stinkyattic added this advice to the end of my flushing regiment, which is also what it says to do in Jorge Cervantes' grower's bible:

The last step in the flushing process, if you're not harvesting within the next week or so, should be a heavy watering with a nute solution that is pH'd and at about 1/4 of what the manufacturer recommends. That should avoid deficiencies that were caused by removing the available nutes from the soil.
Well... I've managed to get things back on track. I did one more flush, and then a weak feeding. I came back after a 3 day snowboard trip, and my plants have been growing very fast and are looking really good. I ph tested last night, and the runoff was 5.8 out from 7 in... So it looks like it's still a bit low in the soil, but it's definitely much better. The ppm runoff was around 200 average, so I fed only the dry plants. I mixed up my botanicare nutes at 1/2 the botan chart strength, and the ppm was almost 1200. I used the following:

pureblend pro bloom soil: 15mL/g
Grotek calmax: 2.5mL/g
karma: 5mL/g
sweet: 7.5mL/g

This seemed to be way too high of a ppm, so I watered this down to about 800ppm, then added more calmax, karma and sweet to keep the initial 1/2 strength levels, as these were already on the light side... This resulted in a mixture that was about 900ppm. I'm still not sure about this strength for my sensitive Sativa dom. diesel... I'm thinking that 1/4 strength might be the way to go. I have questions about this below...

Botanicare suggests that you feed using their chart and EVERY watering. This just seems crazy. The guys at the shop told me to follow the directions and I can't go wrong. I don't believe they really know how to use Botanicare.

So.... If anyone is reading this, could you address these questions please?:

â?¢ If I go to 1/4 strength on the base nutrient (bloom or grow), should I go 1/4 strength on the others as well? Or should I go like 1/2 on the calmax and karma, and full on the sweet?

â?¢ Should I feed every watering as they say, or should I alternate food/water/food/water? Is this detrimental for the organisms in the soil? Why do they (botan) say to feed every irrigation?

â?¢ if I measure like 200-500ppm in the runoff, it's time to feed right? If I measure like 600-1000, I should water.... Does this sound about right?

I am accustomed to growing top grade, top dollar gear, and am concerned about achieving this with organics. I expect to possibly see some slightly smaller yields than those which are non organic, but that would be fine. I just don't want to make mistakes now that will diminish the potency of the diesel. It's pretty much the top dog in BC, and organic would top that.

now I've got my log going, so thanks for stopping by and reading, and thanks to all who offer up advice.

guidance and protection
O_S