FirstCav's First Journal Sponsored By the Cultiuanna CT-660

Thanks so much. They're just getting the Dr Earth dry amendments. The soil was amended with the 4-6-3 veg formula and they had a top dressing of that at transplant. I just gave them a 50/50 mix of that and the Flower Girl bloom formula since they seemed plenty fine with Nitrogen for where they are and I see K deficiencies sometimes after stretch so I thought I'd try to get the bloom going a little early. I do the top dress every two weeks with 2 tbls per gallon of media but bubba kush likes a little less as it showed slight burning on the tips at that dose. I give it 6 tbls for a 4 gallon airpot. Dr Earth calls for 4 tbls per 5 gallon pot and it would probably be good, but the bubba kush is the first strain I've seen that had any tip burn or over fertilizing symptoms at 2 tbls per gallon. I'm adding 1 gram of Epsom salt per gallon at every watering for the first time this grow and the girls seem to like it. I always chased magnesium issues and would end up using Epsom salt as a cure so I'm trying to just keep it in the feed constantly and dial in the right level.
I do ph my water with citric acid to between 6.3-6.8 also. I'm aware it's not needed in organics but it's something I do to try and help with uptake. I also just like the citric acid as it helps with the Calcium in our well water and has a lot of other good properties. I learned a lot of good info on it from your journal! Thanks for that.
That's it, just amendments top dressed every two weeks and water. It's a really affordable way to grow and if you stay up with the schedule it's super simple, like me lol.

Nicely done! You're doing awesome with the topdressing, that can be a challenging method because it's very intuitive and you have to keep anticipating the plant's needs. They do love the Epsom salts! I might give the topdressing a chance once I get some Promix, and compare it to the CSL I've been experimenting with.

It could really benefit from some worm castings but our trucks transmission died and that killed the budget for a bit. I am going to order some Colorado worm castings from Build A Soil eventually as the extra compost and microbes would be a big boost I'm thinking.
I'd love to see you try a run with it with all the extra things you do like Aspirin and humic/fulvic acid and how well dialed in your garden is. It would be really cool to see. It seems to work pretty good with just the simple water only style but there's always room to improve it.

FirstCavApache64 said:

It could really benefit from some worm castings but our trucks transmission died and that killed the budget for a bit. I am going to order some Colorado worm castings from Build A Soil eventually as the extra compost and microbes would be a big boost I'm thinking.
I'd love to see you try a run with it with all the extra things you do like Aspirin and humic/fulvic acid and how well dialed in your garden is. It would be really cool to see. It seems to work pretty good with just the simple water only style but there's always room to improve it.

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I did side by side comparison grows for around 8 years in a controlled experiment , one experiment was running hydrogen peroxide, against great white beneficial bacteria (tricodermous ) the great white way out preformed the sterile environment. Not by a little bit either. The sterile environment I like for my vegitating indoor plants as I do plant tissue culture and I want the plants as clean as possible for culture. But the mycos out preform sterile method and always used on plants I will bloom.
Worm castings are slightly different then products like great white though. But not much and are actually way more expensive than the great white. Added benefits over great white are nematodes ,water retention and a small amount of fertilizer. The great white and a few others that use the tricodermous bacteria are the best product on the market. The tricodermous bacteria actually expands the surface area of the root for increased moisture and nutrient uptake. Thought I might throw my two cents in.

FirstCavApache64 said:

It could really benefit from some worm castings but our trucks transmission died and that killed the budget for a bit. I am going to order some Colorado worm castings from Build A Soil eventually as the extra compost and microbes would be a big boost I'm thinking.
I'd love to see you try a run with it with all the extra things you do like Aspirin and humic/fulvic acid and how well dialed in your garden is. It would be really cool to see. It seems to work pretty good with just the simple water only style but there's always room to improve it.

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I had planned on doing a 4x4 living soil bed indoors-the soil I prepared has been sitting in my yard since last summer, slowly getting smaller as I've used it for other things. I have some hydrangeas and peonies coming in October, so I'll use the rest of it to prepare good spots for them. I love growing big pots of organic soil, I just can't carry all that dirt inside anymore, and I don't have the privacy necessary for a successful backyard grow either. That's one reason I'm trying the liquid-organics route with CSL, and I'm seeing some promising results from it. I'll run just one plant through flower on the CSL in my current grow, because I'm not confident in it yet-still tweaking my recipe. It will be fun to have a side by side, mineral salt and organics, just because I haven't done that in years. Seeing your nice plants makes me want to try some amended organics again, it's just hard to move back and forth between coco and soil, you really get used to doing things a certain way!

max420thc said:

I did side by side comparison grows for around 8 years in a controlled experiment , one experiment was running hydrogen peroxide, against great white beneficial bacteria (tricodermous ) the great white way out preformed the sterile environment. Not by a little bit either. The sterile environment I like for my vegitating indoor plants as I do plant tissue culture and I want the plants as clean as possible for culture. But the mycos out preform sterile method and always used on plants I will bloom.
Worm castings are slightly different then products like great white though. But not much and are actually way more expensive than the great white. Added benefits over great white are nematodes ,water retention and a small amount of fertilizer. The great white and a few others that use the tricodermous bacteria are the best product on the market. The tricodermous bacteria actually expands the surface area of the root for increased moisture and nutrient uptake. Thought I might throw my two cents in.

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It's funny you mentioned Great White as I literally just finished my jar of it on these plants when I transplanted them. I'm going to be trying a different brand for the next batch of babies though. Rurumo posted a great link on her journal that had test results from several of the big name mycorrhizae products and they tested them for active colonies vs what they actually claim to have. It has reports from their testing for several years but since it's voluntary a lot of the companies that did poorly in the original testing in 2015 have chosen not to have their products tested again. Here's the link


I wanted to do some research into the best value on myco products as far as CFU#s per $. Like a bang for your buck thing, but I've been too busy. I liked Great White but I just think there's a better value in a plain box or bag out there if I look hard enough.

I'm super excited, just ordered a pack of the Purest Indica seeds from Authentic Genetics. I've been waiting for them to get released for what feels like forever. I'm a huge Northern Lights fan and it doesn't get more original than seeds from Seattle Greg straight to Todd McCormick . Purest Indica is #1 on the numbering system for Northern Lights and as such is the most indica dominant and "heavy" indica of the Northern Lights varieties. These are for sure getting put in the next grow. Woohoo!!

FirstCavApache64 said:

It's funny you mentioned Great White as I literally just finished my jar of it on these plants when I transplanted them. I'm going to be trying a different brand for the next batch of babies though. Rurumo posted a great link on her journal that had test results from several of the big name mycorrhizae products and they tested them for active colonies vs what they actually claim to have. It has reports from their testing for several years but since it's voluntary a lot of the companies that did poorly in the original testing in 2015 have chosen not to have their products tested again. Here's the link

State of Oregon: Fertilizers - Reports, Publications, and Forms

www.oregon.gov

I wanted to do some research into the best value on myco products as far as CFU#s per $. Like a bang for your buck thing, but I've been too busy. I liked Great White but I just think there's a better value in a plain box or bag out there if I look hard enough.

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The problem is the tricodermous bacteria has to be grown in a sterile culture , not many places who make the mycos have the capability to grow the tricodermous. It is expensive to grow.
Recharge is supposed to have some in it but I don't trust that brand and have to good a luck with the great white.

That's cool to know, when it comes to the science of stuff like that I get lost pretty quickly. I had really good luck using Great White, I just am always bargain hunting.
I use Recharge twice a week every grow up until week 5 of flower. When I switched from salt nutes to the dry amendments I started using Recharge to try and get as close to true organic growing as possible as far as the healthy microbial life in the soil. The only way to do it cheaply and easily seemed to be Recharge. It's no miracle in a bottle but I do think it's a good product for the dry amendment style of growing when you don't have a lot of natural compost and mulch.

FirstCavApache64 said:

I'm super excited, just ordered a pack of the Purest Indica seeds from Authentic Genetics. I've been waiting for them to get released for what feels like forever. I'm a huge Northern Lights fan and it doesn't get more original than seeds from Seattle Greg straight to Todd McCormick . Purest Indica is #1 on the numbering system for Northern Lights and as such is the most indica dominant and "heavy" indica of the Northern Lights varieties. These are for sure getting put in the next grow. Woohoo!!

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I have a pure kush plant. 85 percent indica or more.i also have a blue tooth plant that is real heavy indica. The best dope ever comes off this plant. I do rare genetics and Clones. It's my business so to speak these days. Tissue culture so they are completely clean. If you ever want to to run a strain let me know

I'm an absolute kush fiend lol. I don't have much experience with lot's of them but I'm trying to grow as much good kush as I can. I messed up the pre 98 bubba kush the last round by adding UV light and not paying enough attention to the plant and it got burned really bad. Lesson learned and hopefully this round goes much smoother. I have plenty of light now so I'm not trying to boost it with an old blurple like last time.

Some pics of the garden. The big Steve Lemme that I super cropped bounced back by the end of the day and is really doing nicely. Bubba Kush is looking a little pale but I'm thinking it's a combination of stretch and how high I was running the light intensity to keep them as short as possible. I raised the light 2" now that stretch seems to be over and I'll keep an eye on it. Hope your plants are doing great!!

FirstCavApache64 said:

Some pics of the garden. The big Steve Lemme that I super cropped bounced back by the end of the day and is really doing nicely. Bubba Kush is looking a little pale but I'm thinking it's a combination of stretch and how high I was running the light intensity to keep them as short as possible. I raised the light 2" now that stretch seems to be over and I'll keep an eye on it. Hope your plants are doing great!!View attachment 5190170View attachment 5190172View attachment 5190173

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Looks very happy in there. I have found to like organics. I just dislike the odor that comes along with it. Not sure if I’d be ok running that in the house without a filter lol but the plants look awesome using dr earth. This one is outside. Same cut that I ran last in my 4x4 with the mars hydro light.

Since I just use the Dr Earth stuff and no ewc or compost the smell is pretty tame until the buds get going strong. It does have the rich earthy organic smell when I open up in the morning though. Venting outside would be a great idea but I just have never gotten around to it. I'm pretty much a hermit so the smell can get as loud flower wise as it wants but some strains I'll run a filter on. The Steve Lemme OG x Triangle Kush is one. It had a rotten meat/trash can in the sun pheno that would gag a maggot. Great smoke but the smell in flower would make me want to puke.

FirstCavApache64 said:

That's cool to know, when it comes to the science of stuff like that I get lost pretty quickly. I had really good luck using Great White, I just am always bargain hunting.
I use Recharge twice a week every grow up until week 5 of flower. When I switched from salt nutes to the dry amendments I started using Recharge to try and get as close to true organic growing as possible as far as the healthy microbial life in the soil. The only way to do it cheaply and easily seemed to be Recharge. It's no miracle in a bottle but I do think it's a good product for the dry amendment style of growing when you don't have a lot of natural compost and mulch.

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Just a thought as I go through the posts here in your journal. Your bacteria colony eats sugars and nutrients up. They then poop them back out. Then the plant updates the nutrients and sugars .more efficiently. The sugars feed the bacteria colony , the bacteria colony feeds the plant. Tricodermous attacks itself to the root expanding the size of the root increasing the size of the root area.
The colony will keep breeding and expanding so long as they are fed with sugars . If you use a salt based nutrient the salt kills off some of the biologicals, then from time to time they must be renewed to to keep the bacteria colony highly active. You do not have this issue with organic nutrients because there is no salts
If you are In coco you must keep reapplying bacteria because coco does not hold the bacteria . In other growing g media such as dirt or peat the bacteria stays pretty active in the root zone. Once the growing media is inoculated all you have to do is apply sugars to keep the colony breeding and alive. No need to keep re applying with more bacteria. Just keep sugars on the colony and it will keep breeding the colony. This will save you much money.
If using a salt based nutrient system re apply once every three to four weeks.
The tricodermous bacteria will kill the other bacteria off. It is the stronger more aggressive bacteria so re application from time to time with great white soil amendment to keep your other endo, echto mycos strong in the growing medium.
If I may post a picture in your journal, ?

max420thc said:

Just a thought as I go through the posts here in your journal. Your bacteria colony eats sugars and nutrients up. They then poop them back out. Then the plant updates the nutrients and sugars .more efficiently. The sugars feed the bacteria colony , the bacteria colony feeds the plant. Tricodermous attacks itself to the root expanding the size of the root increasing the size of the root area.
The colony will keep breeding and expanding so long as they are fed with sugars . If you use a salt based nutrient the salt kills off some of the biologicals, then from time to time they must be renewed to to keep the bacteria colony highly active. You do not have this issue with organic nutrients because there is no salts
If you are In coco you must keep reapplying bacteria because coco does not hold the bacteria . In other growing g media such as dirt or peat the bacteria stays pretty active in the root zone. Once the growing media is inoculated all you have to do is apply sugars to keep the colony breeding and alive. No need to keep re applying with more bacteria. Just keep sugars on the colony and it will keep breeding the colony. This will save you much money.
If using a salt based nutrient system re apply once every three to four weeks.
The tricodermous bacteria will kill the other bacteria off. It is the stronger more aggressive bacteria so re application from time to time with great white soil amendment to keep your other endo, echto mycos strong in the growing medium.
If I may post a picture in your journal, ?

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I love how you explained this in a way that many will understand. It shows you know what you are talking about.

FirstCavApache64 said:

I'm super excited, just ordered a pack of the Purest Indica seeds from Authentic Genetics. I've been waiting for them to get released for what feels like forever. I'm a huge Northern Lights fan and it doesn't get more original than seeds from Seattle Greg straight to Todd McCormick . Purest Indica is #1 on the numbering system for Northern Lights and as such is the most indica dominant and "heavy" indica of the Northern Lights varieties. These are for sure getting put in the next grow. Woohoo!!

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Well, you got my curiosity up and I had to go to their site and check out the Purest Indica. Im a fan of Northern Lights also and currently using NL5. I pulled the plug and ordered a pack of these. I might have to move some other planned grows aside to make room for these!
I have a Panama coming up on harvest and a Killer A5 Haze in early flower right now. Like I need to grow anything else, right?

RottyRzr said:

Well, you got my curiosity up and I had to go to their site and check out the Purest Indica. Im a fan of Northern Lights also and currently using NL5. I pulled the plug and ordered a pack of these. I might have to move some other planned grows aside to make room for these!
I have a Panama coming up on harvest and a Killer A5 Haze in early flower right now. Like I need to grow anything else, right?

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Sounds like quite a jump from Killer A5 Haze to Northern Lights. I like your taste in strains, some nice older flavor is hard to beat. I've wanted to try a haze and the site that has the Purest Indica has the Original Haze and a bunch of modern stuff crossed to it. For now, I'm done buying seeds. I had too many already but Northern Lights is a special one and these are about as original as I can find. Hope you get some good plants out of that pack!

max420thc said:

Just a thought as I go through the posts here in your journal. Your bacteria colony eats sugars and nutrients up. They then poop them back out. Then the plant updates the nutrients and sugars .more efficiently. The sugars feed the bacteria colony , the bacteria colony feeds the plant. Tricodermous attacks itself to the root expanding the size of the root increasing the size of the root area.
The colony will keep breeding and expanding so long as they are fed with sugars . If you use a salt based nutrient the salt kills off some of the biologicals, then from time to time they must be renewed to to keep the bacteria colony highly active. You do not have this issue with organic nutrients because there is no salts
If you are In coco you must keep reapplying bacteria because coco does not hold the bacteria . In other growing g media such as dirt or peat the bacteria stays pretty active in the root zone. Once the growing media is inoculated all you have to do is apply sugars to keep the colony breeding and alive. No need to keep re applying with more bacteria. Just keep sugars on the colony and it will keep breeding the colony. This will save you much money.
If using a salt based nutrient system re apply once every three to four weeks.
The tricodermous bacteria will kill the other bacteria off. It is the stronger more aggressive bacteria so re application from time to time with great white soil amendment to keep your other endo, echto mycos strong in the growing medium.
If I may post a picture in your journal, ?

Click to expand...

Beautiful plants and a great explanation!! I knew there were just a few true beneficial organisms that interact with cannabis specifically. I can never keep track of endo, ecto or tricho and the other great multitude of stuff in rooting powders. I bought Great White years ago based on online recommendations and it works great. Between it and the Recharge I get pretty good roots I think. I just have a bang for the buck mentality and figured if there was something with more active cfu's of the endo, ecto, etc... I'd grab the generic stuff. I've been using the Great White for 4 years, so I would pick up on a decline in root health if I switched and the new stuff was junk I figured. I just bought some earth worm castings though so it will be a while before I'm buying anything grow related if I want my wife to speak to me

I got my Wiggle Worm worm castings in today and put them straight to work. I put down about an inch or so in all three pots and gave it a good raking in before watering. Hopefully it will help out with a little extra N, some microbes and some really needed compost. We'll see how it turns out over the next few weeks. The plants get top dressed this weekend so the EWC will still be really fresh to mix it into.