Ah!! I’m sure that fulpower stuff is extremely potent! I will definitely use it sparingly thanks for the suggestions! My kelp is coots rehydration turning it into a paste with a blender method then diluted with water. I figured that every time I’m using any type of foliar or soul drench some fulvic for foliar and humic for drenches help carry the nutrients to the plants and serve as a microbe food. I have used a very very light top dressing! In my 25 gallon pots I put about .5 cups of Neem, crab, kelp, biolive from DTE(this stuff has added beneficial and mycorrhizae!! The amount that’s in a 50 lb sack has way more then what you could find in something concentrated as compared to products like Great White, I figured if sprinkled on top of white dwarfs that hopefully it’ll attach itself to the roots of the cover crop)and a cup of gypsum. Then watered in with a compost/Vermicompost tea that already has the ingredients as suggested by Coot when making a worm bin. Sprinkles some white dwarf clovers and mulched with rice hulls at about 1 1/2 - 2 inches. I think I may also but overwatering slightly.. but it’s hard to tell as I check almost daily on my blumat blusoak system. I push my fingers into the soil about two knuckles deep into the soil that has a tensionmeter reading 80 and on a cheap moisture probe as a reference. The arrow for that probe lies right at a tick after the “moist” into the “wet”. I try to adjust my watering mainly based upon the posture of the fan leaves.. it’s been awhile since I’ve seen these babies pray. I’m running 1500 ppm with my single ended hps hovering at around 18 inches from the canopy(can’t wait to upgrade these budget lights into some quality LEDs but I figured if I can’t get the nutrients right with HPS the LED is going to be too much lol). Just topped and super cropped to even out the canopy.
What kind of strains are you running Kratos? Just a random interesting question. This year for me I have a few Bodhi Seeds keeper selections from his Santa Cruz Bluedream x Sunshine Day Dream and the GG4 x Sunshine Daydream if you’re familiar! Ice Cream Cake, Gelato, Garlic Cookies and an Ac/Dc original clone cuts also! I’m really trying to find something that’s easy to bowl trim and minimal scissor work. I think I’m leaning to cookie phenos..
Oh and I made a 300 gallon indoor Vermicompost bin lol!! Used some wood to elevate my hard plastic 3x6 bed I wasn’t using. Keep it at a slight downward angle to drain the leachate. Put in a 400 gallon fabric pot in the bed then filled with a garden compost and a little bit of my base mix of peat moss and pumice. Bought a 14 gallon tub of vermicastings with love red wigglers mature and young with mature amber cocoons From Craigslist. And dumped it into the bed. Seeing these guys crawl around is strangely so fun haha! So my plan is to make enough Vermicompost to top dress at a rate of 2 inches per pot at the end of the cycle as a way of cycling in more organic material and to reamend and possibly a .5 cup dose of biolive. Do you think this will be enough to keep the soil in optimal shape?? The compost was made with this recipe. For every 100 gallons of compost I put in 2 pounds or roughly 4-4.5 cups of Neem kelp crab. Then 8 pounds of gypsum, oyster shell flour and basalt.
@kratos015
Nutrient blends like DTE Bio Live (good stuff btw) may have mycorrhizae, but it isn't pure and won't be enough to attach itself to the roots. Dusting mycorrhizae on a transplant is practically mandatory IMO. Sure, you can technically go without it. But having the mykos bond to your roots immediately will ensure the survival of your plant. Think of the symbiosis going on, the mykos will do everything in their power to ensure the survival of the plant as they are dependent on the plant's survival. They all take care of each other because they need each other to thrive.
Great White is a good product, but its way overpriced. Same sized jar of Endo Mycorrhizae goes for $8-$12 on Amazon.
Blumats are designed for perfect watering, if you're using Blumats you shouldn't have to worry about watering in the slightest. I don't trust water probes, unreliable IMO. Lift test and knuckle has always worked for me.
The leaves praying this is actually a bit of a myth, by the way.
When they're praying it isn't praying for more light, they're praying for more Magnesium. This is because Mg is a crucial component in photosynthesis, and Mg is typically the first to show signs of deficiency and/or be locked out.
What's the wattage of your SE bulb? 18 inches is pretty close. Even with the hand test under the light, just because there isn't heat stress doesn't mean there won't be light stress. Be cautious.
I'm not running anything fancy at the moment. I'm mostly an outdoor grower, so I grow strains that can handle the extreme cold and heat of my climate. I've got some Green Crack plants outdoors now, experimenting to see how well they do in the winter. I've got 2 Strawberry Cough plants in a 4x8 Scrog under a 1000w DE MH bulb, and 3 Monkey OG and 1 Critical Blue next to the screen.
Been wanting to run Bodhi gear for the longest time, but I've never been fond of sexing plants. Potential waste of time if I get males. Someday when I'm in my own place and have the ability to get a separate veg room going.
I hate trimming now lol. Was fun when I started, but after doing it for 10+ years it got old fast. My last year's summer outdoor was ~13lbs between 5 plants, I didn't even trim 3lbs of it. Just turned it all into bubble hash. I'll be doing nothing but trimming top buds, and turning the rest into bubble from now on.
Half oz of bubble lasts me longer than a QP of flower. And the taste is too good, I'm spoiled now lol. Which works just fine, because running hash means little to no trimming. Just trim the fan leaves off before harvest, cut the buds and throw into my work bag, make hash. Done. No trimming, no worrying about a perfect dry/cure for flowers, a tenth of the jars compared to flower, and incredible flavor from running fresh.
It is entirely possible to have a successful grow with nothing but EWC top dress. It sounds like you are well on your way to making EWC that are capable of achieving this. Worms love OSF and neem! Just make sure your Crab Meal and Basalt are as finely ground as possible, less time to decompose and the sooner the worms can munch on it. Worm castings that have been made from high quality compost, kelp/crab/neem meals, and OSF will be of the highest quality. Add a little langbeinite to the bin too (little goes a LONG way) so your EWC has some K, Mg, and Sulfur in it too. This way, your EWC will have absolutely everything it needs and will be of the highest quality.
You having access to EWC like those will put you leaps and bounds ahead of most of us, myself included. At that point, you'd pretty much only need something like TM7 for micro-nutrients (Cu, Zn, Mn, etc).
Sounds like you're well on your way. Only thing you need now is to stick with it and get personal experience with the living soil method and the plants themselves.