McShnutz's Muts [No-Till/ water only]

I'm throwing up an open thread on (2) strains (4) phenos hoping to get some constructive criticism, and mabey help a few with organic water only gardens. I cultivate my genetics based on cannabanoid profiles, terpenes, vigor and phenotypic expressions for my own enjoyment of having a variety and I'm always looking for something new.

My soil is homemade, but not very different from some of the bag soils people are commonly using. There's nothing wrong with bag soils, I just prefer to make my own from scratch. I have complete control over my inputs and their quality/quantity.

With my "water only" garden, its not completely water only. I do add a little bit of B-vitamins, Lactic Acid Bacteria and Purple Sulfer Bacteria to my irrigation via a dosing pump. For my irrigation I have a 350gpd RoDi with a large accumulator tank i pressurize to 125psi. I am using a blumat bluesoak double-ended manifold with 2 maxi's
Every 2 weeks I'll add some unsulfured Blackstrap Molasses and aloe, via a watering can.

I have both fabric pots and fabric raised beds. Veg and flower rooms

4x8x7 tent with environmental controls for heating, cooling, ventilation/speed and humidity +/-

3 Lights are all LED and full spectrum with the exception of (2) addittional 660nm deep red boosters.

1st Strain is Mendo Purp x Banana WIFI og
There is 2 plants of the same strain pictured. One on the left 1/3 is an F1, the right side is an S1.

S1 has thicker main branches and prolific internode structur that make much more secondary branching. Ideal for scrog.
Also quite a bit more vigor, as both seeds germinated and were sown together, same everything.

Finally someone using molasses in the right application
Ok give with the soil secret? Do you have a pond of peat or a loam mine?

Substrate is mostly coco. A combination of pith, chip and strand.
Leaf mold/ humus (forest litter)
Cocoa bean shell
Bokashi compost
Aged compost
EWC
Wood chips
Nutrified Biochar
Par boiled Rice hulls
Peat

Ammendments are vast and probably excessive but it keeps my plants happy and ultimately me in the end.
Dried brewers yeast
Alfalfa meal
Neem meal
Kelp meal
Crab/shrimp/lobster, oyster meal
Fish bone meal
Cottonseed meal
Aged poultry litter
Bat & seabird guano
Potash
Greensand
Granulated quarts silica
Crushed Granite
Hydroton
Perlite
Granulated humic and fulvic acid

And the microbes are Em1, photosynthesis plus and 3 strains of trichoderma.

Herb & Suds said:

Finally someone using molasses in the right application
Ok give with the soil secret? Do you have a pond of peat or a loam mine?

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Loamy for sure. Peat is only included for it CEC and it's max 5%. Also add a little acidity to the mix

McShnutz said:

Loamy for sure. Peat is only included for it CEC and it's max 5%. Also add a little acidity to the mix

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Much appreciated and impressive

Herb & Suds said:

Much appreciated and impressive

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Thanks man. Can't let the surface get dry!

Took some clones a few weeks back. I normally use my cloning machine but didn't want to fuck with it for 4 clones. Slow rooters get tossed around here. But to help things out I like to use fresh aloe.

Immediately after cutting the clone from the mother it goes into the aloe leaf for about 30 min. I do normally scrape the cutting end up to the first node. This time I didn't, after the 30 min wait in the aloe gel I use a powder and stick them into a rapid rooter cube hydrated with aloe water, LAB/Trichoderma.

Mist the clones with an aloe foliar and dome them up. I got roots within 5 days. The clones look rough because of drying out once roots formed. I starved them for a week too, I wasn't very motivated at the time, so my bad. Fortunately I have solid genetics and they're bound to bounce back.

I'm making more S1 seeds and doing a bx with the S1 and F1.
Also going to make some F1's with deathstar x Alien Technology seedlings crossing them to the S1 Mendo x banana wifi.

Today is 16 days from 12/12 flip.
2nd true day of flower. I have alot of defoliating to do. All the large fans are coming off. The only way I'll defoliate like this is if everything is progressing as it should and the plant is healthy and happy. Any deficiencies and that could set you back weeks.
Also... Overwatering at this point can inhibit the uptake of P, definitely don't want that.
Alot of growers bust out the bloom boosters or hit them hard with fertilizer because it doesn't seem like there doing much of anything except stretching. That's honestly the worst thing you could do is to throw more shit at them. The plant will tell you when it needs something. I've preached for years to people, Learn to read your plants!!!

Defoliated the S1
I wanted to leave some big fans for photosynthesis. The smaller ones will pick up the pace, but glucose production is important and the fans on the outskirts and lowest part aren't covering up key flower sites, so I'm keeping them.

Stretch is officially over, plant is defoliated. Now I have better air flow thru all the flower sites. Moved the lights in closer. Approximately 12-15 inches away.
I'm already getting excited

Herb & Suds said:

Much appreciated and impressive

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Lol, I thought you said mulch appreciated

Grow looks perfect, doubt you'll be getting any criticism from anyone here. Textbook example of not only how things should look, but be done. Love the simplicity of the homemade soil recipe.

Very well done, and very good work. Can't wait to see the buds.

kratos015 said:

Grow looks perfect, doubt you'll be getting any criticism from anyone here. Textbook example of not only how things should look, but be done. Love the simplicity of the homemade soil recipe.

Very well done, and very good work. Can't wait to see the buds.

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Thanks man, I appreciate that. I've been doing this for some time now but I'm far from perfect.

Night shots

Clones are overwatered so I dialed the carrots back 3 notches. I think the soil may be a bit hot for them at the present moment, but overwatering is the main culprit.
They are set back a bit but they'll expand their roots and start putting out.

Seedling got hit with some FPE that the clones are getting. And we're a little to wet. New growth looks good.

DAY 7 OF FLOWER.
21 DAYS FROM FLIP.
Checked on the girls at light on and noticed I recently had a irrigation cycle. Must have happened hrs prior to lights on. Sounds good right? Read on...

As always I scout around to assess the leaves. I noticed that I have a couple shit leaves. Turns out, I'm in need of some Phosphorus. Possibly some Nitrogen, but I'm not convinced of that yet. Growth looks on point for the time-line. I do have some candy stripping in the branches, and Purple petoles. Neither are a sure indicator of a nutrient deficiency, but I've been keeping my eye on it. The S1 is known for both, which is why I assess the leaves daily. Also another reason why I will leave some scruff on the lowest half. P is mobile and will always be taken from the oldest/ lowest growth.


My remedy, normally would be to top dress. But I don't want to fuck with the pH. Application of bat guano to the soil decreases the soil pH(H2O) but increases pH(KCI)

The smartest route without any delay in waiting for the pH to re-adjust is to brew an AACT. Guano is partially water soluble and fast acting. However, high P guano will throw off your Magnesium as the two are essential to photosynthesis and the production of glucose. So I added some Epson salts. And which BTW will not influence a pH change.

Next would be Calcium that's antagonized by the increase of Magnesium. But it's immobile and stays in the soil easily, and tends to be very prevalent in almost everything we'd use to ammend our soil. With the mass amount of crustacean meal and oyster, Calcium is plentiful.

I opted for molasses instead and get both cal/mag and some Potassium. The sucrose will be the fuel to Jumpstart the microbials.
Threw in a few tbsp of glacial rock dust and enzymatically digested squid protein.

The presence of enzymes is highly beneficial to bacteria. It Awakens them and Increases their numbers greatly. Tossed in a mosquito dunk(BTi) for IPM

At day 7 of flower we already have trichomes production, only on the S1. The F1 has none yet.




So back to this night time irrigation cycle. As I'm sure you all know I use blumats. The ideal mbar reading on the tensiometer is 100. Right before lights out I took a reading, it was 104mbar, at lights on it was 29. Not cool in my book. Yes cannabis needs a wet/dry cycle, but that's defeating the purpose of the automated irrigation using blumats. I want no less than a 30 mbar drop. Solution: dialed back 2 notches


I'll be hitting the girls with the AACT first thing at lights on tomorrow.

Did a little work in the flower tent today. I brewed up 3.5 gallons AACT and hit her with it this morning. The Blumat tensiometer is reading 53mbar, 6 hrs after the drench. Leaf vigor looks good. Flowers have gotten notably bigger in the last couple days. We're not breaking any records here, but I'm happy.




Hooked up the 660nm boosters. EXTRA Flower Power!


VEG tent is fine



I've been thinking, and I'm going to also make some F1's using the Alien Dawg and Grape Gooey pollen.

Minutes before lights out, took a brix reading. I collected 6 of the largest fan leaves and squeezed the sap from the petoles. The refractometer I have is a manual one. It's served me well for brewing beer and has a calibration temp of 68F so thats what I allowed the fans to cool too. Confirmed by using a "Milwaukee brand" laser thermometer.
Brix levels are 15.
I'm targeting a brix of 20 by harvest time.

So far so good. I have nothing to complain about. Buds are getting bigger and taller. Plant vigor and leaf pitch are good. Well actually I do have 1 complaint. My dumbass should have taken off more during the lollipop. Not too mad about it tho, just makes for more bubble hash in the end.

I'll be pollinating in the very beginning of week 3. Just 4 days away.

F1 & S1 Clones have bounced back. And the deathstar x alien tech F1 seedlings are doing good. They'll be needing a transplant very soon here.

Day 30 of 12/12
Flowering day 15

I had noticed a few days ago that some sporadic fan blades have a slight curve downward. Only the S1 is exhibiting this, whereas the F1 is not. To me it looks like a excess of N. I'm not referencing the guano tea I posted previous.

This is either from the other day when I gave a small dose of protein in the form of dried brewers yeast/ LAB + PSB. As far as pH of it, lol... I have no idea. I'm lazy and I'd assume it's acidic. And, quite honestly, I don't much care about ingoing pH anymore. Organics and Microbes man, shit works, everytime.
Anyways, this was from 3 days ago.


Now today everything has made a huge improvement and looks fuller, thicker and happier. The changes I made were to back the lights off a little bit to decrease the PPFD slightly and increased the blumats to a wetter calibration. Not sure if the irrigation and/or light adjustment was the key, but the plant responded accordingly.

Or mabey I'm completely wrong and it was just the acidity of the ingoing pH(h20) that was the cause of "injury", and increased irrigation and lower PPFD was the "remedy".
Either way, I read my plants and make small alterations in between.

Here we are today.