Today October 25th is the First day of Week 6 In Flower.
Received the Refractometer and got right to pressing. First I tried a mortar and pestle to extract the sap -- this worked ok but took a lot of time and force. Then I tried 2 spoons held together and squeezed with vice grips (didn't work for me). 2 Pieces of MDF board squeezed together with vice grips didn't work either. I guess I'm not strong enough.
Tried a blender, a hand blender...neither of these worked!
Then the vice, it was faster and took less force to extract the sap. Works great!
Took leaves from top to bottom of each individual plant. (16 plants) Rolled a few leaves up, put in a numbered piece of parchment and pressed.....voila...sap😃 Refractometer was already calibrated and ready to go.
Placed sap on meter, held up to light and there it is! My first BRIX reading😮 using $28 Refractometer.
Going to change base nutrients to a "hard water" formula. So impressed with Harley Smith that I've ordered some NPK RAW products. Like the idea of micro dosing. I sent Harley an email and he replied the same day! Not a canned response either. So cool. Thanks Harley! AND he took a look at GrowDiaries and this grow✊😃 What a kind gentleman. 😇
Hope I didn't go overboard but I watered again today with amino acids and cal mend to try to fix this Calcium def. Will Brix leaves tomorrow and see if this makes a difference. The brix line yesterday was very clear and very easy to read indicating a calcium def. Maybe locked out from too much phosphorous or hard water?
Watered Oct 29 & 30 Temp 20 PH 6.4 EC 1.9
Runoff EC 1.9 to 2.3 after at least 2-3 Gallons of water put thru each pot. Some pots Runoff were way off the charts😵EC 3.6! . Put water thru until EC hit 2.3 on 2 pots others were EC 1.9 to 2.1. Put 56 Gallons or 220L thru plants over a 2 day period until I reached a better EC.