EC meters and measurements · School Of Hydroponics L & E

EC meters and measurements

I've been reviewing the material on nutrients and the same question keeps popping up. It has to do with the EC levels and testing. EC meters measure the overall quantity but I wonder if, other than sending a sample to a lab for testing, is there any way to find out the quantity of specific elements/nutrients at any given moment? For example, some plants are gobbling up one nutrient while only sipping on another, the overall quantity measurement will show the number of particulates in relation to the amount of water, but it doesn't indicate the absence of the nutrient being gobbled and the abundance of the nutrient being sipped. When you add your top-up solution, how can you know that you aren't exacerbating the level of the nutrient still in abundance while at the same time starving the level of the nutrient being gobbled? I don't know if my words correctly portray the picture I have in my head. Picture a bowl of Skittles and each color represents a nutrient. The nutrient solution contains a ratio of colors equal to the proportion overall. Say you add 100 Skittles total. If the plants eat all of the red ones but only a few green ones, when you top off the reservoir you are going to add a solution of water and nutrients to fill the reservoir to 100% full meaning 100 Skittles total in the same proportion as the original setting. Only now there is an incorrect ratio of red to green even though there are still 100 Skittles total. We can see the problem in the bowl of Skittles, but how can we know there is a problem in our reservoir and exactly what the problem is?🤔🧐 Nevermind whether or not there are some garbage particulates that snuck in like the brown ones that sometimes show up!🤯Or do plants simply take in everything by the handful without regard for what it is?

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