The V4 Protocol
The 04V4 Protocol
Five mineral salts, one iron and one copper, weighed out to what the plant actually uses each week. Built for coco, with a chart for bottom feeding and one for top feeding.
Your feed, weighed out
Three quick taps and the mixer writes your recipe: how you water, how many litres, and which week you are in. Then follow the list, ticking each item off as it goes into the water.
Why this week’s numbers
Nitrogen early, taper late
What the plant gets from each week of the chart, in parts per million. Nitrogen stays high through veg and the stretch, then steps down every week from flower week 4. Phosphorus stays modest the whole way. Tap the chart to jump to a week.
Why bottom and top feeding differ
The recipe never changes. The strength and the pH do, because of where the salts end up.
Nothing drains away, so every gram you feed stays in the pot. The feed is mixed weaker and the pH set lower, because the root zone ends up saltier and higher in pH than the tank.
The runoff carries salts out of the pot at every watering. The feed is mixed stronger to make up for what drains away, and the pH sits closer to 6.
Seven products. Nothing else in the tank.
Every gram on the chart is a named mineral with a guaranteed analysis on the bag. Tap a product to buy it.
Make the copper stock once
Copper goes in at a fraction of a gram, so it is diluted first and measured with a syringe.
- Put a clean 250 ml bottle on your scale and zero it.
- Shake the Cuperdem, then add 10.5 g. Weigh it rather than measuring by volume.
- Top up to 250 ml with reverse osmosis or distilled water. Cap and shake.
- Label it Copper stock and keep it cool and dark. Make a fresh bottle for each grow.
This gives 2.5 mg of copper per ml, based on Cuperdem at 6% copper by weight. One bottle is enough for about three grows.
Tools
- A scale that reads 0.1 g. Under 50 L, one that reads 0.01 g.
- A pH meter and pH Down.
- An EC meter.
- A 10 ml syringe for the copper stock.
Water
The charts are written for reverse osmosis or very soft water, EC under 0.1. Soft tap water under EC 0.2 works too, and your EC will read that much higher. Hard water already carries calcium and magnesium and throws the balance out.
Getting clones established
Both systems start by hand, from the top, in small amounts. Use the clone rows of your own chart.
Wet each pot slowly from the top with the Day 1 to 3 mix until water runs out the bottom. Let it drain.
Plant the clones. Give 150 to 250 ml around the stem, and water again only when the pot feels lighter. Keep humidity at 70 to 80%.
250 to 400 ml once a day, or when the pot feels light. Look for new growth at the tip.
400 to 600 ml once a day, to a little runoff. From day 10, look for white roots at the drainage holes.
Bottom feeding: once roots show at the bottom of the pot, or the pot drinks its whole daily water within 12 hours, fill the tank with Veg 1 and open the valve. Top feeding: move to Veg 1 and start watering to runoff.
The rules that protect the yield
- Never water from the top once the valve is open.Salts collect in the top few centimetres, where they do no harm. Top watering washes them down onto the roots.
- Mix a fresh tank every week.Move down one row of the chart each time.
- Keep the tank from running dry.Refill when it is down to a third. When topping up, dose only for the fresh litres you add.
- Skip the air stone.It pushes the pH up. Keep the tank at 18 to 21 °C and out of the light.
- Stick to the taper.From flower week 7 the feed gets weaker on purpose. Carrying a strong feed into the last weeks is the most common way to spoil a bottom fed grow.
- Water until 10 to 20% runs out the bottom.For every 10 litres you pour in, 1 to 2 litres should drain out. That runoff keeps salts from building up.
- Feed at every watering.Coco has no plain water days until the flush. Mix fresh feed every few days.
- Feed when the pot feels light.Small plants may go two days. Big plants in flower usually need feeding every day.
- Empty the saucers.Pots should never stand in their own runoff.
- Check the runoff once a week.If runoff EC reads more than 1.0 above your feed EC, water with extra runoff for a few days.
Short on veg time?
Skip the middle veg weeks, never the last one. Veg 4 should always be the week before you switch to 12 hours of light.
Is the flush needed?
No. Trials show it does not change potency or flavour. It saves nutrients, nothing more. Harvest on trichome colour, not on the calendar.
The full chart
EC is what the finished feed should read in reverse osmosis water. It is a cross check, not the number you mix to. If it is out by more than 0.2, re-weigh and calibrate your meter. Strain needs 10 weeks of flower? Run Flower 8 twice.
If something looks off
New growth is pale or yellow with darker veins
Most likely: pH too high, or the iron was left out.
Do this: check the tank pH against the chart and confirm the iron went in. Watch the newest leaves over the next week; old leaves will not change.
Leaf tips and edges are burning while the pot is still wet
Most likely: salt building up in the pot.
Do this: bottom feeding, drop the feed strength by a quarter for a week. Top feeding, water with extra runoff for a few days.
The plants are drinking far less than last week
Most likely: salt build up, or a cold root zone.
Do this: check the EC and the tank temperature before you add any more feed.
Lower leaves are yellowing from flower week 7
Most likely: the normal fade as nitrogen tapers.
Do this: nothing. This is the plan working.
My EC reading is nowhere near the chart
Most likely: a weighing slip, an uncalibrated meter, or minerals already in your water.
Do this: measure your plain water first, re-weigh the next batch and calibrate the meter with a fresh solution.