Michael, I am at the beginner stage. I filled up 7 or 8 one gallon milk and similar jugs with water added to the calcium nitrate per your instructions (2 teaspoon per gallon)* about 10 days ago or so. First I tried to use a misting bottle (about two weeks ago) but that wasn't good enough because I could not spray/mist the climbers or some of the very tall HTs like Folklore, Impeartrice Farah, etc. Needless to say before I could follow up with the Rocket sprayer we had a sprinkle (didn't qualify to call it rain) the next night and the blooms of Marechal Niel, cl. Peace Imp. Farah, Elina and you name it balled terribly. (Not that I needed any sprinkle in that thick humid steam bath with regular dews every morning we had for weeks to see almost everything ball). So, last weekend DH sprayed the roses with Bayer+ Response+Avid in the morning and when the roses dried of that treatment, I filled up the Rocket sprayer with the calcium nitrate solution with some dish soap added, and sprayed all roses - only the top third or where I saw buds and yes, even open flowers. I needed to bring a huge bouquet to the garden club on Tuesday and I was curious if some of the already open flowers would hold on from Saturday to Tuesday. They did and they didn't even look tired. I also cut a few blooms for my desk - some were fully opened; I would not bother to cut flowers in that stage to bring in as a rule but I was curious. On Tuesday I cut pristine cl. Peace blooms, Elina, Folklore, Imp. Farah and Buff beauty for the garden club bouquet and I enjoyed seeing Clotilde Soupert, Great Century with perfect, clean blooms. The wide opened Memorial Day bloom I cut Saturday evening lasted till today. The cl. Peace blooms that opened are in sharp contrast with all those that I had no time to deadhead yet and were not sprayed with calcium nitrate prior to Saturday. I didn't check Marechal Niel but looking out my study now I see open, clean blooms; no brown 'mop heads', no red spots, circles or stripes on the newly opened blooms. And the buds of Belindas dream that opened after Saturday are not rotten brown but pink and healthy. I am aware that this is not a long enough experiment to qualify it any way to call it 'scientific' but I was thrilled that I could see unblemished blooms at long last. I didn't do any control this time because I was just sick and tired of seeing only blemished blooms in the last month or so. I know, I know that I should have but I just could not stand seeing any more rotten blooms. Sorry about that. For sake of comparison: DH sprayed 25 gallons of Bayer and al to treat all roses, I sprayed 5 gallons of calcium nitrate, 6 would have been better and enough; because of the drought I do not have that many flowers as I should in mid-October. * I expected that I should use a filter not to clog the sprayer but there was no need for that, the calcium nitrate dissolved perfectly.

Hi James, I often go for simplicity. Hence, do you actually need to add either ammonium sulphate or calcium chloride, to achieve your wanted- respectively a balanced and adequate formula for your purpose? The amount of ammoniacal nitrate should anyway not be that high and is in most cases covered by the little percentage contained in calcium nitrate (or is supplemented with ammonium nitrate). Hence increasing (or only supplying both forms of) N with calcium nitrate should provide enough N and Ca in most cases. The amount of Sulphur can also be increased with Magnesium Sulphate. A few ppm more Mg in a formula as theoretically wanted, up to 50 ppm is no problem and should make no difference. On top of that, please note that for many crops, calcium needs (actual uptake from a nutrient solution) is often lower than expected or recommended. You could even say that relatively high amounts of calcium in some formulas are simply due to the relatively high content of Ca in calcium nitrate. When looking at your target formula, without even calculating - I can almost tell that you are able to achieve it (or get close enough) without the use of your "additives". And here you should know that a difference of 5-10 ppm in major elements (except P) do not change much (if anything at all) with the effectiveness, grow rate or whatever. Have a look at some scientific research with parts of macro elements in a nutrient compositions. The variables in elemental composition are much rougher (sometimes steps of 50 ppm or more) to get any notable differences. In fact, best accuracy in composing and making formulas is a good thing, because eventually you want to reproduce exactly what you had or modify it accurately. But also keep in mind, that plants do not really require such "human or scientific" accuracy and certainly do not react with some minor differences of a few ppm with macro elements in any final concentration of a formula. They can't even tell the difference ;-)

Khalid wrote in another thread: "Then I stopped spraying even any organic matter. I gave more calcium to my roses which made the soft branches and leaves harder thus making it relatively unattractive for the pests. This reduced the affected bushes / leaves to a good extent." Agree with Khalid, folks in rainy climate lime their soil, either in late fall or early spring, depending on how many inches of rain they get. Rain is acidic at pH 5.6, as the pH drops, less calcium and potassium are available. The best lime to use is Espoma Garden Lime (sold at Walmart for $10 per 5 lb.). It has 20% calcium and 10% magnesium ... both are essential in keeping leaves thick so pests cannot invade. From the above chart, around pH 5.6 (rain water), less molybdenum, less magnesium, less calcium are available. Next nutrients that are less: phosphorus, potassium, and nitrogen. I already posted in Organic Rose my experiment that I did with 2 identical Thai basil: I lowered the pH of one with acidic cracked corn (pH 4), plus gypsum (17% sulfur) .. that Thai basil' leaves became pale, plus THINNER due to less calcium and magnesium available. Then I saw blackspots on a Thai basil for the 1st time !! The other basil I planted in my alkaline clay (pH near 8), and it's twice taller plus really thick & glossy leaves (more available nitrogen, potassium, sulfur, calcium, and magnesium). But leaves were just a bit pale due to less iron at high pH, so I gave it blood meal, has chelated iron, and leaves became dark green. I once planted a bok-choy vegetable next to my patio with a limestone base, so the soil is very alkaline, pH 8. The leaves were dark-green, but its so tough that I boiled it for one hour, and it's STILL so fibrous that my teeth can't handle, let alone some tiny pests like aphids, rose slugs, or midge. Rose slugs (sawfly larvae) are very rare in my alkaline clay, unless I lower the pH with my experiments: Put acidic cracked corn (pH 4) in potting soil, and roses got rose-slugs from THINNER LEAVES in acidic rain (calcium, magnesium, and potassium drops when pH drops). Mirandy rose got a big-fat rose-slug on it for the 1st time. Why? It's next to a tree, and the tree robs the soil of calcium, magnesium, and potassium. Plus tree roots secret acid, so the soil became even more acidic with rain (pH of rain is 5.6). Used molasses, plus vinegar, plus sulfate of potash (21% sulfur), plus gypsum (17% sulfur) ... such acidic solution made leaves thinner, plus the stinky molasses really attract sawfly which give birth to rose-slugs. CONCLUSION: The best solution for pests is to raise soil pH by using dolomitic lime such as Espoma Garden lime (20% calcium and 10% magnesium). My soil is dolomitic clay, so I don't have midge, rose-slugs (sawfly larvae), nor aphids, unless I use acidic fertilizer. When there's tons of acidic rain, I throw pea-gravel on top of roses that like it alkaline, pea-gravel has many alkaline minerals to make leaves thick, glossy, and to prevent pests.

I am by no means an expert but I have recently switched to coco coir and I can tell you that if you're using calcium nitrate then you shouldn't really have any problems. Also depending on what brand you buy, they are sometimes already pre-buffered with calcium nitrate and some micronutrients already (botanicare brand for sure all come pre-buffered). I have also tried the cheaper stuff (Plant!t) coco bricks from amazon that were about $11 per 5kg brick and I would say that probably was not prebuffered so I broke chunks off into a large pillow case, rinsed it well and then soaked it in a bucket of calcium nitrate and low strength hydro nutrients for a few hours and that should buffer it. As far as your choice of nutrients, it is a bit high in the K considering coco is naturally high in it. I would make sure to water and get 20% runoff each time to make sure there is no build up of salts in addition to the naturally high K. You may want to look at something with less K in the future, JRPeters Hydroponic 5-12-26 is very popular. Peters 5-11-26 is a lower quality but much cheaper alternative as well. Either would probably be a bit better for use in coco than 4-18-38.