to plants quickly and efficiently. Foliar feeding is a process of spraying the fertilizer directly onto the plants leaves. Foliar Feeding provides nutrients through the foliage, or leaves of a plant. Growers, with the help of scientists, and researchers, have been studying foliar feeding and have incorporated it into their growing programs for many years. Regular spraying helps to feed the plant through it "stomata", as well as feeding the plant with direct exposure to nutrients, regular spraying also help to keep these "stomata clean and open. Stomatas are the microscopic openings between two adjacent guard cells. Changes in the water content of the guard and subsidiary cells cause the stomatas to open and close in response to changes in water status of the plant. Marijuana plants carry on the process of photosynthesis by combining together several ingredients in their leaves. Some of these materials are gaseous (carbon dioxide), some are liquid (water), and one is energy (light). If one were to look at the anatomy of a leaf, it would be easy to see how these materials are brought to the leaf so that they can form the food. The "stomata" play an important role in allowing the gaseous materials to enter and leave the leaf. Think of a stomata as microscopic pores in your plant's skin. When a plant needs more carbon dioxide for photosynthesis, it opens its stomata. When the leaves get too hot and want to release water during transpiration, the plant once again uses its stomata, this time to let something out. There are many advantages to foliar feeding. Foliar applied fertilizers are three to five times more effective than root nutrition and can successfully reduce the nutritional stress situations of plants. Foliar applied nutrients can also make elements, such as iron, available to plants immediatly when they are not available, or in low amounts in your soil, water, or hydroponic nutrient solution.

Correcting plant deficiency problems

So then spraying is also useful in correcting plant deficiency problems, because of the very rapid absorption of plant nutrients through the leaves. Foliar spraying applications of fertilizer will provide almost instantaneous results. The best time to foliar spray is early in the morning for outdoor growers, and when the lights come on for indoor growers. This is the period when the stomatas are open. However, if the temperature is 80 degrees or above, the spray will have less of a effect, as alot of the stomatas are closed. Foliar feeding is extremley benificial to clones, seedlings, young plants, and all plants while in the vegative stage. Clones are not rooted so they need foliar feeding to develope roots, and prevent yellowing, a common problem amoung propogators (cloners). Once a Marijuana plant is put into flowering it is recommended that you elimanate foliar feeding for the remaining of its flowering stage. Marijuana when hot and dry secretes resin as its natural insulation from the elements. They secrete this resiney insulation to naturally keep the plant cool. If foliar feeding is used in the flowering stage, we bring down the temperature of the plants, thusly resin secretion is less. Foliar feeding should only be done in the vegative stage and ceased two weeks after flowering has began. Foliar feeding should also stop in the flowering stage as nutrients can and will stay on your floral clusters. Not a good thing to be smoking once dried a heavy nutrient infested marijuana. All fertilizers made for soil or either hydroponics make great foliar sprays, especially the fertilizers that contain trace elements (micro nutrients). Usually their mixed at half or reduced strength, to reduce the chances of fertilizer burn to leaves. A strongly mixed spray and close under high intensity or strong sunlight, can burn your leafs from light reflexion cause by the water droplets and/or common fertilizer burn. Foliar feeding is most efficiently achieved with mist-type sprayers. The smaller the particle size, the better the response and the less fertiliser is required to achieve the same end result.

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well Pi2 gave you a really nice answer ;)

I personnaly don't foliart feed very often shame on me :P BUT the few times i've done i did notice the girls really liked it, and like Pi2 stated it has faster absorption so for some deficiencies it can be very efficient. Now you have to find the good products, and for that i won't be able to help don't want to get you the wrong way ;)

Good luck man

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You can use any full spectrum nutrient to foliar feed your plants. To avoid nutrient burn, your nutrient solution strength, should be no more than 1/3rd of the maunufactures reccomended dosage.

* The best temperature is about 72 degrees (when stomata on the underside of the leaves are open); at over 80, they may not be open at all. So, find the cooler part of the day if it is hot and the warmer part of the day if it is cold out.

* Use a good quality sprayer -- should atomise the solution to a very fine mist.

* Always be sure your light is off and cool before foliar feeding! For extra safety, wipe your bulb with a dry cloth after spraying and make sure H.I.D lights are raised to a safe distance (double the distance is a good rule of thumb) to prevent burning.

* Make sure the PH of your solution is between 7 and 6.2.

* To prevent the water from beading up (acting as small prisms) and thereby burning the leaves, for each gallon made, add half of a teaspoon of liquid detergent or a wetting agent.

* Spray leaf surface -- the tops and the undersides -- Stop spraying 2 weeks into flowering -- use sparingly on bud sites.

* Dispose of excess spray according to manufactures instructions— home made fertilizer sprays will be fine for at least 2 weeks.

* Spray one time a week every week, if any white residue is found, rinse the foliage with plain ph'd water to reduce salt build-up.

Benefits of foliar spraying:

* To provide a quick nutrient fix for root-zone nutrient problems or deficiencies; this allows more time to solve the problem(s).

* To prevent excess yellowing on clones.

* To instantly provide nutrients via the leaves, which reduces stress on the suffering plant.

I like to use Rage during veg and Liquid Gold when i flower two very good products. The liquid gold is just that! the amount of resin and weight it puts on is amazing!!

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Peters has developed a special formula for foliar feeding with most of the nitrogen in the urea form. In the past people have had problems foliar feeding with calcium nitrate based nutrients doing more harm than good.

http://www.everris.com/Home/Ornamental-Horticulture/Products/Product.aspx/Specialty-Fertilizers/Water-Soluble-Fertilizers/Peters/PetersProfessional/21140215

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  • 2 weeks later...

Foliar Feeding works too good, not to do it once a while but it is a pest, since the leaves always look dirty white - no matter what I do - wash them with pure water, rub them clean etc. these spots come back until the buds get fatter and I stop the foliar feeding - I got Plagron Vita Race- put 5 ml in a 1 lire bottle with a fine sprayer - always swear - never again but the girls love it too much and in the end it doesn't matter it just does not look as pleasing to my eyes and on pictures of course as plants left alone or simply flushed properly. Even flushing does not take away the white spots - Guess it is is burnt into the surface of the leaves somehow.. so best LEAVE IT - you run into problems you can easily avoid..lol

Problem is tap water got calcium and flour attached, so that is the white stuff - what detergents are you talking about ?

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  • 3 weeks later...

Here is more information for foliar feeding.

Nutrient Time for 50% Absorption

Nitrogen (as urea) 1/2 - 2 hours

Phosphorus 5 - 10 days

Potassium 10 - 24 hours

Calcium 1 - 2 days

Magnesium 2 - 5 hours

Sulfur 8 days

Zinc 1 - 2 days

Manganese 1 - 2 days

Iron 10 - 20 days

Molybdenum 10 - 20 days

Meteorological Conditions Favoring Foliar Applications

Time of Day: late evening; after 6:00 p.m.

early morning; before 9:00 a.m.

Temperature: 65-85½ F; 70½ ideal

Humidity: greater than 70% relative humidity

Temperature/Humidity Index: 140-160

Wind Speed: less than 5 mph

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i see some mixunderstanding here in this article mate... "Stop foliar feeding 2-3 weeks before harvesting." and "You shouldn't spray your plant after 2nd week of flowering period." Well, i would say, u can spray your plants even in late flowering with clean rainwater... nature does it sometimes at least... the point is to prevent mold in this case. I would rather say to stop foliar feeding around mid flowering, when buds start to form, and defenately spray your plants with clean or rainwater at least once after your last foliar feeding, to wash away the shit. The strength of the solution depends on the plants, i usually do around 1.4 ec on developed healthy plants. Adding feeding to the solution for clones is slowing the rooting process, so should be avoided. In any other stage it is benefitial. I personally love the fishmix for this purpose. Happy growing guys!!

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i find when doing indoor horticulture you have to clean the leave's or the stomate's get clogged (the little mouth's under the plant that inhale co2)

but was told this buy a oldschool grower that spraying plant hormones and fertilizer's will cause carcinogens to form as a result of the breakdown

of certain spray's im not sure if this is true but if anyone can shed some light on this subject would love to here it

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  • 5 weeks later...

Folier feeding will make your plants smile.

The House and Garden product 'Magic Green' is exceptionally good, you will see an increase in leaf growth and greenness within 24 hours, but only use it once or twice a week as anymore it will result in lazy root growth! (Due to the plant getting all it needs from the folier feed).

It's really easy not to be bothered to, especially as you have to be up and spraying an hour earlier than the lights come on or turn your lights off for an hour after, but I promise you will get more smoke if you do!

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Folier feeding will make your plants smile.

The House and Garden product 'Magic Green' is exceptionally good, you will see an increase in leaf growth and greenness within 24 hours, but only use it once or twice a week as anymore it will result in lazy root growth! (Due to the plant getting all it needs from the folier feed).

It's really easy not to be bothered to, especially as you have to be up and spraying an hour earlier than the lights come on or turn your lights off for an hour after, but I promise you will get more smoke if you do!

A wealth of info indeed.

House and Garden product 'Magic Green was recommended at my local Hydro shop, should be mixed with a wetting agent lilike Penitrator or sm90

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A wealth of info indeed.

House and Garden product 'Magic Green was recommended at my local Hydro shop, should be mixed with a wetting agent lilike Penitrator or sm90

It has any micro elements in it? " Magic Green" sounds like some Nitrate. I like that staff from Holland:D

CannaNPK224web

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Many good products on the market, really recommended to apply it once a week. I like fishmix, but anyway... The biggest adventage of foliar feeding is the quick absorbtion, so if used and dosed by advanced growers, the deficiencies can be treated really quick before causing any more serious damage or shock to the plants. Happy fat Buds for every1!!

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  • 4 years later...
  • 3 months later...

The above has been a very interesting discuission about foliar feeding.  As far as foliar feeding my plants, I will say that I have tried it, and it does have positive results as long as you only spray weak solutions of whatever you wish to put into the water being sprayed.  I have used Fish-Mix, and yes it does smell fishy for 2 or 3 days, but hey, I sorta figured it would.  it is basically pulverized and atomized fish in a solution, thinned out by my weak mixture.  Logical.

 

But what I want to get to is this:   There is another use for foliar feeding that was not mentioned above, and it is almost compulsory.  It is the foliar feeding during the time of CLONING.

 

I wish to share with you my cloning technique because it works so well for both soil grows and for hydroponics.

 

Earlier, I had tried various cloning methods with varying degrees of success.  I have a self-made bubble-ponic cloner that yielded only about 50% success rate.  And when I cloned straight to Rockwool with drippers, again, only about the same 50% success rate. 

 

But I now clone directly into seedling soil (Aussaaterde), and my success rate is almost always 100% for cannabis.  But during most any cloning process, you must certainly foliar feed the clone babies by spraying water onto the leaves about twice a day, simply to keep the plant hydrated.  Why?, because the cutting doesn't have any roots with which to gather water from the soil.  Without foliar spraying, its leaves will quickly dry up.  OK, you might say, "Well that's not FEEDING."  True, I'm not feeding nutrients through the foliage at that time, but I AM feeding WATER.  During cloning, I use only distilled water for foliar feeding my clones.  I am very careful not to use any nutrients when spraying my clone's foliage.  Cuttings are so fragile in this stressed stage that just about any over-fertilizing on the leaf will lead straight to nute-burn.  And spraying tap water or rainwater means you are spraying the plant with various and unknown dissolved minerals or even possible spores of mold or mildew.  The minerals will wind-up as dried white spots on the leaves, and any spores could quickly lead to brown stem-rot or leaf-rot.

 

Here is how I clone today:

 

1.  The mother plant needs to be in really good health, growing and reaching for the lamps.  With an unhealthy mother-plant it would be unlikely that any clone from her would make it.  Cloning is a stressful event, especially for the clone.

 

2.  I mix a very weak solution of RootJuice (Bio-Bizz) at the rate of one-half ml RootJuice to one-half Liter of Distilled Water (not De-ionized Water, they are not the same).  The reason I chose one-half Liter is that my RootJuice spray bottle is exactly 1/2 Liter. 

(I use this spray bottle as a temporary stem-bath for the newly cut clone in this cloning procedure, as you will read.  When the cloning procedure is completed, I simply return the sprayer-nozzle to the bottle, and it is immediately ready for use in its normal function as a "RootJuice sprayer" with a fresh, weak solution of RootJuice.  This sprayer is designated only for Root-Juice, never for anything else.  Same is true of each of my sprayers.  Each one is dedicated to only one fluid;  I never switch fluids in any sprayer.)

 

3.  I use Schultz "TakeRoot - rooting hormone" powder as the rooting exciter.  "TakeRoot" consists of 0,1% Indole-3-butyric Acid, and 99.9% other ingredients, chemically unimportant, they are the white powder that basically serves as the delivery agent for the Acid.  (I must say that this 2 ounce jar of "TakeRoot" is about 25 years old, and it is still working great, the batchcode is AE2487192.) 

 

4.  My other spray bottle is only for distilled water, mixed with nothing.

 

5.  I use small gardening cups with holes in their bottom (the very same cups you get when you buy small tomato plants or cucumber plants at a gardening store), approximately 60-to-80mm high (4 or 5 inches high), and about 60-to-80 mm in diameter at the top.  Any smaller, and the soil might dry-out too quickly in any single day, harming your clone.  Any larger, and the roots will take so long to reach the openings in the bottom that you will end-up transferring the plant later than is necessary.

(The roots appearing through the holes is one of your signals later in the cloning process.)

 

6.  Clones must be maintained in nearly 100% humidity for their first one or two weeks, so you will need some method of covering the clones with a clear cover that still allows light to get in.  At the store, you can buy a seedling tray with a clear cover, or what I do is use clear plastic cups that diced pineapples come in when they are sold fresh-diced at the grocery store.  I just drill 9 holes in the bottom of the clear cup and then invert the cup over the soil cup.  Their lips fit together perfectly.  The holes are for ventilation only at the top of the clear dome.

 

7.  I use simply seedling soil (Aussaaterde) available at most any gardening store or home improvement center.  It should have NO added fertilizers, and it should have a pH somewhere between 6,0 to 7,0.  I rough-up the soil in the bag, making sure to break-up any clumps, then I dip the cup into it and fill it to the top without pressing it down at all.  Then I set the cup of soil into a saucer and spray distilled water onto the surface of the soil to thououghly saturate it until the water runs freely out the bottom of the cup.  Then I use a slender object like an icepick or a pencil and sink it straight down the center of the soil all the way to the bottom of the cup.  This now sits to the side and waits for the clone.

 

8.  Before I cut anything, I make sure that I have prepared all the above items before I proceed further.  Now, I proceed to the cutting.

 

9.  Choose a point on the plant where you will cut the top of the plant or the tip of the branch.  To help you determine this cut-point, here are a few conditions.  Don't cut yet, I am just describing these conditions:

     a.  Your motherplant should have grown enough that it has at least 4 or 5 or 6 nodes above the cotyledons (the baby leaves).

          Each of these nodes have new growth that will become the motherplant's new side branches.

          The first node or node-pair below where you eventually cut will become the motherplant's new tops.

          Above these lower nodes there should be even more nodes (at least 1 or 2) as we approach the motherplant's current top.

          These nodes will later be inserted into the soil (after their leaves and new growth has been stripped away).

          The clones future roots will emerge from these stripped nodes and from the stem around these stripped nodes.

          The new growth at the tip will remain and become the new leaves of the new clone plant.

     b.  You should choose a cut-point such that the stripped nodes and stem of the clone will be long enough that it will reach all the

           way down to the bottom of the clone cup, while the new-growth tip shall remain above the surface of the soil.

           (A clone that has only a very short stem will die more quickly and easily than one that has a stem that sits deeply in the soil.

           A new-growth top whose nodes sit at or below the surface of the soil will become prone to brown-rot after

          about one or two weeks in the clone pot.)

     c.  Above the cut-point you should have at least 1 or 2 nodes and then the tip consisting of newgrowth.

          Each of the nodes shall have 1 or a pair of fan-leaves and certainly also a tiny shoot of new-growth growing out from the

          node immediately above the fan-leaf's connection point.

          (These fan leaves and their tiny new-growths will be stripped away after we make the cut.)

     d.  The cut-point should be located no closer than 10mm (1/2 inch) above the last node that shall remain with the motherplant.

          Cutting too close to a node puts that node at risk from infection because the plant needs time to shut down the cambrium

          tissues before an infection reaches the node.

 

10.  Make sure that you understand the preceeding conditions in order to choose your cut-point before making the cut.  Make sure you understand the following step fully before making the cut.  The following step must be performed rapidly, because once the clone is cut, the cut place is exposed to air.  The longer it is exposed to air, the greater the damage and infection risk to the internal tissues inside the stem.

 

11.  Using a clean blade or clean shears, cut the plant at the chosen point, some say 45° cut, but I haven't discerned that it makes any difference.  Immediately strip away all the major fan leaves and their respective new-growths for any node that will be at or below the surface of the soil.  Then quickly set the clone stem into the prepared weak RootJuice solution such that the entire stem including the stripped nodes are IN the solution, but so that the nodes and new growth top is NOT in the solution.  Now you can relax again.

 

12.  With clean shears, while the clone is soaking in the weak RootJuice solution, cut all the leaflets of all remaining fan-leaves of the clone to only 1/4 their original length.  Yes, cut them that short.  The clone cannot afford to devote the energies that remain in its stem to keeping that former 3/4 of each fan-leaf alive.  Its burden is greatly relieved by this cut.  Conversely, the stem is amply supplied photosynthetic energy from the 1/4 length that does remain.  Additionally, the clone must now concentrate its energies from this moment forward on only one thing - growing new roots.  Now cut also the tiny new-growth tips about 1/2 their lenght.  Same reasons, and additionally, these cuts will provide you nice signals in later weeks to let you know that the clone is finally producing new growth.

(If the leaf-mass were to remain, the leaf would try to concentrate the clone's energies on photosynthesis that would result in growth in the top.  We don't want that yet.  We want the clone to concentrate on making roots.  Trust me - Make these cuts!)

 

13.  After 10 or 15 minutes soaking in the weak RootJuice solution, open the lid on the Schultz "TakeRoot".  Put the stem of the clone into the powder and coat all the stem that will eventually be below the surface of the soil.  When fully coated, then tap the stem a couple times back and forth inside the jar to knock off any excess, then insert the stem directly into the little hole that you had prepared in the seedling soil as deep as it will go without allowing any nodes of the upper greenery to come in contact with the soil.  Return the lid onto the jar of "TakeRoot".  Now, gently close the soil around the stem, without pressing down.

 

14.  Using the distilled water, now spray the surface of the soil thoroughly again until it again flows from the bottom.  Now spray the foliage with the distilled water.  This does 2 things each time you spray withthe distilled water.  It allows the clone to re-hydrate itself, and it cleans off any soil or residues or possibly spores that may have landed on the leaves.

 

15.  Special Trick!  --> Now spray the inside of the clear plastic cover, and place the cover over the seedling cup.  This action ensures that the clone will have 100% humidity for many more hours throughout the day than had you not sprayed the inside of the cover.

 

16.  Set clones prepared like this under weak lighting such as fluorescents about 2 feet away from the tube at first.  Later they can be closer.  You will have to be the judge on that.  Read the clones.  Direct sunlight or HPS or MH or even LEDs are too intense for clones until they have proven that they want to live by showing you their roots.

 

17.  Clones prepared like this will need to be checked twice a day.  Each time, their foliage and inner surface of their cover will need to be sprayed with distilled water.

 

18.  After about one week, and for one time only, you can spray the soil with the weak "RootJuice" solution, trying to spray only around the outer perimeter of the soil and avoiding spraying directly on the stem.  After that spray, remember to clean the foliage free of any RootJuice residue by following up with a misting of Distilled water.  This procedure gives a little RootJuice to the soil in a manner that encourages the clone to "seek" the RootJuice - that means extending its roots to find the light nutrients.

 

19.  Continue these procedures and monitoring for mold or mildew until one day you finally see a couple white root tips peeking out the bottom of the cup.  When you see that, the clone is ready for its transfer, soil, roots and all into its new soil.  If it is your intent to transfer the clone into a hydroponics medium, gently wash the seedling soil away in a bowl of water and then place the clone with its new roots in the new medium.  Any soils washed away can simply be thrown into your next batch of supersoil or into the composter for re-use later.

 

Others have different methods.  This is my method.  Hope these ideas help you.

 

Cannabissapean

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