gravity

[Mr.Sputnik]

thats interesting sputnik.... are u sure its the gravity?

I checked for light leaks and the room is pitch black. I don't go in the room in the night cycle, even with a green headlamp. my timers are running very consistent (intermatic 104). My additives are flora nova bloom, diamond nectar, silica blast, diamond black, cal mag, GH ph down, seaweed extract (AN), purple maxx, gravity, molasses, and great white. PH is at 6.2. I use a 1 micron water filter. temps are at 78-82* and 45-50% RH with the lights on. I added the gravity at 5 weeks in at the rate of 1.25ml per gallon. 1/3 of my plants went full blown hermie 1.5 weeks later. I added 0.5ml per gallon 2 weeks later to a couple of the ones that didn't hermie the first time and they hermied the second time, 1-1.5 weeks after I added the gravity.

I had two afghani plants of the same age, same clone, same nutes. I gave one of them 1ml of gravity at 6 weeks and it hermied a week later. the other plant did not hermie. None of my other plants that are in the room that have not received gravity have hermied.

Maybe it's something about using gravity in conjunction with seaweed, as this is the first time I have run the two together.

IMO these results are consistent with an overdose of GAA. If someone can please tell me what might be causing the herms besides the gravity it would be much appreciated.

Lost, I agree with you. I personally like the purple maxx over the snowstorm as it's organic and I don't really trust the line to be hormone free after my results. I'll give the snowstorm a whirl on a test plant, it is cheaper than the maxx as well. More crystals and great smell with the maxx, too!

I used to get sick results using the maxx and the gravity in conjunction with each other, but something has gone horribly wrong since I started using the gravity on the last few runs. I've used the product for a few years and I never had the hermie issue, not once. Like I said, it could be the seaweed? I'm as baffled as you guys. It's a new room and a new grow.

 

[Goose]

There are no organic products in the Humboldt line, in fact I would bet my entire existence that these products are all based on PGR's and funky hormone inputs. Bushmaster, Gravity and Purple Maxx for sure are completely unnatural. Not to single them out though, phosphoload, shooting powder, Kool Bloom, Bud XL, Advanced in general all rely on "interesting" products that cause similar results. If you think that companies put everything that is in their products on their label you are either extremely naive or overly trusting. If it walks like a PGR, talks like a PGR, than...Any product that causes an extreme and instant response in a plant should raise speculation.

I never understand why people insist on adding "super-bloom-blaster-bud-explosion-crystal-bomb-bud" products. All a plant needs is basic elements, a healthy environment and attention...to bad no one can bottle attention to your plants and sell it, they'd be a millinonaire overnight with the right marketing gimmick. Sputnik is totally right about not consuming products that are grown with these "miracle" products. They are unhealthy and in many cases carcinogenic in their base form. I am not expecting anyone to change their minds about what recipe they use, I am just really concerned about the dependence on these products and the long-term consequences of patients' use.

I apologize for ranting everyone, and I mean NO disrespect to anyone on this thread. This is a subject that should really be exposed for what it is. Many in the hydroponic industry are taking advantage of labeling loopholes and reliance on the ignorance of the EPA and CDFA (my state) to offer these unhealthy products to an unknowing growers community.

Here is a link to an interesting article, though you could spend a long time finding many others, pay attention to the last page ..."(PGR)'s are regarded as pesticides"...not on my ladies.





By the way, notice this is an article about floricultural crops...not consumables.

 

[Mr.Sputnik]

Beezie, I bought a product that I am pretty much positive has been causing sex reversals in my plants. Is the manufacturer of this product willing to discuss this? NO. Made for pot, but not willing to talk about it when it fucks up your crop. I don't think hermies rock. So Beezie, do you have any idea what could be causing the hermies other than the gravity?

You guys say it's not the gravity, then PLEASE...BY ALL MEANS... tell me what could be causing the sex reversal. I've tested it multiple times with the same horrific result. If it's not a hormone, then whatever "organic" bud hardener substance that can cause a sex reversal is in there. I don't know if it's eye of newt or what, but it has been causing sex reversal. the only other substance I have found to harden buds with the risk of hermie is GAA (gibberellic acid). If you have another substance that does this, please list it and enlighten me to this "organic" substance.

they can say whatever they want, who regulates the ingredients of additives? I'll post up once the lab test of my bottle comes back so I can get some definitive proof. This hear say isn't getting anywhere.

Beezie, put 2ml in a plant and tell me what happens.

 

[Lost]

Its not the gravity dude.

Purple Maxx has its organic rating so someone is eating crow there.. The others not so much, but its not the gravity. I have used it for a long time now, never a problem other than burning at full stregnth.

Are you so sure your not doing something wrong? Perhaps you have crap in your water or something.. Lots and lots of people use gravity and its not the evil you make it to be.

 

[ent]

Yah I agree Lost. I've been using gravity for quite a while now and never had hermies caused by gravity. Now I did read through all of your posts Mr.Sputnik and based on the info you posted it does sound like the gravity. But I just don't think it is. Something must be off. Nothing personal, just based on my experience. If I could get gravity to consistently cause hermies I would use it for S1's as a cheap and easy way of obtaining gibb acid.

 

[Lost]

Some of the best herb I have grows was s1's from hermie that themselvs did not herm. If I can induce herm with gravity, shit i'll do it!

I just don't think its the gravity or the gravity acting alone. There must be something else that the gravity is combining with or something else entirely.

Overuse perhaps? It even says on the bottle more is not better... 2ml a gallon is super strong..

 

[Goose]

I am not sure about the relationship between Hermies and Gravity, though outside of serious stress such as light leaks, or interuption in light duration, hormones can produce those results. Do you have a stable strain Sputnik? Perhaps the Gravity might be pushing it over the edge? Were they perhaps feminized seeds? I have a friend in Colorado who had a crop turn ballsy towards the end of the cycle for no apparent reason, other than he suspected the "feminized" seeds he had were the culprit. Some certain strains do produce strerile male flowers as well, though they do not seeds, sometimes little "pits" that never turn to mature seeds. I have a 14 year old train wreck that ALWAYS produces a few sterile males here and there. Just my own experience on the subject.

I still believe that these products are hormone based, from what I know about big ag products and from what I know about labeling and registering products throughout the US. Many fertilizer companies do not list ALL their ingredients on their labels, nor will they discuss them with you on the phone. Bottom line is; WHO CARES! if you do not care about the possible toxicity of a consumable product, and just care about easy results then by all means...go for it! Add some Avid while your at it. Sorry about the seemingly harsh tone, as you can tell by my last post I am pretty passionate about this topic, though I am not a hard-core organic dude with compost in my pockets.

FYI...just becuase a product says it is 100% organic, or organic-based, really means nothing, it is simply a marketing tool. Even if something is OMRI listed (or WSDA, or Clean Grean) it doesn't necessarily mean anything, there is no overseeing or regulation, you give them money and a list of what you want to list on your label and you can get an OMRI badge.

Food for thought:

 

[Lost]

Yea, this cat might actually be onto something really cool if it can be replicated..

 

[ScuzyRoach]

I cant say for certain but 2ml/Gal. should not make your plant hermie unless its sensitive to being stressed. I could not find if Spunik used it w/ his nute formula or w/ plain water. I am a soil guy myself and use Gravity at 2.5ml/gal at 21 days out for 3 waterings on my plain water days. My nute formula is pretty hot as well. I have tried it on multiple strains w/ no problems (5 grow rooms). Only had a few little bannanas on one strain. I suggest it be used only w/ plain water or at a rate recommended by the other hydro posters.
I have used it w/ both their Purple Maxx and Snow Storm at the same rate w/ no problems.
I have seen one of my strains grown for many years seed out on a friend. It was his first grow and he used Fox Farm's Open Sesame, Beastie and Cha Ching at their stand alone rates by mistake. His whole crop had fucking seeds galore. He fixed his nute formula for the next run and a perfect crop. ? not sure but it is what it is. We just planted 5 seeds from those and all have shown female so far. We will see if they hermie or not.

 

[Mr.Sputnik]

the gravity was mixed with water, I usually fertilize, water, fertilize, water, water and repeat the cycle. Gravity was on a water day. The strange thing is I didn't have any burn and I didn't reduce my nute levels (I run them on the weaker side) but my hashplants did develop a calcium deficiency in 2 days after I used it. I was running 5 strains, all of which hermied. The worst two strains were a) a jordan of the isles afghani f2 kush pheno, and b) a reeferman's bhodi satva X federations Island Sweet Skunk (sweet bhodi). These two were popping hermies in a fashion I had never experienced before, from the bottom of the plant towards the top, and from the bottom of the nugs up. the bananas were difficult to detect and I didn't notice until it was too late.

Next was the RM hashplants from seed. They all showed hermies (all 4 of them) but not nearly as bad as the previous two strains. they were still selfed, but not screwed.

Next was the ISS. I've been running this strain since '04, and I've seen it pop some bananas very late in it's cycle, but never as early as I saw this time. This was the least screwed up.

A mystery dispensary white widow that gave PM to a whole apartment complex was next. This one hermied, but not severely.

The second run was on my afghani pheno JOTI F2. I gave one of them 1ml gravity with water and the other just water and kept my regular fertilizer regiment. One hermied, one didn't.

I think it might be the seaweed in conjunction with the gravity. Seaweed has naturally occurring hormones, and gravity says it's kelp extract, so that could be the culprit. But if you want s1's, try 2ml gravity in a dirt pot and use about 1tbsp seaweed extract in your fert.

I've never heard of anyone getting a hermie from too much seaweed. Maybe I'm the first.

 

[ScuzyRoach]

Its not the seaweed for sure. I use Gravity along w. Floralicious Plus, Nitrozime. Both contain seaweed. I do reduce the Nitrozime values so maybe if you have everything full strength it could be causing your problem. It sounds like you have a good system and if you had no problems before, w. the same mix, than i would stop using the Gravity. Maybe you got a fucked up batch? More than one bottle? Their early labels seem to suggest they have been tweaking the stuff for awhile. I use Fox Farm base products and have been noticing changes in color (ie, my Tiger Bloom has been a greenish hue lately) Generally when shaken it is dark brown. Why all of a sudden is it green like the Grow Big. Did they change ingredients? I dont know but everything has been fine. Just something i noticed and am not thrilled w/. I think as these companys grow and produce more products they have to outsource or buy ingredients in larger volume, maybe even different supplier. Sorry to get off topic but it does pay to buy from the grow shops. From what i know they generally always receive direct ship from the companies where as Ace Hardware might get its Ocean Forrest soil from someone who produces it for Fox Farm on a larger scale. Obviously you didn't get the Gravity at a hardware store but it could be possible to have a bad batch.

 

[Mr.Sputnik]

Scuzyroach, I think it is one of 3 things. a) a hot or bad batch of gravity, b) conjunction with seaweed (this is the only thing I changed from the last run with gravity), or c) the fact that some of my strains are unstable F1 hybrids and f2's and can't handle the stress of the gravity.

The unstable strains hermied first and worse than my stabilized strains, but the stabilized strains still hermied. I would suggest to anyone running gravity with unstable strains to use less of it.

What gets me is that the unstable F1 and F2 plants that hermied so bad never showed any sign of burn, nor did the ISS or WW. just the HP showed a rapid cal def after usage of gravity.

I used to run gravity in 5 gallon DWC buckets that held roughly 4 gallons of water. I would add 1ml of gravity at 4 weeks from flower in conjunction with 1ml purple maxx (I ran 1ml maxx the whole way through the cycle) change the solution a week later that had no gravity, change it again a week after that adding another 1ml of gravity (2-3 weeks from finishing at this point), run for a week, do a flush and run ph'd filtered water for the last week or two. I never had one hermie issue running it this way and the humbolt products produced noticeable changes in crystals and density. I thought they made great products until this last run.

I typically use 2-4X the amount of ferts per gallon and additives for dirt as I do for hydro. Honestly I've never gotten my dirt grows dialed in like I have my DWC.

I'm going to throw this bottle of gravity out, buy a smaller bottle and give it another go in a stand alone DWC with a stabilized strain like the ISS and see what happens. I don't want to give up on the gravity, but when you can attribute the failure of an entire crop to one additive it kinda tends to turn you off on it. I don't want to stop using it, it frekin' rocked the DWC grows. I've come to the conclusion that I'm not a dirt guy, that it's going to take me alot more R&D to dial in dirt than hydro.

I don't thing gravity is a horrible product, but I do believe the 09-10 herb explosion has caused some companies to screw up more batches with more demand for their products. I think I might have gotten a bad batch of H&G roots excelleurator as well as mine didn't perform as advertised.

Lesson learned: Dial plants in 1 at a time 1 strain at a time, not a crop at a time. I got too cocky and it had been about 1.5 years since my last grow.

:headbang me and harvey wallbanger :headbang

 

[REDEYE_420]

so... it's great I found this conversation as there is little information on the bottles and I had questions about the Gravity and Purplemaxx. And I cant find information anywhere else. Using it in oceanforest for first time at week5 flower, only things I been usin is liquid coolbloom(every watering) and CALMAG (occasionally). It sounds like I should use 1ml/gal water for now on (regularly?) of the purplemaxx and 1ml of the Gravity/per gal (maybe 2 times?) before I flush in 4 weeks... My other question was are these a 3 part or w.e. flower system but it dont sound like it is? So NPK shouldnt be issue? Need some clarity ASAP THANKS!!!

 

[sedate]

it's great I found this conversation as there is little information on the bottles and I had questions about the Gravity and Purplemaxx

Yea one of the bottles even says "we don't know why it works" or something like that.

My own wariness of that, combined with Sputnik's story - is enough to turn me off to Humbolt County's Own products . . .

I'll stick with base nutes and TLC.

 

[ScuzyRoach]

so... it's great I found this conversation as there is little information on the bottles and I had questions about the Gravity and Purplemaxx. And I cant find information anywhere else. Using it in oceanforest for first time at week5 flower, only things I been usin is liquid coolbloom(every watering) and CALMAG (occasionally). It sounds like I should use 1ml/gal water for now on (regularly?) of the purplemaxx and 1ml of the Gravity/per gal (maybe 2 times?) before I flush in 4 weeks... My other question was are these a 3 part or w.e. flower system but it dont sound like it is? So NPK shouldnt be issue? Need some clarity ASAP THANKS!!!

I use gravity w/ snow storm @ 2.5 ml/gal in soil. I use the snow storm from about week 4 of flower and then depending on the strain i use gravity about 3 weeks out from finish. I use it three consecutive PLAIN waterings in between nute waterings. Then just the snow storm again a few times. I dont use gravity on strains which are normaly dense to begin w/ as it can almost make them too rock hard. Less is better but only too a point, then you wont see any diff. Yes you are correct that the NKP is not an issue. I use a bud booster w/ a high K,P ratio and they are fine w/ it. Just dont mix it w/ nutes or you need to reduce it like the hydro guys do.

 

[Mr.Sputnik]

Redeye, stick with 1ml per gallon and go up from there. If you read the whole thread you'll know what to do with this product. Good luck.

 

[yeeyee]

used this stuff last round on a few plants just to test and the ones i gave it too had smaller buds but they were just slightly denser/harder and i used it at half strenth with no nutes for a week while giveing them it just my $0.2

 

[xX Kid Twist Xx]

Here's the labeling for Gravity:

Contains non-plant food ingredients:
0.75% Ascophyllum nodosum (sea kelp) extract
0.01% Vitamin B1 (thiamine hydrochloride)

doesnt the sea kelp extract have tons of hormones in it, cytokinins?

expet from wikipedia(i know but im sure not everything is wrong on this)


Uses
Ascophyllum nodosum is harvested for use in alginates, fertilisers and for the manufacture of seaweed meal for animal and human consumption. It has long been used as an organic and mainstream fertilizer for many varieties of crops due to its combination of both macronutrient, (eg. N, P, K, Ca, Mg, S) and micronutrients (eg. Mn, Cu, Fe, Zn, etc). It also host to cytokinins, auxin-like gibberellins, betaines, mannitol, organic acids, polysaccharides, amino acids, and proteins which are all very beneficial and widely used in agriculture. [20] Ireland, Scotland and Norway have provided the world's principal alginate supply.[21][22]

 

[xX Kid Twist Xx]

vitamin b1

Chemical properties
Thiamine is a colorless compound with a chemical formula C12H17N4OS. Its structure contains a pyrimidine ring and a thiazole ring linked by a methylene bridge. Thiamine is soluble in water, methanol, and glycerol and practically insoluble in acetone, ether, chloroform, and benzene. It is stable at acidic pH, but is unstable in alkaline solutions.[1][13] Thiamine is unstable to heat, but stable during frozen storage. It is unstable when exposed to ultraviolet light[13] and gamma irradiation.[14][15] Thiamine reacts strongly in Maillard-type reactions.[1]

if you read the last few lines maybe this has something to do with it? says its unstable in heat or alkaline ph solutions. what are you temps and ph? maybe this causing it? just a guess im way outa my league here, but am interested in this subject and what is happening to your plants

 

[xX Kid Twist Xx]

the last 3 weeks i have been doing some reading on Ascophyllum Nodosum. as i started foliar with it on my out door plants. it would be great to get someones input like Charles Xavier on this.

a cool experiment would be to take 3 identical clones roughly 2 weeks before flower. label a,b,c. mix up 3 solutions of gravity for foliar spray one with a ph of 7, one heated up slightly before and one with a ph of 7 and slightly heated up. after 2 weeks of spraying every 3-4 days start flower and see if this causes them to reverse.