The Quest For Trichomes (a Story Of Micro Cultivation)

[Lbgrower]

I'm pretty sure it could be that light too @SMACKA. Investigate your roots and if your plant isn't drinking the water every couple days reduce the amount you give. Good luck bruh :)

 

[v12xjs]

Seems like you are swimming in some muddy waters there Smacka, so let me try and clear a few things up.

First thing is that Canna feeding schedule you posted with a picture of Brian the hedonist on it. Hate to break it to you but Canna don't need his sig to sell their gear so that chart is not legit. Get a chart direct from Canna my friend, and stop staring at Brian's ugly mug!

Second thing is that you probably haven't been told anything wrong, it's just that you maybe didn't give all the information when you asked the questions.
So when you showed a pic of a plant with mag def, it was confirmed that mag def is what you were seeing and that answer was correct.
But the question could have been:
'here is a pic of a sick plant but my nutes are well balanced so what could be the problem?'
The answer then would have been mag def caused by ph lockout, which requires a different treatment altogether.

Same with nute doses really.
Canna nutes are a commercial product designed for farmers with ideal conditions to drive production. It's exactly what we want but we have to bear this information in mind when we use it.
So for example, a 1000w sodium in a commercial room emits many photons of light and each one is pure energy to a plant, allowing it to convert one chemical into another. Obviously this process begins with the chemicals we feed it.
If you are only running 300w then the reduction in light energy means a reduction in the number of chemical conversions that can be made with a corresponding reduction in the requirement for source chemicals, even if the plant is the same size in both cases.
Also when we are managing plant height, many leaves are not in full light so even less photons are being harvested.
So when we scale down the light and the amount of leaves available to capture and process that light, we need to do the same with the food.

So to apply that to your situation,
Find out the Canna recommended dose for plants in stage 1 veg (stage 2 is the stretch so you are not there yet) and start feeding a little below that to account for less than maximum light / damaged / shaded leaves.
There is also clearly a lot of unused nutes already in the soil that will now be unavailable to the plants. Your choices there are to flush until the ppm going in and coming out is similar. Or I might be tempted to repot the plant into the same pot, but to brush away as much of the rootball as possible and to dump it back in the pot with as much new soil as possible.

 

[SMACKA]

Alright, so the two weeks between updates wasn't working out too great so I'm giving you an update after a week.

Last time we checked in things were looking grim and I had a bunch of ideas of deficiencies I was worried about it being. I settled on bumping nutes a little bit, and the plants seemed to enjoy it. They bulked up and things got significantly greener.

The nutes have been fed at 500ppm for the last two feeds, and pH'd at 5.9–6.1.

Here's the White Widow

I threw in the LST shot to show you how I set that up – just some string tied in bows, with the girl pulled way over then wrapped around the rim.

The stem is grounded to the side of the pot. It's worth mentioning the seed is planted/offset in the pots in anticipation of being bent over.



Here's the Purple Kush

You can see the tips of the leaves are feeling the burn of the nutes, so I'll switch back to water for the next feed, then figure out the feed after that when we get there. We're looking at 3 consecutive feeds (300ppm, 400ppm, 500ppm) here.

Also of note, that PK's leaf tips are starting to turning down, which I believe is Nitrogen Toxicity.

Hoping to take clones in the next week or two, at which point this mother will be sacrificed for the space in the case.

 

[SMACKA]

Seems like you are swimming in some muddy waters there Smacka, so let me try and clear a few things up.

First thing is that Canna feeding schedule you posted with a picture of Brian the hedonist on it. Hate to break it to you but Canna don't need his sig to sell their gear so that chart is not legit. Get a chart direct from Canna my friend, and stop staring at Brian's ugly mug!

Dang, well ain't that some shit! Okay, so I've switched over to this one:

Second thing is that you probably haven't been told anything wrong, it's just that you maybe didn't give all the information when you asked the questions.

So when you showed a pic of a plant with mag def, it was confirmed that mag def is what you were seeing and that answer was correct.
But the question could have been: 'here is a pic of a sick plant but my nutes are well balanced so what could be the problem?'

The answer then would have been mag def caused by ph lockout, which requires a different treatment altogether.

Same with nute doses really.

Ok, cool. Will do.

What else should I provide beyond what I'm already including (feeding schedule, amounts, dilutions, pH, ppm, EC, in and out)? Will definitely make sure I include it in the future.

Canna nutes are a commercial product designed for farmers with ideal conditions to drive production. It's exactly what we want but we have to bear this information in mind when we use it.
So for example, a 1000w sodium in a commercial room emits many photons of light and each one is pure energy to a plant, allowing it to convert one chemical into another. Obviously this process begins with the chemicals we feed it.
If you are only running 300w then the reduction in light energy means a reduction in the number of chemical conversions that can be made with a corresponding reduction in the requirement for source chemicals, even if the plant is the same size in both cases.
Also when we are managing plant height, many leaves are not in full light so even less photons are being harvested.
So when we scale down the light and the amount of leaves available to capture and process that light, we need to do the same with the food.

So to apply that to your situation,
Find out the Canna recommended dose for plants in stage 1 veg (stage 2 is the stretch so you are not there yet) and start feeding a little below that to account for less than maximum light / damaged / shaded leaves.

Great info here, mate. Thanks for the clarity.

There is also clearly a lot of unused nutes already in the soil that will now be unavailable to the plants. Your choices there are to flush until the ppm going in and coming out is similar. Or I might be tempted to repot the plant into the same pot, but to brush away as much of the rootball as possible and to dump it back in the pot with as much new soil as possible.

Okay, will think this stuff over for a few days and decide which. Thanks again for weighing in.

 

[SMACKA]

I'm pretty sure it could be that light too @SMACKA. Investigate your roots and if your plant isn't drinking the water every couple days reduce the amount you give. Good luck bruh :)

Hey man, thanks for chiming in. It's been an interesting ride.

While I was taking pics today I took a couple shots of roots that were showing through the bottom of the pots.

They've been in these pots for 13 days.

Here's the White Widow roots showing through the bottom of her 1.5L pot.

And here's the Purple Kush doing the same:

(sorry for the watermark, there was a serial number there of some sort and I wanted to play it safe)

 

[v12xjs]

The only thing to note when asking questions is to include all the info in the same post. Peeps won't read 2 or 3 pages to get all the background info, they will generally just look at the individual post and make a judgement on what they see.

Building on what you already know, if you have a nitrogen toxicity then because you are using a balanced food you will also have a toxicity of everything else and would therefore be seeing signs of nute burn. So maybe it's something else.
The best tool to monitor overfeeding now is the original pic of the plant, showing its natural colour. If there is too much food then the leaves will become darker and too little will make the plant lighter than it should be. Obviously this is only the early signs and symptoms would get worse, but I don't really see that in your latest pics.

My first thought when I see leaves curling up or down is that the plant is trying to tell me off about the watering schedule. Plants breathe air same as we do, so if you overwater a plant it is effectively drowning.
The way a plant responds to that is by making the surface area of the leaves as big as possible to allow for more evaporation of water. It does that by curling the leaves down.
When it is being underwatered, it does the opposite. It curls the leaves upward like a canoe to make the surface area smaller so it loses less moisture from the leaves as it tries to retain as much as possible.
That's why I suggested removing the old soil manually as an alternative to flushing it through.

I am sorry I keep going the long way around explaining things, I'm just practicing what I preach...I'm giving you all the information in a single post so you get the best possible answer.

Loving the pic of the case by the way.
2nd best case out there ;)

 

[SMACKA]

The only thing to note when asking questions is to include all the info in the same post. Peeps won't read 2 or 3 pages to get all the background info, they will generally just look at the individual post and make a judgement on what they see.

Totally fair.

The best tool to monitor overfeeding now is the original pic of the plant, showing its natural colour. If there is too much food then the leaves will become darker and too little will make the plant lighter than it should be. Obviously this is only the early signs and symptoms would get worse, but I don't really see that in your latest pics.

Cool! The darker/lighter leaf comparison is a great connection to make. I've recognized underfeeding in the past through their thin/frail/soft leaves, but it's true that they're almost always pale in colour, too. I'll keep an eye on the colour moving forward.

Building on what you already know, if you have a nitrogen toxicity then because you are using a balanced food you will also have a toxicity of everything else and would therefore be seeing signs of nute burn. So maybe it's something else.

My first thought when I see leaves curling up or down is that the plant is trying to tell me off about the watering schedule. Plants breathe air same as we do, so if you overwater a plant it is effectively drowning.
The way a plant responds to that is by making the surface area of the leaves as big as possible to allow for more evaporation of water. It does that by curling the leaves down.
When it is being underwatered, it does the opposite. It curls the leaves upward like a canoe to make the surface area smaller so it loses less moisture from the leaves as it tries to retain as much as possible.

Ok, cool. Don't think it's overwatering, I'm waiting and catching them right before they wilt (occasionally I let them wilt, to make sure the soil is dry and that I'm reading them right).

Up until recently I was barely reaching run off, and -- worried that there might be a build up causing the issues -- I ran 6 cups through each pot @ 500ppm. Is it possible she's just upset at me for running so much water through her the other day, and that things will return to normal in a few days?

That's why I suggested removing the old soil manually as an alternative to flushing it through.

Just snapped a pic of the girls today - will post them below. Seeing these latest pics do you still think this is necessary to re-pot/flush? Planning to give them some water when they need it again (watering cycle seems to be about 4 days).

Loving the pic of the case by the way.
2nd best case out there ;)

When I decided to see what I could get away with in a PC Case, micro growing was still a taboo topic, and when I stumbled across your thread/build -- it was a perfect example of what I was looking to do. IMHO you are a pioneer.

I loved how you re-thought the grow room on a micro scale, and your learnings/ideas on airflow over "standard practice" really stuck with me... I remember looking at everyone else's builds and asking "why are we building intakes at the bottom of the PC Case, when there's a yoghourt container in front of it the whole time?"

Yet everyone kept repeating that mantra of "intakes at the bottom for cold air" but we're talking about a 20cm (8inch) difference between top and bottom of the case, and it didn't make sense. As soon as I set the fans up as a 'straight shot' across the canopy my temps dropped by 6 or 7 degrees, and it opened my mind to the idea of questioning 'common knowledge' mantras in the industry, which helps in creatively solving problems. I could name a dozen of these.

Definitely wish I had all that spacious headroom you have in your Server Case! :p

 

[SMACKA]

Plants are looking a lot better (amazing what a week and some nutes can do).

And today is a special day as our White Widow girl is 2 months old! :smoking::love1:

I was in the PC Case today tidying up and decided to snap a few pics.

As you can see, the medium-stress training has really slowed down the plants "vertical" growth, and now we have a bunch of nodes shooting up. I go in and tuck fan leaves every couple days and play with the leaves/plants in general. There isn't much plant movement from the fans alone, so hands on is my way of strengthening the stems and staying on top of stuff. :eyepiece:

Here's the (recovering) White Widow :facepalm::shy:

She's got a couple viable clones, but definitely isn't growing as thick and bushy as the Purple Kush, which already has a bunch of nodes which would make viable clones (assuming I could get away with 3-node clones?)

Aaaaaand here's the Purple Kush, riddled with nodes :cool::fire:

The plan is to chop these babies into clones in the next week or two... sacrificing these mother plants in favour of using one the clones as a second generation mother, and continuing the cycle that way. These girls as mom's take up too much room in the PC Case.

To that end, I'm toying with the idea of playing around with Tissue Culture and if anyone has experience with it, I'd love to chat! :bookworm: I have plenty of experience working under a laminar hood with in vitro cultures, but never as a botanist. :nailbiting:

Hope your grow rooms are full and bushy.

 

[v12xjs]

Things seem much better today Smacka. The plants are flourishing and you sound much more confident.
I agree it would have been the flush through that made the plants grumpy but the leaves will come back fine, same as after they wilt.

The repotting is your call and the plants seem fine so there's no problem with leaving them where they are.
But that being said:
I used to grow in clear pots for a while on RIU trying to understand how the roots work and to see if I could use that space better, and it turns out that roots are very wasteful with soil. Plants seem to put down a single taproot until it reaches the bottom of the pot, it does a lap of the perimiter and then starts putting out the fine feeding roots. These quickly pop out of the bottom as yours have. Within a couple of weeks they will also turn brown so they are a risk for root rot and other pathogens. You should give everything a haircut with scissors when they are over half an inch.

To make things more efficient I now use 3 pots during a cycle, a 7oz, 1 litre and 2 litre. When moving from 1 pot to another I take the rootball and gently tease away most of the soil so it looks like a mop. I then spread those roots all over the top of the new medium and cover with about an inch more. This allows many roots to shoot straight down, thus using the soil and nutrients much more effectively. It also slows down the process of roots popping out the bottom.

It's always a buzz when something I posted has sparked an idea in someone else.
I really appreciate the nods and it's a pleasure to finally see a case that actually looks a lot like mine ;)
You know I can help you make it work ;)

 

[v12xjs]

I remember looking at everyone else's builds and asking "why are we building intakes at the bottom of the PC Case, when there's a yoghourt container in front of it the whole time?"

Snotted down the front of my shirt when I read that. Too funny :)

 

[SMACKA]

Not much new - the girls got a drink of water, and a week later the lower leaves were yellowing.

As time goes on I'm starting to wonder if the illness/sickness was caused by an unknown variable such as me accidentally double-dosing the water or something equally stoney.

Things are progressing over here... The case doesn't look too different, but the plants are continuing to bush out.

Had family staying with me last week, so I found time to peek in every couple days, but other than that I was just letting the timer do it's thing.

When everyone left tonight it was nice to look in and see the following right before lights out...

The little White Widow seedling is coming along nicely as well. The lower leaves started to yellow so they got a minor 1ml/L dose today. Didn't get pics before lights off, so that leaves something for next week.

The next step is to take a few clones and get them rooted. I wanted to start with ultra bushy plants, so that when I cut them back to their death, I can "guarantee" a few successes. With a bit of luck I'll have enough to throw (or give) some extras away.

Looking to take 6–8 of each plant, and once rooted I'll transition a couple of these into the flower chamber, which I haven't unveiled yet but am super excited about.

I'm working with Remo's cloning gel. The places I looked didn't have Clonex, Rootech and since I knew the name Remo and knew his nutes were decent, I decided to support a fellow Canadian.

I know many have rooted clones in plain water, and know many more who've used Aloe Vera so I figure it's more about giving the cutting the ideal conditions to flourish and will focus on that.

My cuttings will be pretty small: 3–4 of these stumpy short nodes I've forced on the plant to keep her low. When she transitions to the tent under the 135W LED light, let's hope we can keep the height down.

 

[SMACKA]

Hey y'all.

Big update today as I'm unveiling my next-generation micro chamber; a cloning tent turned micro chamber!

It's a 30x18x36" (that's 1.5x2.5x3ft, or 75x45x90cm) tent, presumably made for cloning, and I've decked it out with a 135w Quantum Board LED panel...

It's passively cooled but temps are running around 27-28°C so I'll probably re-wire the the driver to outside the tent, which should bring the temps down but can possibly be toggled in and out to help maintain temps in the Winter.

Played around with 4 or 5 setups. Using the exhaust fan as an opportunity to cool the heatsink seemed to keep the temps the lowest. For now, I'm pretty happy with things for the tent.

Today they were re-planted from 1.5 L ice cream containers to 2 Gallon smart pots, given 6 Cups of water, and I LST'd the tops and branches of each. The tent pic shows them in their new pots and tied down, I'm expecting a day or two of stress, then hopefully we'll see the new shoots coming in and the two girls to bush out.

I've held off on taking clones because (a) I didn't have any room in the PC, and (b) I didn't want to sacrifice the moms for the added space, and (c) The White Widow is still not doing too well.

 

[SMACKA]

And as for an update of the plants, here's the Purple Kush after being LST'd down...

The plants were pretty cramped/stressed in the PC as you can imagine (it was a jungle in there for 2 weeks while I built the tent, got parts, and put everything together). They've not been in the tent for 2 days and all the twists and turns have started to straighten back out.

With that said, the White Widow's still showing deficiencies or lockout. I wasn't sure if I was looking at a Nitrogen Def. on the PK, so bumped nutes to 5ml/L which aggravated the Widow further, somewhat expectedly.

pH seems okay around 6.0–6.2. Nutes have being mixed strong, so I'm assuming/hoping it's just nute burn and that a couple feeds of water will clear her up.

Let me know what you all think, I'm flying by the seat of my pants, here, but trying to learn :)

 

[SMACKA]

Is it possible the Widow's showing light burn? She was in a PC Case with an the 85w CFL bulb; case was full to the brim, right up near the bulb.

The PK seems to be much more resilient.

 

[v12xjs]

Nice light rig that mate ;0
Plants less so though.

FWIW
In 1980 when I began, there were no commercial plant foods available. We relied on good soil and the odd herbal tea to see plants through and it worked perfectly well. Some of us also had insider knowledge of a trick however, which was to dilute weedkiller heavily and use that as an occasional food. It worked because the weedkiller was pretty much pure NPK and it basically made the weeds burn themselves out.
When I look at your widow I am reminded of those days.

Why not go back to the very 1st pic in this thread and look at that cotyledon leaf again. It started out the same green as everything else if you remember but once the plant started eating the nutrients from it, it turned yellow in a very even fashion.
When plants are hungry that is exactly how they show it and they always begin feeding from the lowest leaf set.
That is the only pic you've posted where either plant looked even a little hungry, so I think they are stressed through overfeeding. Particularly the widow.

If the Canna table you got is genuine and it is in US gallons, then your feeding table goes like this:
Stage 1 - use 1-3 ml/litre
Stage 1 is all growth up to switching to 12/12
Stage 2 - use 3-5ml/litre
Stage 2 is the stretch and usually occurs within 3 or 4 days of switching to 12/12

So that suggests feeding no more than 3ml/litre (and probably closer to 1.5 ml) and then using plain water until you see signs that the plant wants more food.
Only when they begin to look for food before their next watering, you can up the strength by 0.5 ml/litre.

It is also worth noting that the Canna table gives a TDS figure for the food dosage. Do you have a TDS meter? These are helpful in finding out if your water already carries noticeable amounts of salts which can affect your feeding plans.

 

[SMACKA]

Sounds good. I've indeed been waiting for bottom leaves to yellow; I'll stop picking them before taking photos, maybe they hold some additional info as to what's going on.

Didn't think I was pushing them too hard (6 feeds over the span of 3 months) but definitely haven't been starving them either I guess; maybe the steps have been too much at a time. Will give them a couple weeks of water and see how things progress.

Yes, I have a TDS meter/pen; posted the numbers a while back but you're right, no one wants to read through details. What ppm should I be aiming for at 3 months in my runoff?

 

[Dutch Jon]

Nice a Quantum Board panel!

 

[SMACKA]

Nice a Quantum Board panel!

Let's see what all the fuss is about! :)

 

[SMACKA]

Been a week... Quick update!

Just gave them 6 cups of water each as the pots were light. pH was 5.95.

Notice the yellowing bottom leaves on both plants; I left them on for pics to prove I'm not going crazy and that they are/were indeed showing N def.

Here's the White Widow - starting to look better, but still struggling.

...And here's the Purple Kush, which was the drier pot. Her leaves seem to be cramping inwards instead of spreading out.

The branches are shedding their lower leaves; the same number of leaves get pruned every week.

That last pic shows leaves are various yellowing stages ---^

Here's one of them in the tent.

I bought these Crop Kings seeds specifically to dial things in before popping some better genetics, so I'm not too upset. It's a learning opportunity... you gotta start somewhere. ;)

 

[SMACKA]

Almost forgot. Here's the 1.5 month old seedling.

This White Widow girl is 45 days old, and after 4 weeks, was fed 1Cup of nute water mixed at 1ml/L

Can someone confirm if this is showing signs of hunger? I keep getting told to dial back nutes, but I don't feel like I'm pushing them that hard.