Please help a novice in distress

[IsanFarmer]

Btw I just got a hair pruning the other week, My Lady told me I was looking like a caveman

Fuck me, I wish I had hair.

 

[Bdubs]

this is true only to the point of light stress, than its not true anymore.
to get 900ppfd peak flower with led you need to have everything dialed in perfectly and craw to that value trough flower otherwise the risk of light burn is almost 100%.

I mean let’s not scare anybody and make it complicated. Perfect conditions only entails introducing CO2 to counter light stress from it. All your other processes stay the same.

 

[Trash_2002]

I mean let’s not scare anybody and make it complicated. Perfect conditions only entails introducing CO2 to counter light stress from it. All your other processes stay the same.

Yep with CO2 you raise even more temps, EC, watering, and light 1000-1200ppfd sometimes even more depending on cultivar.

 

[rasterman]

Here's my guess.

About over and under watering: Over-watering is watering too often, not giving too much water at one time. In soil, I water to run-off when the pots get light. You're in big pots for the size of the plants, so your correct watering frequency should be a lot longer than you might expect.

I had to figure that out over time on my own, and I'm embarrassed to say how long it took me to figure out. It's perfect how you worded it. I've never seen how-tos that made this point -- kudos!

 

[rasterman]

This is good stuff. It would be good to see a comparative grow, all things being equal, with 1 being your basic, "regular" soil that most novice growers would buy or put together from a few fairly common ingredients.........the other this more "living soil", one that's built the way you're talking about, with all of the ingredients that make it happen. I'm going to assume that there's going to be a meaningful, obvious difference, otherwise, why do it?

The next question is......is there a relatively simple way to achieve this? Most growers are probably not going to buy a dozen or more ingredients, or spend time mixing up concoctions and getting very science-y.......

If you had to strip it down and tell someone the easiest way to achieve the goal of putting this kind of soil together, with the least amount of work, ingredients......granted it may not be as great as doing all of the work, but what would you advise? Let's say I've already got a few good bags of soil, perlite, peat moss.......what could I add into this mix that would pretty much get me there?

The mix that works really well for me is Buildasoil Recipe 3 and and Buildasoil Craft Blend for future grows in the same soil. It's really simple and you don't really have to measure anything because your plant trades sugars with microbes for things it needs.

I do keep Happy Frog topdress around in case of issues but rarely have to use it in my Buildasoil living soil grows.

 

[rasterman]

Good morning. Can I get some seeds.

Yes.

 

[IsanFarmer]

These were taken today, which is day 72. I'm not speaking from experience but some of these bud sites have excellent structure don't they? I mixed 12 litres of water with half a dose of the Fox Farm trio and 6ml of CalMag. I adjusted the water to PH 6.3 and it's temperature was 23 degrees Celsius. The EC was 1.32 without having to adjust it and I was happy with that.

The light is 21" from the top of the tallest stems and 24" from the shortest, at 75% power, which equates to around 550 to 630 PPFD. The light cycle is between 77 and 81 degrees Fahrenheit, with a RH of 47 to 55% and the dark cycle is 72 to 77 Fahrenheit and 40 to 47% RH. I'm coming up to the end of week 3 of flower so it should be time to lollipop these soon?

 

[Trash_2002]

These were taken today, which is day 72. I'm not speaking from experience but some of these bud sites have excellent structure don't they? I mixed 12 litres of water with half a dose of the Fox Farm trio and 6ml of CalMag. I adjusted the water to PH 6.3 and it's temperature was 23 degrees Celsius. The EC was 1.32 without having to adjust it and I was happy with that.

The light is 21" from the top of the tallest stems and 24" from the shortest, at 75% power, which equates to around 550 to 630 PPFD. The light cycle is between 77 and 81 degrees Fahrenheit, with a RH of 47 to 55% and the dark cycle is 72 to 77 Fahrenheit and 40 to 47% RH. I'm coming up to the end of week 3 of flower so it should be time to lollipop these soon?

Yep the flowers are looking great! They gonna enter turbo mode after week 4 just watch lol

You already kinda cleaned a lot of the lowers but you can make a more detailed under skirts clean, and you can remove some fan leaves only if they are shading too much lower bud sites.

 

[Trash_2002]

These were taken today, which is day 72. I'm not speaking from experience but some of these bud sites have excellent structure don't they? I mixed 12 litres of water with half a dose of the Fox Farm trio and 6ml of CalMag. I adjusted the water to PH 6.3 and it's temperature was 23 degrees Celsius. The EC was 1.32 without having to adjust it and I was happy with that.

The light is 21" from the top of the tallest stems and 24" from the shortest, at 75% power, which equates to around 550 to 630 PPFD. The light cycle is between 77 and 81 degrees Fahrenheit, with a RH of 47 to 55% and the dark cycle is 72 to 77 Fahrenheit and 40 to 47% RH. I'm coming up to the end of week 3 of flower so it should be time to lollipop these soon?

Weeks 4-5-6-7 go with EC 1.5 , calmag at 6ml/12L is fine, adjust ec with ~10% more FF trio.

 

[IsanFarmer]

Weeks 4-5-6-7 go with EC 1.5 , calmag at 6ml/12L is fine, adjust ec with ~10% more FF trio.

Did you notice the yellow leaves on the plant on the left? It's mainly underneath the canopy that the leaves are yellow but some of the top ones are too. I tested the runoff from that plant and the PH is 7.4 which is way higher than the other two. The plant on the right is 6.9 and the plant at the front is 5.7 so there must be some sort of nutrient deficiency with the yellowing plant? What should I do?

 

[Porky1982]

These were taken today, which is day 72. I'm not speaking from experience but some of these bud sites have excellent structure don't they? I mixed 12 litres of water with half a dose of the Fox Farm trio and 6ml of CalMag. I adjusted the water to PH 6.3 and it's temperature was 23 degrees Celsius. The EC was 1.32 without having to adjust it and I was happy with that.

The light is 21" from the top of the tallest stems and 24" from the shortest, at 75% power, which equates to around 550 to 630 PPFD. The light cycle is between 77 and 81 degrees Fahrenheit, with a RH of 47 to 55% and the dark cycle is 72 to 77 Fahrenheit and 40 to 47% RH. I'm coming up to the end of week 3 of flower so it should be time to lollipop these soon?

They are hungry 1.3ec is not enough for plants at that stage!
Feed em at 1.8ec next feed

 

[IsanFarmer]

I was in a rush to get somewhere this morning so I never tested the EC of the runoff which was the most important thing. What a fucking twat.

 

[Trash_2002]

Did you notice the yellow leaves on the plant on the left? It's mainly underneath the canopy that the leaves are yellow but some of the top ones are too. I tested the runoff from that plant and the PH is 7.4 which is way higher than the other two. The plant on the right is 6.9 and the plant at the front is 5.7 so there must be some sort of nutrient deficiency with the yellowing plant? What should I do?

Yep I saw It, don't bother with runoff readings really, just raise feed to 1.5ec next feed and forward.

 

[IsanFarmer]

Yep I saw It, don't bother with runoff really, just raise feed to 1.5ec next feed and forward.

I never tested the EC of the runoff, only the PH, so it's going to be difficult to diagnose the problem now.

 

[Trash_2002]

I never tested the EC of the runoff, only the PH, so it's going to be difficult to diagnose the problem now.

Nah runoff and media EC will be always higher than what goes in, pH will also be always different too. We just have to accept that as a fact and don't bother with it, principally growing with organic soil.

In hydro/rockwool and etc runoff its more meaningful but still have the same tendency, media will have higher EC than Input fertilizer EC, reservoir EC will also raise while plants "drink" and evaporation, transpiration occurs, etc.

 

[Trash_2002]

We can think about it like this:

For example
We input 1.0ec PH 6.0 nutrients to a virgin inert media that has 0 ec and pH 6 and bring the media to saturation point.

Now the media have 1.0ec in it and stays at pH 6.

As it starts to dry back, even with plants/roots "eating" some of the EC, it will raise the EC, because we want fast dry backs and the roots don't have time to assimilate a lot in that dry back time frame.

As the dry back extends the EC raises but PH will lower, because nitrates and many other elements are acid in nutrients commonly.

Now we water again to ~30% runoff (inert media) to leach a bit the EC that got higher and to replenish our nutrients ratios and strength a bit, and the PH will raise again in a natural pH drifting, witch is beneficial.

The drybacks are good for bringing oxigen to the roots but it will also promote a healthy root/water/EC/pH drifting natural cycle.

And we have to accept that EC will always be higher in media than what we input and that PH will drift in a predictable manner most of the times, exceptions can occur with quality of water soft/hard, soft water normally the pH raises in a nutrient reservoir over time,.while hard water can be more stable it can also acidify and/or cause precipitation in the nutrients reservoir over time. Water quality can play one major role too in the media drybacks/EC/PH natural drifting cycles.

 

[Trash_2002]

(Edit Cont.)

Cannabis likes consistency in everything to have optimized growth, that's one of the main factors why DWC and true hydro systems give the most explosive growth pattern, also because no root system "friction" delaying growth and controlled constant air and nutrients in the root zone.

It doesn't matter if EC or pH drifts a bit as long all inputs are consistent and reasonable for each stage of growth.

What cannabis don't like is sudden severe changes of any input.
EC,PH,Light intensity,water frequency, humidity, temperature, wind/rain,...

 

[IsanFarmer]

These were taken yesterday morning just after I lollipopped and watered them. The plant on the right hand side still needs some more wok but it was difficult to reach it. The light is still at the same intensity. The tallest buds in the centre are getting as much as 650 PPFD but bud sites that are lower down or around the edges of the light are getting as little as 350. Should I increase the power of the light now that they're in the their fourth week of flower?

 

[Trash_2002]

These were taken yesterday morning just after I lollipopped and watered them. The plant on the right hand side still needs some more wok but it was difficult to reach it. The light is still at the same intensity. The tallest buds in the centre are getting as much as 650 PPFD but bud sites that are lower down or around the edges of the light are getting as little as 350. Should I increase the power of the light now that they're in the their fourth week of flower?

See any sign of light stress/burn?

Have a light off /flash on photo?

Do it during lights on period ;-) just turn light off snap 2or3 flash pics and turn lights on again.

Cheers

 

[IsanFarmer]

See any sign of light stress/burn?

Have a light off /flash on photo?

Do it during lights on period ;-) just turn light off snap 2or3 flash pics and turn lights on again.

Cheers

Ok will do. I'm out at the minute but hopefully home before lights out.