What is nutrient locking?

Nutrient locking is one of the most common problems that growers may face. It can be especially frustrating, especially if you're a novice grower and can't figure out what's wrong. In essence, when your plants experience nutrient blockage, they cannot take in the nutrients you feed them. It's as if the nutrients are "locked" and can't get into your plants!

This happens when plants are unable to absorb the essential nutrients needed to stay healthy. This is usually the result of a chemical reaction that takes place between the nutrient solution, the growing medium and your own plants.


How can too many nutrients cause nutrient blockage?

As you know, your plants grow by absorbing compounds from nutrients, water and the atmosphere. During this process, your growth environment may accumulate excess nutrients and other substances over time. However, when too many different salts and other nutrients accumulate, they can react with your plants and the nutrient solutions you feed them. If this happens, the excess nutrients can either bind together or become incompatible in certain ways, eventually becoming inaccessible to the plant.


How to prevent this problem?

Too much nutrient accumulation is a consequence of changes in the pH levels of your growing environment. If you closely monitor the condition of the solution, you will hardly ever encounter this problem. Therefore, from growhop-bg.com we strongly recommend using a pH meter like that of ADWA or Bluelab.


Solution to the problem!

If you still have the misfortune to face the blockage of nutrients there is a solution. You must clean your growing system, including the soil, by disposing of the old nutrient solution and replacing it with water mixed with a salt cleaner. We highly recommend the use of ATA Clean by Atami or Final Solution by Advanced Hydroponics of Holland. The first product is highly recommended only for cleaning the system and removing unnecessary compounds. Final Solution, on the other hand, is used both to clean the system and to cleanse the plants in the last week of growth of unnecessary nutrients and lead to a tastier and cleaner harvest.