NPK-University Plant Essential Elements With Harley Smith

welcome everybody my name is Harley Smith I'm going to be your teacher tonight and we're going to be doing part one of a two-part series on plant nutrition tonight we're going to be looking at the essential elements the minerals the fertilizers that plants need to grow and reproduce but next week we're going to follow up with a class on organic biostimulants because plants need 17 essential elements to grow and reproduce but there are biologically active molecules they aid with the uptake of minerals so there's two parts of the story there's the mineral nutrition and then there's the organic biostimulants but tonight if you have questions during the class go ahead and type them in we'll have a question and answer session afterwards and if you think of a question later that's fine just email me that's my email address on the screen that's my cell phone number too if you want to call to discuss things where you want to send me a text that's fine I'm here as a resource for you so please go ahead and contact me if you have future questions after the class also everybody that registers for tonight's class I'm going to send them a link to the recorded version so if you don't get everything the first time don't worry about it you can watch it over again and then send me a question if you have it or save it for next week when we continue with the series okay let's go ahead and get started here first of all plants need 17 essential elements to grow and reproduce three of them are free carbon hydrogen and oxygen they come from carbon dioxide and from water those three elements carbon hydrogen oxygen account for over ninety five percent of the plants dry weight so if all you're concerned with is increasing yield or increased production do carbon dioxide supplementation if you can increase the co2 in your atmosphere to say 1,200 parts per million you could see an increase in the yield of 30 to even 50% so carbon dioxide supplementation is great also fresh air and if you're not going to supplement add more co2 you need to have a source of fresh air to bring into your plants because they'll deplete the co2 if the co2 is brought down to less than say a hundred parts per million the plants will stop growing so fresh air is very important you could have you know the best nutrient solution in the world you can have the most expensive organic biostimulants perfectly tuned right to the specific needs of the strain of plants that you're growing if you don't have the right environment if you don't have the right amount of fresh air and especially the amount of light that you need the plants will not reach their genetic potential so light is the limiting factor for especially for indoor growing plants need full-spectrum light they need the blue end of the spectrum and the red end of the spectrum during the vegetative growth stage plants prefer the blue end of the spectrum they need full spectrum they need all the colors of the rainbow but especially the blue because plants have over the years have learned to compete for the light if they're in the shade they stretch to get above the other plants in the canopy or they lean toward a break in the canopy that's called phototropism where plant leads toward the light but the plant isn't actually leaning toward the light it's leaning toward blue at a very narrow wavelength you see it here on the screen right there at about the 460 nanometer wavelength that's sky blue so if you during vegetative growth you give the plant plenty of full spectrum light with the blue enhance blue at the 460 nanometer wavelength the plants will be short and stocky they'll have thicker stems they'll have more dark green foliage because blue is responsible for chlorophyll production more than any other color in the spectrum and if the cuticle cells in the leaves will be thicker so it would be more disease-resistant and if you looked at the leaves under a microscope the stomata the pores that take in co2 through the leaves there'll be more of them denser closer together so it turns the plant into a photosynthesis machine so that is very important that's when you invest in the expense of horticultural grow lights if you brought in a standard say high-pressure sodium lamp a warehouse wall it's almost no blue they'll be the worst light to use indoors especially during vegetative growth because there's no blue the plants will be tall and spindly not very good foliage poor producers but that's why most of the expense of horticultural grow lights they're enhanced right there at the that's a four hundred and sixty nanometer wavelength to extend the spectrum and in the future classes we're going to do a whole class just on lighting because that's the new frontier in the Netherlands they're experimenting now with light recipes where they still use the HIDs for the primary light for photosynthesis but then they're adding specific frequencies you know like the blue end of the spectrum that literally opens stimulates the plant to open up the stomata not only does it make more stomata it opens them so the plant can take in the carbon dioxide more of the canopy becomes photosynthetically active a little bit of ultraviolet light is also beneficial because the if the plants are exposed to ultraviolet light they start to make antioxidants to try to protect themselves from the UV spectrum and they make pigments some of the the pigments come out and also some of the medicinal compounds that are important for us so you can manipulate the spectrum of light as well as fine tuning and spoon-feeding your flat Pines with the right nutrients at the right time okay during fruiting a flowering though plants prefer the red end of the spectrum plants measure their their age from dusk to dusk from far red to far red as the Sun setting there's proportionately more Reds the sun goes down below the horizon there's proportionally more far reds and it puts the sleep the plant to sleep for the night it actually turns off the active phytochromes in the plant so they you can turn off the plants more quickly you'll be able to wake them up earlier in the morning as well for so they can utilize the light more efficiently if you don't give them a dose of the far mid spectrum they'll still shut down for the night it'll take two or three hours for them to become inactive for their night cycle okay so lights important we'll talk about that more in future classes but along with the carbon dioxide plants need oxygen at the roots they take in co2 from the from the air they do the in the presence of chlorophyll they and full-spectrum light the red and blue end of the spectrum they make sugars and some of those sugars they use for energy to grow and reproduce so they store in the flowers and then the fruit and some they leak from the roots to feed the plane rose promoting rice so bacteria and the Michael Raizel fungi and we'll talk more about that later but along with that though they're made there during the day with a daylight side and there they're storing energy from the light they're storing it in the form of sugars but day at night they're burning up that energy - especially at night in the middle of the night that's one cell division is the strongest for the plants so it's very important for for the plants to receive that but oxygen is necessary for respiration and the most important place to provide the plant with oxygen is the roots for respiration dissolved oxygen in the root zone so be careful do not over water your plants if you're over watering your plants the pore spaces in the soil fill up with water it suffocates the roots and also if you over water the plants it sets up an anaerobic environment the bad guys the Pythium Rhizoctonia the root are anaerobic fungi they grow in stagnant water without oxygen so be careful not to overwater your plants early on when you water your plants make sure there's a little water coming out the bottom of the pots and then wait for them to dry out almost all the way before you water them again oxygen is very critical for respiration of the plants to burn the stored energy and there's another part to that too if we you know I'll show you that tonight as well are one of the key themes in our classes is growing high Brix plants with a lot of stored energy bricks as a measurement of the sugar content in the sail if there's plenty of stored carbohydrates then some of those carbohydrates are stored in the roots and that can be used for energy during flowering later so you want maximum yields start from the very beginning by giving the plant very good nutrition get more lateral root growth more root mass lots of storage sugars at the roots and I'll show you some ways to do that tonight like spoon-feeding your plants okay the other essential elements besides carbon hydrogen and oxygen are minerals and they come that can be provided through organic fertilizers or through mineral fertilizers and hydroponics either way plants need 17 essential elements 14 minerals if plants can't take up large organic molecules though so if you're using organic nutrition those large organic molecules have to be broken down by microorganisms in the soil broken down into the form that the plant can take them up into there are what's called the the ions there are electrically charged particles so whether you're doing mineral fertilizers or or organic fertilizers they have to be produced in a in water soluble form that are immediately available to the plant okay let's go ahead and take a look at some of the individual minerals and I'll show you a strategy of growing tonight that I call spoon feeding where we're giving the planning's exactly what it needs when it needs it maximize quality maximize yield increase the plants natural resistance to pests and disease so let's go ahead and start with nitrogen now nitrogen is the growth element and the first half of a plant's growth the plant is going to assimilate about 80 percent of the nitrogen and needs for the whole life of the plant that's why most grow formulas are proportionately higher in nitrogen because that's when the plant needs them the most there's a balance though that plants need plants like either the nitrate form of nitrogen or the ammonium form of nitrogen those are the two forms of nitrogen that the plants can take up through the roots now one of the biggest mistakes that beginners make is over fertilizing especially with nitrate nitrogen the nitrate form that's why I recommend for anyone out there that's using a mineral fertilizer use half strength during vegetative growth stage because it takes about 25 to 30 percent of the energy of photosynthesis just to assimilate the nitrates whether the plant needs them or not nitrate nitrogen is a luxury element the plant will take it up and burn its energy to do it see if you overdo it with nitrate nitrogen you'll get big top growth they grow really fast you'll bet you'll get big cells with themm cells walls and they're going to burn up the energy of photosynthesis and it will restrict the ROO growth there'll be less carbohydrates to ship to the roots and that will affect the flowering process later on in fact if you overdo with nitrate nitrogen to toxic levels a lot of beginners do it could delay or even prevent flowering so bring your nitrate nitrogen down to adequate levels now if the plant develops a nitrogen deficiency then a little bit of the ammonium form of nitrogen is a quick fix if you have a true nitrogen deficiency just one dose of nitro the plant will start to respond within two or three hours and the symptoms will go away in a matter of a few days now in hydroponics there the nitrogen is providing both as nitrate in ammonium usually about 90% of the nitrogen is in the nitrate form and no more than about 10% is in the ammonium form if you're doing organic nutrition you're going to change that balance you're going to have higher ammonium and less nitrix because the microorganisms will change the ammonium form of nitrogen into nitrates but it's a slow process and it's a healthier process for the plant so watch your your nitrates especially during the vegetative growth stage because you'll actually lower the Brix and attract insects and make the plant more susceptible to powdery mildew and molds if you overdo it with nitrate nitrogen so don't be don't be fooled don't be foolish don't just try to grow the biggest plant you can you want the strongest healthiest plants with thick stems a strong vascular system with lots of stored energy because they can release that energy later on to produce vitamins produce antioxidants to fight off insects and also to have a burst of fruit and flowers during the fruiting of flowering stage ok next we'll look at phosphorus now phosphorus is the energy element it energizes rooting and it energizes flowering when the plant takes in phosphorus it is converted into animala Kuehl called ATP adenosine triphosphate that is the energy currency of the plant the plant will use energy to build phosphate bonds and then those phosphate bonds are cleaved it releases the energy to grow and to reproduce now one of the best times to use a little extra phosphorous early routing because it energizes the rooting process for bed root strike better establishment of the plant in fact most commercial growers don't just have a grow in a bloom nutrient they have a starter fertilizer that they use just for the first two or three weeks that's proportionally higher and phosphorous to achieve earlier rooting and a stronger plant because we get stronger establishment of the plant it's just going to transplant better you won't have as much transplant shock and if you have better root strike the plants can be able to take up water and all of them other minerals more efficiently so most commercial growers have a starter fertilizer that has a little bit extra mono ammonium phosphate because the ammonium form of nitrogen actually eats with the uptake of the phosphorus I've done experiments in the lab or that just a very small amount of mono ammonium phosphate to my starter fertilizer you know less than 1/16 of a teaspoon per gallon and I saw 20% more roots and transplant it's it's it's very obvious increasing in rooting so you want to increase your root development early on a little extra phosphorus the other time to use a little extra phosphorous early flowering phosphorous stimulates earlier flowering and more flowering sites so it energizes the flowering process to get the flowering process going later on though during the rest of the plant's growth they still need phosphorous they're going to need adequate phosphorous from day one all the way to the day of harvest because they need it for making the energy molecules but they're not going to need a lot of extra phosphorous at the end in fact during heavy fruiting and flowering plants need more potassium potassium is the health element it contributes to the quality of fruit and flowers more than any other element during heavy fruit and flower production plants can actually reduce or deplete potassium too deficient levels in two or three days that quickly and if you're pushing the plants you're adding co2 highlight in they deplete the potassium even faster and if you're using bloom stimulants which we'll talk about more next week but if you're turning on the genes for more blooms and bigger blooms it depletes the potassium even more quickly so we want to put back in what the plant took out during heavy fruit and flower production by using a potassium supplement you could use a peak a boost where you're adding phosphorus and potassium but then you're adding extra phosphorous at the end when the plan doesn't need it so my recommendation is add more phosphorous at the beginning of flowering and add more potassium during heavy fluid fruiting and flowering and toward the end as a supplement now if you get a potassium deficiency so you're going Tomatoes you'll get watery fruit the low sugar content and poor shelf-life that's because potassium is a catalyst for carbohydrate metabolism to actually make the sugars as part it activates enzymes that are used in photosynthesis that are used in cellular metabolism as well to unlock them also potassium activates enzymes that unlock the storage sugars in the roots in the plant and ship them to the developing fruits and flowers so even before you see symptoms of a potassium deficiency the plants could develop what's called a hidden hunger they just stall and a lot of you have seen that especially if you're growing in intensive gardening indoors everything's growing great we're filling in with flowering study sites we're starting to set fruit then all of a sudden nothing seems to be happening they're just not growing it could be a potassium deficiency just give it a little potassium in the form of a potassium sulfate would be a good one it'll spark carbohydrate metabolism the sugars float in the flowers will start to fill in again you'll get better fruit and flower quality okay next up we will talk about the bloom stimulants if you're using those that it depletes the potassium even faster they the pitch here I did a trip to the Netherlands years ago and I was able to do a side trip to Belgium where they're doing the first test on bloom stimulants and four more blooms and bigger blooms the the plants that they were doing for control plants were sweet peppers and even the control without the bloom stimulant twelve feet tall loaded with peppers the next row they were doing the bloom stimulant and halfway through the trial they were already a 10% increase in yield and rising so it was a it was very good now the downside was they were also doing tests of the nutrient solution and as the plant was putting on more weight with fruit and flowers the plant was depleting the potassium faster than any other element so if you're using bloom stimulants then it's very important for you to use a potassium supplement with it so the plant can reach its true genetic potential effect I was in Belgium talking to the scientist I said well why don't you put in some potassium that so it's the same as the control otherwise won't potassium become the limiting factor at least that we can do that so why not is it because in a controlled experiment you can only have one variable if they were to add the potassium someone can read the report later on and say oh the reason you got more yield is because you added more potassium instead of the bloom stimulus themselves but I can tell you this if you're using a bloom stimulant if you're pushing your plants it's very important for quality to keep the potassium nitrate ratio high as the plants are drawing down the potassium we put it back in so we can get the best of the best of quality I'll talk to you next week we'll talk more about the bloom stimulants I'll show you how to act how it actually works - it actually activates the series of genes that tell us the plan don't make more stems and leaves make flowering parts but come back next week and I'll show you about bloom stingers and how how those are being used around the world to increase quality and yield okay let's move on to the other essential elements okay we know plants need nitrogen during the that's why most of the vegetative growth formula siren nitrogen the balloon formulas will be higher in phosphorus and potassium we want to keep an eye on our potassium to nitrate ratio your bottles of fertilizer you'll see the three numbers the Stanford n P and K nitrogen phosphorus and potassium and what we want to see during the vegetative growth stage especially in hydroponics where you have very good control at the root zone is about one and a half times more potassium than nitrogen but during the fruiting and flowering stage you want to reduce the nitrate nitrogen low more but increase the potassium so it's about a two-to-one potassium to nitrogen ratio or even more also we want to make sure that we don't overdo it like I said you overdo it with nitrogen you can delay or prevent flowering you'll get big plants it'll be big cells with thin cell walls it'll attract insects it will attract fungus also you'll have lots of dark green foliage but it will be rank'd growth it will be soft growth and not healthy growth if you overdo it with phosphorus phosphorus toxicity shows up as a zinc deficiency zinc deficiency first iron deficiency second and magnesium deficiency third in that order so if especially if you have hard water and you're using a lot of phosphoric acid to lower your pH you can hydroponics we want to make sure that we use a hard water nutrient because the hard water nutrients have more nitric acid in them and they're a little more acidic so we don't overdo it with the phosphorus I have hard water so up I never use phosphorus supplements because I'm adding so much phosphoric acid to lower my pH and that for phosphoric acid is actually a fertilizer for the plant the plant will take it up so toward the end I'm very careful with the amount of phosphorus I ad don't had too much when I add my potassium along with it now calcium is the next essential element in fact plants take up more calcium but they take out phosphorus calcium to me calcium is king if you want to grow the best of the best equality we need that high potassium for carbohydrate metabolism we need a strong vascular system and calcium is a passive element it's only taken up in the transpiration stream so if you have high humidity you can get a calcium deficiency even if there's plenty of calcium at the root zone so we want to watch our relative humidity then keep it between above 40 and 60% if it gets too high you'll get a calcium deficiency it shows up as blossom end rot and tomatoes it shows up as Tim Byrne and lettuce and it shows up in the new growth in the bud development at the top of the plant to form growth so that we need to get it into the plant I just have the right amount at the root zone so humidity first the second thing good air movement we want to have oscillating fans indoors so that all the leaves are gently moving - because during photosynthesis the plants are taking up water in the photosynthesis but they're also transpiring water through the leaves so if you don't have good air movement they dump the plants develop a vapor barrier on the bottom side of the leaves with that stagnant air and then the plants can't take in carbon dioxide and they can go into photorespiration very inefficient use of the light and also if they have a vapor barrier not gonna be able to take up enough calcium you'll get a calcium deficiency and I think that part of the problem when you have high humidity and you have fungus is because you don't have enough calcium if we I'll talk more about the biostimulants next week if you can get more calcium into the plant calcium ions react with peptic acid in the play to make calcium peptic pectin that's the glue that glues the cell walls together so if a mold spore lands on a leaf like powdery mildew it wants to get to the water in the interstitial space and then it germinates it becomes the stomach and spreads if you get lots of calcium uptake instead of water in the interstitial space you have pectin calcium pectin so by the time the mold spore germinates is able to penetrate the cells it tries up and dies so we can prevent powdery mildew if we can increase the uptake of calcium and I'll show you some more ways to do and do that next week by using amino acids along with your nutrients but today though calcium is really important also calcium gets locked up in the soil very easily it locks up with phosphates to make calcium phosphate that's where your bones are made out of 95% insoluble that means it's unavailable to the plant if it reacts it locks up with sulfates make calcium sulfate that's gypsum plaster of Paris 98% insoluble and unavailable to the plant so we need to have water soluble calcium that's why in hydroponics you'll see a two-part nutrient or even a three all the calcium is in one of the parts and all the phosphates and sulfates are in the other part in concentrated form otherwise they'll react and form limescale and become unavailable but in dilute form they're available to the plant so when come back next week though I'm going to show you how nature solves the problem of calcium deficiency not only to chelate the calcium and keep it soluble but to open up calcium ion channels in the roots so the plants take up calcium a thousand times faster than simple as Moses okay next let's look at magnesium magnesium is the central element of chlorophyll and it's actually the magnesium that makes plants green now unlike calcium though magnesium you a mobile element it can be once it's locked up in the the leaves if there's a magnesium deficiency plants can take magnesium from the bottom leaves and send it to the top leaves where it's needed the most it can't do that with calcium calcium is an immobile element once it's assimilated by the plant is locked up it's like cement it can be transported to the new growth that's why you see a calcium deficiency at the top of the plant we're a magnesium deficiency it'll show up first and the bottom leaves has intervener chlorosis the veins of the leaves will stay green but the tissue between starts to turn yellow so magnesium is very important now if you had overdo it with potassium you get a potassium toxicity it shows up as a magnesium deficiency I'll say that again a potassium toxicity if you overdo it where the plants need shows up as a magnesium deficiency so if you see that forming during heavy flowering and you're using a PK boost or a potassium supplement then back off on the potassium but it's really easy to fix a magnesium deficiency though just had a little magnesium sulfate little epsom salts you can even spray it on the bottom leaves the plants will green up in a matter of days Museum also works along with potassium magnesium activates the enzymes that are responsible for what's called phloem loading where the sugars are loaded into the phloem so did they're shipped to the fruit that's why when the energy needs of the plants are the highest a lot of times you'll see a magnesium deficiency also magnesium activates the enzymes that hold the ATP molecule the one that contains phosphorus that hold the molecule in position so those phosphate bonds can be cleaved to release energy to grow and reproduce so again when there's during the transition from growing go to bloom or during fast heavy vigorous but vegetative growth or heavy flowering that's when you're going to see the magnesium deficiency so when I add my potassium supplements during flowering I like to add a little magnesium with it because they balance each other they helps prevent a patellar magnesium deficiency and it helps the the sugars flow to the flowers and the fruit to bulk up all the way to the end okay next is sulfur sulfur is responsible for the aroma of flowers and it also is part of the flowering process when a plant assimilate sulfur and sulfates it is actually assimilates them in the chloroplasts the same place the green restoring the the chlorophyll that were that the nitrate nitrogen is assimilated in the chlorophyll in the chloroplasts because of the high energy needs so are the sulfates when the plants take in sulfates the sulfates are changed into an amino acid called cysteine for cysteine molecules attached to one zinc ion and form what's called a zinc finger transcription factor it actually goes into the cell into the DNA attaches to the DNA and turns on a series of genes then tells plant don't need more stems and leaves make flowering parts so when years ago 20 years ago when I started out in the hydroponics industry on my very first experiments was to create nutrient formulas that were missing one element only two so that I could create the nutrient deficiency and see what it looked like in the plant now the sulfur deficiency was very interesting fact that it did show up very dramatically during vegetative growth stage the zero sulfur you know it was about the same height when the leaves are smaller whereas dark green didn't look as healthy but no significant difference but during the flowering stage the control group that had the sulphate 12 to 14 inch flowers loaded with petals the one with no sulfate is two inch flowers just a few little sparse petals so I knew even back then even before scientists discuss the zinc finger transcription factor that sulfur was in part of the flowering process and then just contribute to two aromas and flavors so but we don't have to add a lot of extra sulfur because the sulphate if you're adding potassium as a supplement it's usually as potassium sulfate so it is potassium and sulfur if you're adding magnesium with it usually in the form of magnesium sulfate in fact in hydroponics you add magnesium sulfate for your magnesium source and as five times more sulfur than the plan needs but so during again during the flowering process that little extra magnesium sulfate can contribute to the process you can help the plant bulk up all the way to the end if you look at a lot of the sweet products out there there that have the sugars in them the carbohydrates they're loaded with magnesium sulfate and I think personally I think there's the magnesium sulfate the sulfur that's doing more for bulking up than the sugars are themselves and soil though then you know you want to feed the microbes and they'll feed the planet okay so sulfur is important during flowering okay the trace elements and taking a look at my time here looks pretty good still there move on a bit though iron manganese copper and zinc those are transition metals they actually activate enzymes in the plant that are responsible for cellular metabolism it's part of the electron transport train for photosynthesis they conduct electricity in the plant too that the plant can use to do other chemical reactions so even a small amount of those trace elements we don't need much but they turn on and enzymes have an enzyme is turned on one enzyme could do as many as a thousand chemical reactions per second inside the cell so even though we only need small amounts there are essential elements especially iron because iron is a catalyst for the production of chlorophyll the green pigment in it it's also very important to activate enzymes that make the medicinal compounds if for implant protection agents and when the plants under stress we'll talk about next week with in our biostimulant class they make an enzyme that's a plant protection and agent it protects the plant against heat stress and drought stress salt stress UV stress from the lights but that enzyme has to be turned on has to be turned on by either an iron manganese complex or a copper zinc complex so making those trace elements available to the plants important and the way we do it and especially in hydroponics is provide those metals and they're chelated form keel amines claw so what chelate is an organic molecule that attaches to an ion like a clock it holds it tightly enough so it doesn't react but loosely enough so it's available to the plant on demand hmm okay so those trace elements very important and with them watch your pH it's critical in a hydroponic so the pH gets above 6.5 just barely acidic iron deficiency will happen very quickly if it gets above 7.5 all the trace metals iron copper manganese zinc we can put them in there they're unavailable to the plant other trace elements boron at age with sugar transport chloride that's important for keeping the plant urgent it's also part of helps with photosynthesis you're not chlorine that's different the chlorine gas isn't yeah an oxidizer it's used to kill microorganisms in the water if you can smell the chlorine in the water there's too much glory because I can burn them actually burn the cell membranes and the roots and hurt the plant but chloride itself the plant needs that it's an essential element it's rarely added though because there's chloride in the soil there's chloride just as contaminants in your fertilizers molybdenum very very small part of a trace of part per million works whole - in nitrogen metabolism in in Australia the soils are low in molybdenum and they used to be a wheat importing nation but once they realized the plant the soil needed molybdenum they started adding just a small small trace amount to the fertilizers they went from become being a weed importing nation to being a weed exporting nation so even though it's a trace mineral even though it's only using a fraction of a part per million it's still an essential element and without it the plan won't be able to to not only reach its genetic potential but I want to be able to live and reproduce nickel that's another trace element which activates an enzyme that makes urea available to the plant again used in small amounts in fact I've started out in hydroponics nickel wasn't even considered an essential element but now now that we have better ways of creating more pure fertilisers for the roots we're evil scientists were able to discover that nickel is important as well so the best fertilizers the very best of the best especially in hydroponic unclean include just a little bit of nickel as well okay let's move on silica I will talk about that more next week but that's a beneficial element it works along with calcium to strengthen the stems and leaves and also helps strengthen the plant against fungus and powdery mildew we'll talk about that more later okay let's do a quick diagnosis here quick rundown a little bit of a summary - yellow leaves today some wood brought in a baggie of leaves to me that were yellow so what's wrong why are my leaves turning yellow there's a lot of things that can contribute to that I wrote a whole article on it and maximum yield if you go to through the archives in March of 2014 go ahead and look that up you can read more about that and help you diagnose it but really when it comes to minerals deficiencies it's one of three it could be a nitrogen deficiency if it is there'll be a general yellowing of the plant the plants will turn the leaves will turn pale yellow start at the bottom of the plant and working its way up but just one little dose of nitrogen the plan will respond it will recover in a matter of days next is magnesium remember that's the central element of chlorophyll that will show up as intervener chlorosis yellowing starting at the bottom of the plant the veins stay green the tissues turns yellow one little dose of magnesium though because magnesium sulfate these are is a foliar spray or at the roots risk cal-mag but that has nitrate so don't spray that on the leaves but your zepho at the roots plants will green up the other is iron how iron is immobile to select the calcium so those symptoms will show up at the top of the plant because iron is a catalyst for chlorophyll production to make the green pigment so you'll see that at the top and most of the other trace metals like the manganese and the and the the copper that shows up first in the top leaves as well but if you can provide some kind of a chelate chelated trace elements the that deficiency goes will be work quickly and we'll talk more about this next week so I don't want to over you know spoil it for next week when you come back but in nature humic and fulvic acid as a biostimulant actually aid with the uptake of iron and other minerals in it especially the trace elements humic acid and fulvic acid stimulates the enzyme in the cell membranes called h plus ATP s so it's a proton pump the outside of the cell membrane becomes more positively charged the inside becomes more negatively charged the voltage potential goes up against again across the cell membranes the plants able to take up iron more efficiently also as the plant pumps the protons the outside of the cell membranes become more acidic so it's soluble lives as those trace elements the surface of the roots could be as much as 3 points lower in pH than the surrounding soil so humic and fulvic acid excellent way to to treat trace mineral deficiencies plus they have over 62 beneficial trace elements from ancient compost piles if you're using our old water I don't know if you are but if you are you're stripping all the minerals are the water all the bicarbonates including the trace elements that the plants need so if you're using RO water and a little humic or folic acid first it helps buffer pH raises the pH of acid soil lowers the pH of alkaline soil it helps buffer changes in pH in your hydroponics if you're using RO water and it's providing a lot of trace elements the plants need also you can use fulvic acid as they fool your feet so if you're seeing a iron deficiency just spray a little bit on the leaves he'll trim the folic acid will transport the iron through the cell membranes release it inside the cells where the plant needs it the most but come back next week and we'll talk more about it you

Channel: NPK Industries

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Keywords: Harley Smith, Growing, Gardening, Indoor Growing, Hydroponics, Soil, Coco Coir, Fruits, Medicinal Herbs, Vegetables, Grow Your Own, NPK-Industries, NPK, NPK-University, Free Classes, Webinar, Free, Farming, Hydro, MMJ, Learn To Grow, Nutrients, Nitrogen, Phosphorus, Potassium, Calcium, Magensium, Silica, Iron, Sulfur, Zinc, Molybdenum, Manganese, Copper, Chlorine

Id: 6h8h0LhMtFU

Length: 43min 57sec (2637 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 22 2016