Results and Discussion
Numerous issues arose over the course of this grow which significantly limited the final wieghts, which were therefore never even tallied and totaled. I learned a great deal of very important lessons, however, and therefore have pleasure intermixed with my earlier consternation. Issues were as follows:
- Improper watering - most significant limitation
- Improper Ph - I ran between 6.2 and 5.5 which is too low
- Overcrowding
- Emergence of Spider Mites in last 2 weeks, followed by...
- moving 1/3 of plants out of garden during last 2-3 weeks of flowering. Major loss.
Overall, I ended up with much less than 1g/watt due to below issues which I will explain in more detail. This is accompanied with discussion of my personal lessons learned and future implications.
Improper Watering:
While temporarily living with family over the past year, my garden was located within a relatively small independent building, the 'Studio', which is about 22' x 15' or so. This building was not permanently stablilized on it's foundation, and the owner of the building was concerned that all that wieght could have caused structural instability and utter ruin. This was not the case, but resulted in me having to only partially water each 32 gal container for the first 6 weeks or so. The natural result was substantial dry pockets and inadequate water and nutrient flow throughout medium.
Upon emptying containers post-harvest it was clear that root development and growth was dramatically restricted, which confounded the bThe Borg enefits of 32 gal's of healthy, biodynamically active root mass. I have since researched proper watering methods thouroghly and have systems in place which assures I won't have to deal with this again.
My use of 'air tubes' inserted vertically within medium remains inconclusive due to improper watering. I think it may hold some promise, though I agree with some PhD. lady from Sunshine Mix company that the incorporation of hydroton or so into medium would be beneficial for both oxygen/root levels and compaction issues (wet sunshine mix in such a large container tends to compact - my choice to flush medium prior to flowering was likely counterproductive.
Overcrowding:
I did it again, dammit! Adequequate spacing is critical to heavy yields of top flowers. It is evident that undercrowding is more productive than overcrowding, and represents a better starting point as one fine-tunes thier system. In the final weeks of the grow I moved 1/3 of plants outside to reduce crowding and the garden and the gardener were better for it. The plants moved outside, howveer, weren't.
Next, The Borg (spider mites)...
Istari72