I recently started experimenting with Kratky hydroponics and so far everything is going good, except these pepper plants. I had placed them in a bucket of full strength solution when they were in early growth but showed the same signs of tip burn so I decreased it to half strength and they started growing just fine once again. That was until recently, I felt that they had grown enough for me to put them back to full strength but 2 days later I'm seeing the same tip burn again.
I don't have a TDS/EC meter yet because I live in the third world and they're not as easily available.
Should I drop the solution back down to half strength and if so, when am I supposed to increase it back to full strength?
Tl;dr pepper leaves keep burning in full strength solution
by Fearless_Account9745
1 Comment
Are you somewhere hot? I’m in the tropics doing outdoor Kratky. I used to follow the manufacturer’s and other Redditors’ guidelines regarding dosage and EC, but more and more, I’m leaning toward more water and less nutrients (lower EC). For greens, they’re fine with half of the manufacturer’s recommended dosage. For tomatoes, EC of up to 4.0 might get recommended around here for the fruiting stage, but my plants start doing all sorts of weird things above 2.5 EC and seem a lot happier at 1.5-2.0 EC. I think the higher transpiration requirements of the climate (outdoor hot weather) vs. most other hydroponic tomatoes (indoors or in greenhouses) require the plants to drink a lot more solution, which also means that the higher end of normally recommended EC is just too strong. In human terms, if all we can drink is Coca Cola, an office nerd in an air conditioned office might be hydrated with 3 cans a day, but someone doing outdoor work might need 8 cans to stay hydrated, at which point the amount of sugar going into the body is just too high, so they’ll be better with watered-down diluted cola lol.