Bat Guano Risk

[OldMedUser]

Bat populations are crashing because of humans tracking fungus from cave to cave to supply "conscientious organic growers" with a sustainable nutrient source. Same with seabird guano. Those pricks couldn't care less about protecting the environment but it's organic so it must be better right? Sustainable my ass.

What are y'all going to turn to once you've helped kill off all the bats and seabirds?

Switched to fish bone meal in April 2016. Excellent amendment approximately 6-20-0 for a boost in flower. Porcine bone meal at about 6-9-0 also very effective. I have not tried seabird guano.

Way, way way too much P and zero K won't make decent buds.

 

[Daniel Lawton]

BUD MOLD WARNING!!!

In that Northern Lights picture above, the central bud is long and very thick. The plant was in a room with no moving air, except a crack in the window.

The big bud grew fine white hairs on parts of it. It molded.

And the bud pressed down on the buds under it. When I picked that bud, the leaves on the buds under it were very light green and all distorted, with few trichomes on those.

Perhaps I should have spread out the buds on that plant, to let air get in?

No water got on the leaves and there's nothing else in the room. It's also very hot in there, which is said to discourage mold.

I'll have to use alcohol on that bud, it has a very slight mold smell even after washing it and drying a bit.

 

[Daniel Lawton]

Way, way way too much P and zero K won't make decent buds.

That's good info. I haven't seen a lot of sources for K. I thought maybe potting soil had it from the plant matter, but it seems not.

Anyone have optimal PPM info on NPK, separately? I see PPM recommendations for "nutrients", but that's not particularly useful for calculating each one as number of grams needed. With PPM info, it would be possible to write an easy to use marijuana nutrient calculator.

 

[OldMedUser]

Organic nutes don't register well on ppm/EC pens. Once they are in soil and worked on by the microherd they produce the salts that the plants can eat.

There are lists of all sorts of organic nutrients and their NPK ratios to help organic growers pick the things that will supply nutrients in the proper ratios. I don't do that kind of growing so can't tell you where to find them but it shouldn't be hard.

BUD MOLD WARNING!!!

Bud rot usually starts in the center of the colas and may not even be noticed until picked and the cola falls apart in a cloud of brown spores. Sounds like what you have is powdery mildew which is usually white and grows on the surface. High temps and humidity help it grow.

 

[Daniel Lawton]

and the cola falls apart in a cloud of brown spores.

It had a couple of patches of that, which weren't obvious till picked.

It's been super high temps and high humidity here lately in California. My germination rate even dropped to below 50% due to the heat. One little sprout managed to come up after 14 days, but looked like he was cooked in a stir fry. Never grew after that.

 

[Heil Tweetler]

***

snowflake.

@cookie master, champion of wretchedly witless and spineless commentary

 

[Daniel Lawton]

Here's a new soil formulation based on recent plants I've grown. I've concluded that if you have a 1 gallon fabric bag, the plants grow shorter (under 12") than if you use a 2 gallon bag and there's no loss in yield.

BUT, the nutrition needs to be well designed or they get spindly. So re-using soil is a no-no unless you can figure out how to "fix" it. I couldn't, tried several ways, got spindly 3 foot high plants.

Plants under 1 foot high are the easiest to grow under a 36W Levin LED bulb, and they'll yield more and better buds than an outdoor grow in full summer California sunlight. I was very surprised!

And no bugs. But, bud rot is possible. If you get the plants very short, the central bud will be very dense and smashed up against leaves. You have to have a fan circulating air, and make sure not to accidentally spill water on the leaves. And watch for little spider webs on the big bud. I had only 1 out of 20 indoor plants get the bud rot, but it still hurts.

Here's a recipe for 12 gallons of soil (from 1 standard sized bag of Ednas), which need no other additives to take the plant to maturity.

Of course you can tinker with the nutrients and make better buds, but it's a hassle. This is designed to stick 6 plants under a kitchen table in California, with 6 Levin grow lights, to produce pot with no trouble other than watering. Except perhaps for the pink light that radiates from your windows at night, making the neighbors talk.

As far as the pot quality, I don't smoke as much as I grow, so I've been able to give jars of buds to hardcore smokers (20 something party girl types). They said the quality was comparable to the medical marijuana that they buy. Smell maybe not as nice.

Curing them must be a real art.

An older man who's been smoking a long time said it wasn't as good as the best medical buds, and gave me a store bought bud to try.

Yes, not quite as strong. The professional growers do in fact know how to tinker.

For the rest of us, this is just fine. I've noticed there's an obsession with growing the absolute best on the forums, when in fact hobbyists don't really need to do that.

Plus you can save the best buds, do a kief or alcohol extraction on the less pretty buds, and use the results to boost the strength of the pretty buds. That'll exceed even high quality medical pot.

***************************** For 12 of 1 gallon fabric bags filled 90% full *******************************************
1.5cuft bag edna's best (probably could use fox farms) = $10.82
1/2cuft or 14.6quarts or 15 pounds Worm Castings = $15
4c (cups) EB Stones bat guano, or any high N bat guano (9:2:1) = $7.92.
4c Fish bone meal, high K (3-16-0) = $2.88
7 cups perlite = $0.80
2 tsp epsom salts = $0.09
1c Kelp Meal (Ascophyllum Nodosum) meal = $0.43 per soil batch.
1c Sul-Po-Mag = $1.35 per soil batch.
Osmocote (don't mix in, put in top 1-2 inches evenly): 1 Tbsp per gallon bag= 15.5grams*15.7= 6.56 ounces = $2.46
Total $41.75 to fill 12 bags = $3.48 each plant

Mix all but the osmocote. Add the osmocote to the top and blend it in an inch or so.

Finally, put some mosquito dunk on top if you plan to grow more than 1 plant! The gnats will go crazy without it.

Aside from the fact that this formula is kind of a mix of what everyone in the forums are saying, I've grown 20 dwarf autoflower plants using it. They stay short and VERY dark green, with big fat leaves. Two grew under 1 foot high, with a full 1.5 ounce yield which exceeds the 19W of light yield calculations by a little bit. They take 2.5 - 3.5 months to mature, depending on autoflower variety.

The plant height of under 1 foot allows clipping a Levin light to a dinner table , with the plant growing directly under it, and the beam pointing down covering it. If you get it just right, the plant seems to decide not to go up past the initial sprout (you can see, it doesn't go higher when the first real leaves start to grow). Super Skunk, Amnesia Haze, and Northern Lights stay short this way. Note: if the plant gets too tall, you can't use the kitchen table and have to search for a higher place to clip the light, which is surprisingly difficult in a normal home.

sul-po-mag is there to provide K, but it's also good because it's not completely soluble like the Epsom salts, and replaces the magnesium and sulfur more slowly, while the epsom salts might flush out during watering.

I previously used low N bat guano to get more P-K, but it's harder to get and a little expensive. So now the bat guano is supplemented with fish bone meal and the sul-po-mag.

 

[Daniel Lawton]

Revision: Substitute PBH (parboiled rice hulls) for the Perlite. Aside from having nasty dust, PBH actually does that job better (drainage), and as it decays, it provides silicon which can help with underwatering, and possible make bigger blooms (debateable).

It's also a lot cheaper and it's a "sustainable" material. But it's harder to get.

 

[OldMedUser]

Here's a new soil formulation based on recent plants I've grown. I've concluded that if you have a 1 gallon fabric bag, the plants grow shorter (under 12") than if you use a 2 gallon bag and there's no loss in yield.

BUT, the nutrition needs to be well designed or they get spindly. So re-using soil is a no-no unless you can figure out how to "fix" it. I couldn't, tried several ways, got spindly 3 foot high plants.

Plants under 1 foot high are the easiest to grow under a 36W Levin LED bulb, and they'll yield more and better buds than an outdoor grow in full summer California sunlight. I was very surprised!

And no bugs. But, bud rot is possible. If you get the plants very short, the central bud will be very dense and smashed up against leaves. You have to have a fan circulating air, and make sure not to accidentally spill water on the leaves. And watch for little spider webs on the big bud. I had only 1 out of 20 indoor plants get the bud rot, but it still hurts.

Here's a recipe for 12 gallons of soil (from 1 standard sized bag of Ednas), which need no other additives to take the plant to maturity.

Of course you can tinker with the nutrients and make better buds, but it's a hassle. This is designed to stick 6 plants under a kitchen table in California, with 6 Levin grow lights, to produce pot with no trouble other than watering. Except perhaps for the pink light that radiates from your windows at night, making the neighbors talk.

As far as the pot quality, I don't smoke as much as I grow, so I've been able to give jars of buds to hardcore smokers (20 something party girl types). They said the quality was comparable to the medical marijuana that they buy. Smell maybe not as nice.

Curing them must be a real art.

An older man who's been smoking a long time said it wasn't as good as the best medical buds, and gave me a store bought bud to try.

Yes, not quite as strong. The professional growers do in fact know how to tinker.

For the rest of us, this is just fine. I've noticed there's an obsession with growing the absolute best on the forums, when in fact hobbyists don't really need to do that.

Plus you can save the best buds, do a kief or alcohol extraction on the less pretty buds, and use the results to boost the strength of the pretty buds. That'll exceed even high quality medical pot.

***************************** For 12 of 1 gallon fabric bags filled 90% full *******************************************
1.5cuft bag edna's best (probably could use fox farms) = $10.82
1/2cuft or 14.6quarts or 15 pounds Worm Castings = $15
4c (cups) EB Stones bat guano, or any high N bat guano (9:2:1) = $7.92.
4c Fish bone meal, high K (3-16-0) = $2.88
7 cups perlite = $0.80
2 tsp epsom salts = $0.09
1c Kelp Meal (Ascophyllum Nodosum) meal = $0.43 per soil batch.
1c Sul-Po-Mag = $1.35 per soil batch.
Osmocote (don't mix in, put in top 1-2 inches evenly): 1 Tbsp per gallon bag= 15.5grams*15.7= 6.56 ounces = $2.46
Total $41.75 to fill 12 bags = $3.48 each plant

Mix all but the osmocote. Add the osmocote to the top and blend it in an inch or so.

Finally, put some mosquito dunk on top if you plan to grow more than 1 plant! The gnats will go crazy without it.

Aside from the fact that this formula is kind of a mix of what everyone in the forums are saying, I've grown 20 dwarf autoflower plants using it. They stay short and VERY dark green, with big fat leaves. Two grew under 1 foot high, with a full 1.5 ounce yield which exceeds the 19W of light yield calculations by a little bit. They take 2.5 - 3.5 months to mature, depending on autoflower variety.

The plant height of under 1 foot allows clipping a Levin light to a dinner table , with the plant growing directly under it, and the beam pointing down covering it. If you get it just right, the plant seems to decide not to go up past the initial sprout (you can see, it doesn't go higher when the first real leaves start to grow). Super Skunk, Amnesia Haze, and Northern Lights stay short this way. Note: if the plant gets too tall, you can't use the kitchen table and have to search for a higher place to clip the light, which is surprisingly difficult in a normal home.

sul-po-mag is there to provide K, but it's also good because it's not completely soluble like the Epsom salts, and replaces the magnesium and sulfur more slowly, while the epsom salts might flush out during watering.

I previously used low N bat guano to get more P-K, but it's harder to get and a little expensive. So now the bat guano is supplemented with fish bone meal and the sul-po-mag.

And organic gardeners always bitch about how many bottles of prepared nutes us hydro guys have to use to get good crops!

What a bunch of malarkey!

Base nutes - 3 bottles. Silica, CalMag, and Big Bud = 3 bottles. Done and never have to check pH.

'nuff said.

 

[Daniel Lawton]

You have a different goal entirely. That's true of most info on marijuana growing that I've seen on the web. It's designed to optimize results, perhaps to maximize profit.

And there's certainly pretty close to full agreement on the web that people using liquid nutrients (and who have experience) get the best results. The "super soil" people might disagree, but it only makes sense that providing just the right nutrients at the right time is best.

However, I'm making a kit for hobbyist grows, to sell at tattoo conventions, cigarette stores that have marijuana pipes, and such. It's legal to grow your own now in California, and there's huge interest as long as it's not too much trouble.
I suspect that watering once a day and making sure the light isn't too close is about as much effort as most are willing to make. So, I'm designing a hobbyist grower kit.

My kit fits into a 10x10 box, including a very suitable grow light and a fabric bag. It's designed to be an impulse buy, maybe as a gift for grandma (yep, there's plenty of pothead grandmas these days).

It's also designed to stunt the height of plants, without reducing the yields or strength. Under 12 inches for an autoflower is my goal (a difficult one). Shorter plants work very well with E26 spotlight LED bulbs.

With pot now legal here, and soon very widely available, growing marijuana is going to be more like growing tomatoes. You do it for fun. Certainly there's some amateur tomato growers producing amazing results (remember the Burpee Giant Tomato seeds?), but most just like to see a few tomatoes pop out on their own, and maybe show them off to the neighbors.

I'd like to produce a soil which does that as best possible. It would be nice if it beat the liquid nute growers, but that's just not going to happen.

 

[im4satori]

And organic gardeners always bitch about how many bottles of prepared nutes us hydro guys have to use to get good crops!

What a bunch of malarkey!

Base nutes - 3 bottles. Silica, CalMag, and Big Bud = 3 bottles. Done and never have to check pH.

'nuff said.

so where you getting your N from?

silica gives you potassium

calmag gives you calcium and some small amounts of magnesium but very little N

big bud...isn't that mostly K??? does it have all the micro nutes, no?? where the micros??
big bud is derived from a little mono potassium phosphate but mostly its just potassium sulfate

https://customhydronutrients.com/organic-k-soluble-fines-sop-50-c-75_78_220_243.html?zenid=f6bf12f8dd370bff5943ac18c3bdead0

which is about the same thing as a 1/4 tsp of dy salt powdered potassium sulfate for a couple penies

your using silica and your not checking your ph??

and your using this in a hydro grow?

I just cant see how that combination of fertilizers would put out anything close to a balanced hydro solution but maybe im missing something

 

[cookie master]

You have a different goal entirely. That's true of most info on marijuana growing that I've seen on the web. It's designed to optimize results, perhaps to maximize profit.

And there's certainly pretty close to full agreement on the web that people using liquid nutrients (and who have experience) get the best results. The "super soil" people might disagree, but it only makes sense that providing just the right nutrients at the right time is best.

However, I'm making a kit for hobbyist grows, to sell at tattoo conventions, cigarette stores that have marijuana pipes, and such. It's legal to grow your own now in California, and there's huge interest as long as it's not too much trouble.
I suspect that watering once a day and making sure the light isn't too close is about as much effort as most are willing to make. So, I'm designing a hobbyist grower kit.

My kit fits into a 10x10 box, including a very suitable grow light and a fabric bag. It's designed to be an impulse buy, maybe as a gift for grandma (yep, there's plenty of pothead grandmas these days).

It's also designed to stunt the height of plants, without reducing the yields or strength. Under 12 inches for an autoflower is my goal (a difficult one). Shorter plants work very well with E26 spotlight LED bulbs.

With pot now legal here, and soon very widely available, growing marijuana is going to be more like growing tomatoes. You do it for fun. Certainly there's some amateur tomato growers producing amazing results (remember the Burpee Giant Tomato seeds?), but most just like to see a few tomatoes pop out on their own, and maybe show them off to the neighbors.

I'd like to produce a soil which does that as best possible. It would be nice if it beat the liquid nute growers, but that's just not going to happen.

 

[cookie master]

I disagree on the liquid vs dry organic ferts. Proof is in the pudding and its proven itself to me. Cookies went from big clumps to huge colas longer and fatter than my arm. Cookies and colas arent synonymous.

 

[Daniel Lawton]

I disagree on the liquid vs dry organic ferts.

Are you saying you believe soil works as well or better than hydro?

About the big colas. Did you bend the top one down? I'm a little unclear on that process. One article I read said that the highest cola puts out a chemical which suppresses the lower ones. And so bending it down would give them a chance to grow bigger. Another said it was just about spreading them apart, to get more light to the lower ones.
And yet another claims that you don't need as much light during the budding phase, and in fact having too much causes new pistils to form, so that you can't judge when enough pistils have turned dark.

There's a lot of contradictory info out there. Here's my formula (which will be sold as grow kits). Cost of this soil is $2.96. Any criticism is welcome. Am I missing anything in this formula? It makes 1 gallon, specifically so that a dwarf autoflower won't grow too tall for a single LED bulb. The Levin 36W E26 has grown 20 plants for me so far, and very well as long as they remain short.

 

[OldMedUser]

so where you getting your N from?

silica gives you potassium

calmag gives you calcium and some small amounts of magnesium but very little N

big bud...isn't that mostly K??? does it have all the micro nutes, no?? where the micros??
big bud is derived from a little mono potassium phosphate but mostly its just potassium sulfate

https://customhydronutrients.com/organic-k-soluble-fines-sop-50-c-75_78_220_243.html?zenid=f6bf12f8dd370bff5943ac18c3bdead0

which is about the same thing as a 1/4 tsp of dy salt powdered potassium sulfate for a couple penies

your using silica and your not checking your ph??

and your using this in a hydro grow?

I just cant see how that combination of fertilizers would put out anything close to a balanced hydro solution but maybe im missing something

You're missing something alright. Reading comprehension maybe? If you had read the post clearly and understood what I'd written you'd know where the N and other nutrients come from.

Base nutes - 3 bottles. Silica, CalMag, and Big Bud = 3 bottles. Done and never have to check pH.

3-part base nutes have all the nutes the plants need to grow decently. The rest is just to get them to grow better than just decently.

 

[im4satori]

You're missing something alright. Reading comprehension maybe? If you had read the post clearly and understood what I'd written you'd know where the N and other nutrients come from.



3-part base nutes have all the nutes the plants need to grow decently. The rest is just to get them to grow better than just decently.

I think perhaps you should read what you wrote again

it says 3 bottles done

if you are using a 3 part base nute and silica,calmag,big bud ....that's 6 bottles...not 3

the way you wrote the statement suggests you are using those three bottles (calmag,big bud, silica) as your base which makes no sense

but now that you've explained the base is 3 bottles plus the other three bottles so your saying
6 bottles...done!
not
3 bottles done

let me help you count the bottles
grow
micro
bloom
calmag
big bud
silica

that's 6 bottles yes?..... not 3 bottles done

your wrote
base- calmag,big bud, silica, 3 bottles done

thats not 3 fucking bottles

had you said
base nutes + three additional bottles it would have been clear

btw, my question wasn't meant to make you defensive nor make you offensive

 

[Daniel Lawton]

I'll try to change the subject.

Anyone figured out the cost of the 6 bottles of nutes, per plant?

My $2.96 per gallon soil is a bit pricey, if you're growing a bunch of plants. But I tried fox farms' liquid nutrients with some of my used soil, and it seems to cost more in the long run.

 

[im4satori]

And organic gardeners always bitch about how many bottles of prepared nutes us hydro guys have to use to get good crops!

What a bunch of malarkey!

Base nutes - 3 bottles. Silica, CalMag, and Big Bud = 3 bottles. Done and never have to check pH.

'nuff said.

another thing

it seems a bit stupid to say

"organic gardeners always bitch about how many bottles.......... I only need 6" lmao


I don't have anything against your nutes and if your happy with them im happy for you but your argument proves the organic growers point for him

lastly;
I wouldn't feel the need to point out your stupidity had you not been such an ass in your post

 

[OldMedUser]

your wrote
base- calmag,big bud, silica, 3 bottles done

thats not 3 fucking bottles

had you said
base nutes + three additional bottles it would have been clear

btw, my question wasn't meant to make you defensive nor make you offensive

It wasn't a question tho. It was basically a diatribe formulated to put anyone on the defensive then react offensively. Did you comprehend what you wrote?

Excuse me for thinking the average member could add 3 and 3 and figure out it was 6 but forgot to allow for those on the left side of the curve.

When I see how many supplements most organic growers add to their mixes I made a comment about how 6 bottles was not a lot to worry about. I'm not one of those fools that runs out and buys the whole line when I know what I need to get the job done well is in the few I do get.

Make that 7 now. Got a free 500ml bottle of Bud Factor X to experiment with and see if it lives up to it's hype.

 

[im4satori]

It wasn't a question tho. It was basically a diatribe formulated to put anyone on the defensive then react offensively. Did you comprehend what you wrote?

Excuse me for thinking the average member could add 3 and 3 and figure out it was 6 but forgot to allow for those on the left side of the curve.

When I see how many supplements most organic growers add to their mixes I made a comment about how 6 bottles was not a lot to worry about. I'm not one of those fools that runs out and buys the whole line when I know what I need to get the job done well is in the few I do get.

Make that 7 now. Got a free 500ml bottle of Bud Factor X to experiment with and see if it lives up to it's hype.

lets smoke the peace pipe together

it was an innocent mis-communication

im not having reading comprehension issues and your not stupid

lets just chill the fuck out