NeerGreen: New Era grow #1

overTHEman · Dec 19, 2011

cannabineer (if i'm not overstepping my grounds here),

It looks like your plants are searching for their source of nutrition. For the hydro gardener; during the transplant to soil, your plants encountered microbial life for the first time. These microbes formed a symbiotic relationship with the plants; your plant depends on this relationship to survive. Microbes feed the plant, the plant feeds the microbes; as facilitated by water and media.

Upon transplant, and immediately after, the plants' growth was strong and fast - likely due to the increased microbial activity. As the plants' growth increased, the (mid-grade) microbes present in fox farm soil ran out of food and so did your plants. Already fragile, the micro-ecosystem in the soil was all but decimated by the hydrogardener's reaction to "add nutrients" (Rule #13 of the Soil Food Web). You first noticed "an issue" in post #60 which I believe is this salt/microbe problem. It has become further compounded by the GH three part.

What this means to the plant is that it is unable to acquire a consistent source of food; as a result, it is focusing on surviving rather than growing.

This post seems to be directed to this point.

upthearsenal said:
You could check out bioag.com for bennies, fulvic acid, and other humic products. I use their endo-mix throughout and really like it, simple and probably the cheapest you can find. You have to brew it with molasses (and kelp if you'd like, it's best to keep it simple) but it's fine if you don't mind that part.

Upthearsenal, was this what you meant when you posted this link? My interpretation of the above was; pick up some more high quality microbes (since you're already in an organic media), feed with organic teas and soil amendments, and ditch the synthetics.

Options:

Compounded nutrients you produce (badass), start a full regimen today. Go 1/8th strength, aim for complete nutrition and consistent feeding.
-or-
Topdress with some EWC and decent compost, feed beneficials with molasses/act to the end.

The plants must be comfortable with their food source before they will grow. They're your girls - be their provider.

jonblaze420 · Dec 19, 2011

Hey canna is the greener one topped? It looks like it is. I'm in Happy Frog soil too.

How long since you switched to 12/12? They look like they have begun flowering? :peace:

cannabineer · Dec 19, 2011

overTHEman said:
cannabineer (if i'm not overstepping my grounds here),

It looks like your plants are searching for their source of nutrition. For the hydro gardener; during the transplant to soil, your plants encountered microbial life for the first time. These microbes formed a symbiotic relationship with the plants; your plant depends on this relationship to survive. Microbes feed the plant, the plant feeds the microbes; as facilitated by water and media.

Upon transplant, and immediately after, the plants' growth was strong and fast - likely due to the increased microbial activity. As the plants' growth increased, the (mid-grade) microbes present in fox farm soil ran out of food and so did your plants. Already fragile, the micro-ecosystem in the soil was all but decimated by the hydrogardener's reaction to "add nutrients" (Rule #13 of the Soil Food Web). You first noticed "an issue" in post #60 which I believe is this salt/microbe problem. It has become further compounded by the GH three part.

What this means to the plant is that it is unable to acquire a consistent source of food; as a result, it is focusing on surviving rather than growing.

This post seems to be directed to this point.

Upthearsenal, was this what you meant when you posted this link? My interpretation of the above was; pick up some more high quality microbes (since you're already in an organic media), feed with organic teas and soil amendments, and ditch the synthetics.

Options:

Compounded nutrients you produce (badass), start a full regimen today. Go 1/8th strength, aim for complete nutrition and consistent feeding.
-or-
Topdress with some EWC and decent compost, feed beneficials with molasses/act to the end.

The plants must be comfortable with their food source before they will grow. They're your girls - be their provider.

oTm ... interesting points. I do however wonder about the part I bolded. All my attempts to nourish the soil have been gentle, at low ppm, and with non-toxic feeds. I did that deliberately so as not to harm the soil's ecology. Of course, I believe that the microecology is quite robust as opposed to fragile.
I've been adding bits of this and that ... nothing radical or percussive ... to see if there is a deficiency situation i can address. If nutrients really were "it" ... I should have seen growth in response to the feeds. But I haven't, and I don't want to commit the classic rookie mistake (again! wuth this grow) of SuperSizing their drive-through. That is where my thinking on this lies.

Jonblaze ... they do have that flowerish look, no? But I'm still running the MH at 20/4. So far all I see are primordia on Halle ... but they do seem plentiful. No full-on bud formation ... so I'm still thinking she's veging. Both plants are topped. The greener, more "normal" one (Alice the WW) has three (or rather 2 1/2) tops where I nipped her main growth site.
Here's a close-up of one of Halle's tops.

<edit> So after thinking about it, and deciding that maye Halle is a nute pig compared to easy dark-green Alice, I mixed up some more GH, about four liters of veg mix that measured at about 770 ppm. Let's see if that helps or hurts over the next days. And Alice consumed four liters of water today! The runt is becoming the star. Go figure. cn

overTHEman · Dec 19, 2011

cannabineer,

I had a similar issue when using FloraNova in my organic medium awhile back. Turned out that the salt build up from the nutrients was the problem - microbes hate salt (think about putting a worm in a desert).

The GH three part is a great program, the plant just needs to get used to it. As always - keep up the good growing and the professionalism.

with much respect,
ovrmn

cannabineer · Dec 20, 2011

overTHEman said:
cannabineer,

I had a similar issue when using FloraNova in my organic medium awhile back. Turned out that the salt build up from the nutrients was the problem - microbes hate salt (think about putting a worm in a desert).

The GH three part is a great program, the plant just needs to get used to it. As always - keep up the good growing and the professionalism.

with much respect,
ovrmn

Thank you oTm!
Here are the ladies today. Halle absorbed the strong drink without a figurative hiccup. I will continue to feed her GH Flora unless or until signs of overfert creep in. For now, I'm just glad to see that she grew, even if just a little. Any mass I can cause her to gain before I switch to 12/12 can only be good.

I had a guest at my house today, and I had to kill the light a bit early. Ordinarily they get a dark time from noon 'til 4 pm, but I pulled the plug on the light (but kept the timer running) at 10:45am today. The reason was so that i could kill the fan, which makes a steady bathroom-fan sound. I could not risk my inquisitive guest opening the door to the spare room.I hope that (with Halle behaving as if she really wants to flower) that this bit of rescheduling caused no harm. The light and fan are back to normal.

Heh, the 700-some watts this grow has consumed so far has doubled my electricity bill compared to this month last year.
... If all went well and if I switched to 12/12 soon ... I wonder what sort of yields I can expect. cn

eye exaggerate · Dec 20, 2011

cannabineer said:
I definitely need to buy a fan. I want to get one of the small fans that'll clamp onto the struts of my tent.
It's been getting nippy here in the 'Stan, so last evening I pulled my 108-watt T5 panel and turned on the 600W MH bulb. My tent looks like the egg in the old "Alien" poster! Here are the honeys this morning. I have some leaf cupping going on with Alice, but I'm not too worried. If it gets bad, i'll hang a wet towel in my tent to humidify. c

I watered the pots lightly yesterday ... the center soil was still pretty moist, but that leaf-cupping thing made me wonder if some water would relieve it. No better or worse today.

...Hi neer, is cupping 'usually' from low humidity? My house is very dry since the High-Eff furnace was put in. And, I'm noticing this on a few of my '3 nodes tall' startups.

cannabineer · Dec 20, 2011

eye exaggerate said:
...Hi neer, is cupping 'usually' from low humidity? My house is very dry since the High-Eff furnace was put in. And, I'm noticing this on a few of my '3 nodes tall' startups.

Hello eye!
I did some reading about leaf cupping, and the only explanation I could find was one Google hit in a grow site ... the poster talked about humidity. I don't know how much credence to give that find, since it could either be "professional growers in Amsterdam found the [strain]'s leaves cup below [humidity figure]" ... or "My brother's friend knows a guy who says he grew, and he said ...".
So I don't know.
I haven't been hanging the wet towels lately, and both plants' leaves seem to be free of the cupping so far.

So tell me ... do those high-eff furnaces deserve the hype? Are you effing more?

cn

eye exaggerate · Dec 20, 2011

cannabineer said:
Hello eye!
I did some reading about leaf cupping, and the only explanation I could find was one Google hit in a grow site ... the poster talked about humidity. I don't know how much credence to give that find, since it could either be "professional growers in Amsterdam found the [strain]'s leaves cup below [humidity figure]" ... or "My brother's friend knows a guy who says he grew, and he said ...".
So I don't know.
I haven't been hanging the wet towels lately, and both plants' leaves seem to be free of the cupping so far.

So tell me ... do those high-eff furnaces deserve the hype? Are you effing more? cn

...for sure worth the hype! Our bill has gone down. The thing runs constantly in one of 3 stages, so it's always moving air around. My house was built in 1920 so it's important to keep air moving. Sadly, not much more effing going on, but the other source of heat is constant and nice

You made me think of a funny thing I read on a forum about quitting smoking... The post was from a french guy who asked "will I breed better if I quit?" :lol:

I'm going to try and add some humidity to that room. Was even thinking of just adding a bowl of water to the center of the pots right under the light for now. MIght have to find a way to get the water to 'dance' a bit, though.

Dude, your girls look great! What a change from the first few weeks.

cannabineer · Dec 22, 2011

Thank you, eye!
For humidification I can really recommend hanging wet laundry. Towels will provide 24 hours of cheap good moisture.

I had a minor freakout yesterday evening ... my (rented house's) furnace runs on propane, and it would not light correctly! The ignotor would come on ... the four butners would light OK for a few seconds ... but then the sound of burning would ebb, and the flame would revert through the venturis and burn yellow, not blue. At that point the whole thing would abort-cycle until the thermostat simply quit and would need a few minutes "off" before trying the whole dance again.
So I wondered if maybe my low-pressure regulator (outdoors, by the tank, growing frost in these cold nights we've been getting locally) could be sticking. I poured some warm water on that unit, reset the thermostat, and ... lo and behold, gas flow stayed strong! I WON'T have to call a repairman into this house with its weird black Bud Burqa. ~huge sigh of relief~ ~insufferable smugness for having figured it out all on my ownsome~

Here are the gals today! Halle has clearly begun to grow at a decent rate again., so at noontime today I watered her once again with GH Flora. I even gave a sip to contented Alice.
One thing I did notice with Halle (whose branches are amazingly bushy) is that a crack has appeared at the crotch where her two new main stems are growing, and the stem at the 12-o'clock position in the picture ... tore half away, leaving a gaping fissure between stem and branch. I wonder if there is a way I can bandage/splint/truss that break without constricting the growing stems.
The other thing I've done is place a variac (variable-output transformer) as a speed control on the fan venting the lamp's hood. I managed to turn it down to what must be very few cfm ... it's now inaudible if I keep that door closed, and it's still doing a champion job keeping the hood cool.
I've also been using my ozone generator sporadically to knock back the faint but definite herbaceous odor that sometimes drifts through the house. i love ozone ... it's instant, unlike a carbon canister which is only as fast as air exchange through the filter bed.
cn

shnkrmn · Dec 23, 2011

cannabineer said:
a crack has appeared at the crotch where her two new main stems are growing, and the stem at the 12-o'clock position in the picture ... tore half away, leaving a gaping fissure between stem and branch. I wonder if there is a way I can bandage/splint/truss that break without constricting the growing stems.

This is the material you need to conveniently strap your cracked crotch:

http://www.gardeners.com/Re-Usable-Plant-Ties/33-978,default,pd.html?SC=XNET8035&utm_campaign=cse&mr:trackingCode=01D86D71-EB0B-DF11-9DA0-002219319097&mr:referralID=NA

lol @ bud burqa

cannabineer · Dec 23, 2011

Thanks for that, shnkrmn ... I'll check the local garden store! Failing that, there's always "point, click, debt"! cn

cannabineer · Dec 24, 2011

The ladies on this Christmas eve ...
Halle is definitely growing again. Alice is no longer the green one ... they're both seemingly happy. I don't have the growth rates of the "pros" and "old hands" ... but in time I imagine I'll get all that sorted. cn

wayno30 · Dec 24, 2011

merry xmas cn..........plants look good................

cannabineer · Dec 26, 2011

And to you a Kwality Kwanzaa, wayno!!

So on Christmas morning I mixed four liters for each plant ... GH Flora "medium veg" formula. That is 7.5 ml Grow, 5 ml Micro (the dark one) and 2.5 ml Bloom into 4 liters RO water for close to 800 ppm. Alice is showing the paler green that suggests appetite to me, and seeing how Halle took to feed like a seal to surf (is it me, or is she suddenly showing stronnnnggg growth?!) I'm putting Alice on the nutes. Each cloth pot absorbed the 4 liters with nary a leak, making this a "no-waste" feeding strategy unless/until signs of lockout compel me to do a flush. That's one thing I like about the GH 3-part ... no extraneous ingredients, so theoretically no buildup of toxic salts. But the old wisdom holds true, paraphrased:
No plan of attack survives contact with reality.
(The early pages of this thread contain multiple instances of that!)
Here are the girls. Halle is becoming a beast! Alice is strangely airy, lanky, stretchy ... and she is supposed to be the Indica domme of the pair!
So in 5 days I will switch them to 12/12 under the 600W HPS. Who knows ... maybe I will make use of this tent that is not pathetically inefficient! I look forward to The Stretch with a mix of anticipation and fear. cn

shnkrmn · Dec 27, 2011

If those plants were mine, I would start flowering now. They are the perfect size for maximum quality and light distribution. with a 600W, if you let them grow much larger you will have a nice crop of popcorn buds to deal with underneath your nice plump colas that you will struggle with to keep from scorching the tips on the light. Your comment about fearing the stretch makes me think you know this. Amend your calendar; I urge you.

Plants look nice beyond all (my) expectations. Keep it up.

eye exaggerate · Dec 28, 2011

cannabineer said:
Thank you, eye!
For humidification I can really recommend hanging wet laundry. Towels will provide 24 hours of cheap good moisture.

I had a minor freakout yesterday evening ... my (rented house's) furnace runs on propane, and it would not light correctly! The ignotor would come on ... the four butners would light OK for a few seconds ... but then the sound of burning would ebb, and the flame would revert through the venturis and burn yellow, not blue. At that point the whole thing would abort-cycle until the thermostat simply quit and would need a few minutes "off" before trying the whole dance again.
So I wondered if maybe my low-pressure regulator (outdoors, by the tank, growing frost in these cold nights we've been getting locally) could be sticking. I poured some warm water on that unit, reset the thermostat, and ... lo and behold, gas flow stayed strong! I WON'T have to call a repairman into this house with its weird black Bud Burqa. ~huge sigh of relief~ ~insufferable smugness for having figured it out all on my ownsome~

Here are the gals today! Halle has clearly begun to grow at a decent rate again., so at noontime today I watered her once again with GH Flora. I even gave a sip to contented Alice.
One thing I did notice with Halle (whose branches are amazingly bushy) is that a crack has appeared at the crotch where her two new main stems are growing, and the stem at the 12-o'clock position in the picture ... tore half away, leaving a gaping fissure between stem and branch. I wonder if there is a way I can bandage/splint/truss that break without constricting the growing stems.
The other thing I've done is place a variac (variable-output transformer) as a speed control on the fan venting the lamp's hood. I managed to turn it down to what must be very few cfm ... it's now inaudible if I keep that door closed, and it's still doing a champion job keeping the hood cool.
I've also been using my ozone generator sporadically to knock back the faint but definite herbaceous odor that sometimes drifts through the house. i love ozone ... it's instant, unlike a carbon canister which is only as fast as air exchange through the filter bed.
cn
View attachment 1950141 View attachment 1950161

Hey neer! Definite awesomeness going on here

About the propane - good on you for getting that sorted. I truly dislike propane for many reasons (a few close calls). I was thinking about the gaping wound - what about some kind of non-toxic resin? Something like those liquid bandaids they used to / or still make. I know a certain chemist that could whip that up!

*thanks, going to try the towel route!

cannabineer · Dec 29, 2011

Thanks shnkrmn... I'm still going to go with my planned New Year's Eve switchover. Popcorm buds for me mean "superior extract".

Eye, I used to use super glue as a bandage in a bottle. It absolutely disgusted/offended my xgf!!! In the 'Nam days cyanoacrylates were used by field medical personnel to stabilize bad bleeders. I have some experience with cyanoacrylate as a wood glue ... and my worry is that it would not bond all that well to living hemp ... there would be delaminations, repeated splits and cracks. This might be overanalysis; I freely admit. I did make a "sling" out of a twist-tie to immobilize that branching site, and so far so good.
Yesterday I fed both plants with a gallon each of GH nutrient as above. I am impressed that they can suck down and disappear a gallon each in two days! Something tells me I'll be watering a lot during flower, and I am glad of the RO system.

So here they are. I anticipate one more photo pair before the big switch ... cn

overTHEman · Dec 29, 2011

cannabineer,

Great growing, your girls have really turned around. This is going to be a fun flower.

A couple questions regarding space; Based on previous posts, it would seem that there is concern about the stretch. Is this true? Including light fixture/rigging, how much clearance do you have to raise the light? Do you have internal measurements of your tent? How tall are your pots and plants?

If you don't mind enlightening your rationale here, it would be greatly appreciated.

cannabineer · Dec 29, 2011

oTm,
you got me to get happy with the tape measure just now!
My light is in its topmost position, hooked right into the top struts of the tent. (From strut to glass ... 13 1/2 inches. If I make a fancy low-profile hanger to replace the basic ones that came with the hood, I can take maybe four inches from that.) The plants however are on a stout cardboard box as a pedestal ... it raises them 24" off the floor of the tent.
I just took the tape measure to the snoozing ladies ... they are each about 22" across (widest point). Halle is maybe 16" tall (soil to tallest tip) and Alice is more like 18". Add nine inches soil depth, and Alice plus pot is currently 27" tall.
From the plant's tops to the glass of the hood I have maybe 17 inches.
Once I switch I will lay the box/pedestal onto its wide side, gaining 8 inches.

I figure I have a total of three feet of "adjustable headroom" (not counting rehanging the light) for a total stretch factor of 3x.
As far as rationale, *what* rationale? ~unhinged giggle~ See the wave, grab the board, paddle, jump up and HANG ON! is my rationale!! We'll see if it ends up biting me in the tenders. If the stretch becomes a real problem, I will probably try to train the worst offenders (likely my best buds) sideways and away.

overTHEman · Dec 29, 2011

cannabinieer,

thank you for the measurements, they definitely helped understand your plan. Looks like you're right on track with headroom.

Keep us updated - and RIDE THAT WAVE.

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