1st Grow Ever (70% Coco, 30% Perlite)

Week 5 begins 27/9/2021. Defoliated all plants 25/9/21 as they were way to bushy. Due to being my first time I didn’t want to take too little or too much, will likely defoliate again 3 weeks into flower for the final time. All plants are currently around 1-1.2 EC runoff, currently being fed at 1.4EC so hopefully will rise over next 2 days. I am currently feeding 2Litres per plant, 2 hours after lights on, and again about 6 hours before lights off so twice a day. Will probably be increasing quantity of fertigations per day once they are in flower to about 3-4 just depends on what the plants want. As mentioned in previous weeks I was having nute burn as a 2.8EC due to what I believe to over nuting for most of veg by following the chart (see below), with flushing to correct that, some went down to 0.8EC so I am currently feeding 1.4EC every fertigation to try and get them all to stay there or slightly higher runoff and not have a lower runoff than the inflow like I’m currently having; though I’ve read online this is an anomaly and will fix itself in a couple days with fertigation. Also, to get the fertigation water to 1.4EC I am only using somewhere between 1/4 to 1/2 strength of the A&B from mills compared to what their nutrient calculator is telling me to use at this week. I am still giving full strength Vitalize and Start-R as per the chart and tweaking the EC by adjusting my base nutrients / A&B. I will also continue to do these all the way to harvest as I believe it’s in Mills interest to get you to use more, plus my EC meter is BlueLab, only a week old + calibrated every time it’s used as well as rinsed and dried after every use. I just don’t get why it’s such a large difference compared to what they are suggesting to use on their nutrient calculator. If I end up with deficiencies I will have to re-evaluate my approach. Will be flipping to flower tomorrow (27/9/21) as they are all 35-40cm currently and their finishing heights are 70-80cm. Will likely continue 1.4EC until the stretch is over then start giving around 1.6EC for the remaining weeks of flower until the 9th week when I will feed nothing but plain 5.8PH water to flush or maybe 1/4 strength as I have read conflicting reports on if a flush is even necessary in coco / never to give coco plain water. I will decide when the time comes. Hoping that everything will be stabilised and corrected by a couple days into flower and hope these girls take off growth wise the same way they did in veg. 🤞